If you're happy and you know it...

In addition to my husband being generally happy, cooperative, and volunteering information and thoughts for the last couple days, he did something yesterday that I don't remember him doing before.

I asked him, as I always do when these times come along, why he was in such a good mood. His answer is usually either that he didn't realize he was in a good mood or he doesn't know why and the conversation goes no further. Yesterday after I asked, he told me exactly why he was feeling good. A meeting he had at work went well and he was relieved it was over. My jaw about hit the floor! He wasn't guessing or coming up with an answer only to have something to say, he knew immediately that he felt lighter and why. Wow!

Also going on this weekend is that a friend's child is gravely ill. Andrew has been asking me every hour or two for updates, even calling when he is away from home. His voice doesn't betray worry, it sounds like he's asking for an update on the weather, but for him to call and specifically ask for information so repeatedly clearly indicates that he is worried. In a strange way, it knocks a little chip off of one of my personal fears. I don't know why, but I worry that if I should ever die before him, he would shrug and go on in life never looking back. To see his concern for a child who isn't even close to him shows me yet again that he clearly does have emotional connections to people, even if he doesn't have a clear connection between the feelings and the thoughts about it. The child is still in imminent danger so prayers would be appreciated for him. Update: the child is no longer in critical danger and is now recovering. Prayers are still appreciated.

I feel like I'm on vacation right now. Like back home is nasty weather and stress and drama but that this all-inclusive resort we're at just lets the stress melt away. Like I'm sitting by the pool with a Planter's Punch in one hand and my husband's hand in the other and we're next in line for a massage. I don't know how long the vacation will last, but I'm really enjoying it while we have it.

Dimples and Dreams

I'm feeling a little more hopeful today for two reasons.

First is the wonderful support so many people at Wrong Planet have been giving to help me understand my husband. No blame, no condescension, just their experiences and some ideas to try based on them. I am very grateful for that and just keep going back to the posts to read and re-read to let it all sink in. It gives me hope that there can be understanding and with that we can have harmony.

Second is that my husband is in one of his good moods. He goes around smiling. I can see his cute dimples. He's playful and witty. He's present in the moment and interested in what is going on around him. I've never figured out what causes him to be in these moods but I really love when he is. I've asked him and looked for patterns, but it is one of the mysteries of our marriage for now. One of the kidlets commented that we're having tickle fight kind of days. Silly, fun, hopeful days. I like these days.

Just a spoon full of sugar

I am on strike.

As long as I'm not offering the solutions to our problems, his part in the conversations is the same two things on a perpetual loop.

Eliza, E-liza, Eliz-A...

How do I stress your name? Let me count the ways.

I stress it at the beginning, at the middle, and at the end

As far as my intonation can reach, when feeling stressed

By the ideas of Love and ideal Connection.

I stress your name to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, with frustration and protest.

What do you want me to DO?

This is the useless conversation that just fills up time and gives unfounded hope. It doesn't matter what I say because it will never be done and good ideas might be permanently refused because of their connection to our disagreement. It also really bothers me that the issue is not addressed meaning it will only repeat to infinity because the desire for doing isn't to address the issue but to address the conflict. But then the conflict is resolved by the promise of doing and so the doing never gets done.

When I don't answer that, it goes back to Eliza, Eliza, Eliza...

Earlier today, he actually thought of a solution and implemented it.

YAY!!

I am conflicted over trying to be hopeful because he did it, which is huge, and being realistic because his choice on what to do didn't take me into account at all. My husband's love language is food. I don't care at all about food and have made it clear that his using it to get out of conflicts makes me feel like I'm using him or that I have a butler, not a husband. In the past, I've offered numerous other ideas that would more directly meet my needs at the time but today he fell back on the only thing he knows and made me a breakfast of my choice.

I'm choosing to appreciate it for what it was, to acknowledge that he did in fact DO something of his own thinking, and to realize that it is better than some of the alternatives. It was followed by him picking fights, refusing to help, being intentionally snide, and basically feeling like he had gone out of his way to do oh so much for me and that I now owe him. The concept of remorse seems to be completely lost on him.

I'm trying to give him room to improve and will bite my tongue and hope for more, and when that isn't happening then I'll unemotionally address it and he'll say he understands and is going to act, but when that doesn't come and he again hurts me, I'll let all of it out about how this just keeps happening and how hurtful it is and he'll say that everything was perfectly fine and then I went crazy over some inconsequential thing and then he'll offer me a cup of tea and the cycle will repeat ad infinitum. I feel helpless to change it or to have any effect on my own life. And yet, I again hold my tongue and wait...

I'd thought we'd found a harmony

I just saw this article posted on Wrong Planet and it so diplomatically said what my long emotional rant two posts down said that I wanted to give my thumbs up to it.

Asperger’s Syndrome in Relationships:
Is There Hope?

The thread it was posted in is now 4 pages long, has drifted considerably, and most recently had a post saying any NT woman who identified with it was a "whiny wife" who didn't appreciate her hard-working man. I'm not looking for a fight so I decided to re-post the article here and leave it at that. This might not describe others' experiences, but it accurately captures mine.

I wonder if Carol Grigg is acquainted with St. Augustine's writings. She seems to agree with him.

St. Evodius: Whence, therefore, are evil things done by men, if they are not learned?
St. Augustine: Perhaps it is from this, that man turns himself away from learning, that is, estranges himself from the fact of learning. But whether this or something else be true, this surely is evident—that learning is good, and because it is derived from [the verb] to learn, evil things can not be learned.

Bats in the Belfry

Apparently I've chosen to insist on there being reason amid the chaos and to ensure my eventual emotional demise by continuing to search for it.

I can objectively see how it is crazy to keep looking for something when there is no indication it exists. I find it easier to keep believing it exists based on my previous knowledge and first-hand experiences of it combined with the anecdotal evidence of others who exhibit it than I find it easier to live my life without reason or purpose outside of self-pleasure.

I have no idea where my husband has gone. Maybe to visit a lawyer based on my saying I couldn't handle it. Maybe to pass the time and come back to pretend nothing happened. I can reasonably believe he isn't doing anything constructive. He never has. But there I go being all rational again. See how awful I am at this game? I thought he was supposed to be Mr. Predictable Scientist and I was supposed to be Ms. Irrational Emotion--isn't that the AS male-NT female stereotype? Then why is he the one off destressing from his own poor choices while I'm home doing all the work again?

I never know what tomorrow will bring because I never know who he is today. As soon as he has some new interest or influential person around, all of his values and priorities and thoughts on life change. I'm so tired from trying, not achieving but trying my hardest, to be someone I'm not to conform to his world of chaos and confusion. He's not once even attempted to step out of his world since we married. I'm crazy to think he would now. Why do I do this to myself? Why can't I just be happy with things? Things I'd have to give myself. Why does every ounce of my being hunger for something he won't give? Well, I know why. And I ought to because it is what I am actually called to. But why doesn't he ever try to give it?

Obviously, it is enough to drive me batty long before death do us part to keep thinking and living in these never-ending loops. There is no word I can speak or action I can do that will change this cycle.

If I'm going to go crazy, I might as well have fun with it right? Too many cats is a little cliché. What's something a little more substantial I could sink my teeth into? I'm not into scrap booking. Or anything too strenuous. Maybe I'll take up motorcycling. And pedicures. At the same time. Or maybe I should go to the other extreme and schedule out every 15 minutes of my day. But I'll only do things found in children's books. Today is Wednesday so we'll have elephants over to eat zoooop! Sundays will be ice cream days. Andrew might not be too happy with the string beans on Mondays, but I'll be crazy schedule lady and will have a porcupine with me, so surely he wouldn't mess with that.

Now where could I find an elephant and how will I get it home tonight? Since my husband isn't home, the elephant can sit in his chair. It's no crazier than trying to live my life guessing what goes on inside my husband's head. And ice cream Sundays sounds like a lot more fun! So why aren't I happy yet?

The Pit of Despair

The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it. -Voltaire

I wonder what Voltaire knew that I haven't figured out.

You know what I feel like right now? A rat in a cage. I can see all the other rats in their cages. They look about like mine. Some cages have different colors, nicer furniture perhaps, but nothing of substantial difference. There's a single lever in the cage. When I push it, I get a beautiful symphony sometimes, I get an electrical shock at others, and periodically I get the food and water I need to survive. I decide that I will get that food without the electrical shocks and over the years (I don't know the comparable time frame in rat lives), I try to figure the lever out.

Does it change what I get if I push with one foot or the other, or maybe with both? Does how long I hold it down make a difference? Is there a time of day or a pattern? With nothing making sense, I dig deeper. I call out to the other rats and find out their experiences. I try to apply more complex formulas. Time of day plus number of previous lever pushes, plus weight on the lever, plus time held might be the key. Or maybe I need to include the lever pushes of my neighbors in my calculations. Or maybe only those neighbors whose cages look like mine, and how close does it need to be to count? Or maybe I shouldn't push the lever at all. I try every combination I can think of, but I am still no closer to understanding what I'll get when I push the lever than I was on the day I started and now I have a lot more pain and suffering from all the electrical shocks I received while trying.

I have seen other rats push their levers and in response have their cage doors opened and they move about at ease, have free access to food and water, and no longer receive the electrical shocks that they once experienced. I keep hoping for my own cage door to open the same way. What's different about them or their cages? Did they push more? Less? Eat more? Less? At different times? In different ways? I spend so much time trapped in the cage trying to start my life that the trying becomes my life. But what's the alternative? Running around my cage in circles? Starving myself to death? Screaming at the wind. I've tried it. Actually, I haven't tried starving myself and have no plans to do so. I have tried other unhealthy things over the years and then I'm only worse off. Anything logical, reasonable, positive... it all gets me right back exactly where I started. A rat in a cage without the fundamental dignities of life.

Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos. -David Cronenberg

I've reached a point now where I feel that I must either accept that my door will never open and resign myself to being a caged rat who must endure electrical shocks at random times if I intend to keep getting the fundamental necessities of life, in which case I keep my sanity but loose all hope, or I must try once more to use reason and figure out just what it is that will unlock that door in which case I might eventually be successful but I'll surely have gone mad in the process. In which will I be more fully human, more fully present, more fully myself? Or must I lose myself to some degree no matter what?

My husband is not rational. I have to believe that. If I don't, then I'll drive myself crazy trying to figure out the reason behind his actions. I believe he is like a toddler, acting on impulse and emotion, thinking only of himself and unable to comprehend how his actions have greater consequences for others, and as such is irrational, unpredictable, and self-involved. No amount of apparent logic falsely applied makes any of it make sense. I am not an individual to him, I am a role to be filled. I am replaceable with anyone else who will provide the services of cooking, cleaning, childcare, and companionship. I must accept that I have no power to change our situation. I can't get us half-way there. I can't get us anywhere. He has the key that unlocks the door and he doesn't much care about finding it. After all, he's not the one getting shocked trying to get us food. Why would he start now?

I could try to cheat. I could try to manipulate or bribe him into giving his support. I could throw him on the lever and let him see how it feels. But what would it gain me? And could I live with myself once I got there? It would be my luck that food would come out that time anyway. Maybe it is sour grapes or maybe I've been working under an illusion all along. Why do I presume that the rats whose cages are open have it better off? What am I even striving for?

Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting. -Alan Dean Foster

I give up.

I'm done trying to figure it out.

I accept that there is no rational explanation for what I experience.

It doesn't matter how precisely I choose my words, how carefully I plan my steps, how scrupulously I hold myself to the light. There will be no triumph of reason because there is no reason here to be found.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable. -Voltaire

I'm miserable and if I insist a moment longer on remaining optimistic, I will go mad. My life makes no sense. There is no reason. There is no order. There is no goodness or freedom. Trying to delude myself into believing otherwise is a fantasy created from denial. I must therefore conclude that the way my life is going is not leading me or my family toward God because there is order and goodness in all God's creation. We simply can't keep doing what we've been doing and expect things to improve, but AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! it doesn't matter that I am aware of this because I'm not able to do a %#@$! thing about it.

In a world without the law of God, you have chaos, oppression, tyranny, and everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. -Randall Terry

I really don't care what kind of neurological syndrome or wiring or disorder causes my husband to hurt me this way. Today was an extraordinarily low blow. If he was of sound mind and able to enter into the marriage covenant, and there is a presumption that he was and a case history showing that Asperger's is not sufficient grounds for an annulment of it so no wondering if he was, then there is no excuse for his persisting on this path. He is hurting his wife and doing nothing to change it. I'm mad! And I'm so very sad that his knowledge of this won't change a thing. We're called to better. We're called to more. There is no reason that we don't have it outside of his hard-heartedness. And if someone wants to tell me that it is inherent in his Asperger's then my answer today would be, "So what?" Really. Boohoo. Cry me a river.

I don't care.

We've all got crosses. We've all got temptations. Apparently when I'm angry I'll use poor grammar. That doesn't make it right. What would make this right is for him to grow up, stop acting like a toddler, and recognize that there are consequences for his actions and there is a world outside of himself and then to ACT on it.

I'm just a little bitter right now.

And weepy.

And so unpleasant that I excused myself and spent my time writing this entry instead of unleashing the full measure of my emotions upon others.

I hate feeling this way.

I try hard to not compare our marriage to other couples we know. I never know what secret crosses they bear. I focus on comparing ourselves only to the minimum to which we are called, on recalling the good moments, on being realistic and hopeful. Then when I read those minimum requirements and I have to believe that we'll never achieve it, my heart is ripped out of my chest anew because a husband who is one with me is rightfully mine and he's denying me of it and there's not a thing I can do.

The Sacrament of Matrimony

Asperger's didn't do this. My husband did and he continues to choose it with every passing minute in which he doesn't get off his butt and change it.

St. Evodius: Whence, therefore, are evil things done by men, if they are not learned?
St. Augustine: Perhaps it is from this, that man turns himself away from learning, that is, estranges himself from the fact of learning. But whether this or something else be true, this surely is evident—that learning is good, and because it is derived from [the verb] to learn, evil things can not be learned.

I wish I could take him by the ear and drag him somewhere and force him to learn. I wish there were a way to reason with him. I wish I could see good triumphing. I wish, I wish, I wish... As it stands now, I can choose between accepting the antithesis of what I'm called to being as the best I will get or I can defy reality and believe that continuing to do the same thing will one day get me a different result and that I'll eventually have a husband who can love me. Maybe the movies summed it up best:

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. -The Princess Bride

Birds of a feather

Last night, I had a wonderful night's sleep. I laid my head down on the soft pillow, wrapped my husband's arm around me, and slept like a baby.

I used to have the most uncomfortable pillow and I would complain of neck pain and poor sleep nearly every day. Nothing big or dramatic, just a minor annoyance. Then my husband wrapped up a gift and gave it to me: a big, soft pillow. He knew I'd like it and he glowed when he handed it over. He'd searched for just the right one. He was right. I've loved it ever since. I would have never thought to ask for a pillow for a gift.

When I am feeling sad, wondering if my husband knows the real me, understands what makes me tick, I remind myself about the pillow he chose. He knew exactly what I needed. Sometimes what we need is different from what we think we want. When I am feeling sad, wondering if I should have married Andrew, I remind myself that God often gives us what we need and not what we want and that it is only in retrospect that we can sometimes appreciate God's wisdom and providence. Life is hard. Being single is hard. Being married is hard. Being a woman is hard. Being a man is hard. Having children is hard. Being infertile is hard. Everyone has crosses to bear. When I put it into perspective, my constant, loyal, fun, funny, stable, adventurous, principled husband not being in touch with his feelings is a pretty inconsequential cross, even if it lays open my own weaknesses. Sometimes life is too hard and I just take a time-out, go take a nap, and tune out. But isn't it ironic that I curl up on that pillow he got me? Maybe when I can't get it by being hit over the proverbial head in my waking life, I get it by having it pummeled into me one feather at a time through osmosis while I sleep.

My life and its problems, as frustrating as they can be, is really a cushy life filled with pleasures and luxuries many would by happy to trade me for. I hope I can learn that sometime soon, but in the mean time I'll just keep holding on to that pillow as my proof that it isn't hopeless and I have a pretty darn good husband after all.