Author: Nicole Mar (Pseudonym): NT Wife
Defining Love: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV)
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
How is this kind of love even possible when you are married to someone with Asperger syndrome traits, I asked myself? Often the neurotypical feels that the autistic partner does not fulfill even the most basic needs for companionship and teamwork. Many times, both feel unloved and misunderstood. It is a marriage that seems impossible.
News flash: For us, it is!
Rocked to the Core
I’ll never forget a particular counseling session in which the counselor asked my husband about connecting. I’d been in the depths of despair over my husband’s lack of time with me. He literally could spend 17 hours a day happily in his office tinkering with his special interests, completely absorbed and totally oblivious to the fact that he had a wife and children.
As months turned into weeks and weeks into years, I was overcome with exhaustion, anger, resentment and unforgiveness that my husband seemed perfectly happy while I was a miserable wretch. I needed him so much. Why couldn’t he see that?
Well after enduring this for so long, I shared through panged tears in counseling how unloved and lonely I felt; how desperately I longed to connect with my husband. As I cried, he grew quiet, distant, and, yes, angry. He blurted out, “No matter what I do for her, it’s never enough. I’ll never be good enough for her.”
Pausing, our counselor then asked him, “When you decided to marry your wife, what did you see your life like? For example, did you expect you’d spend lots of time traveling together, enjoying nature as a couple, watching your favorite shows together, or spending time in family activities?”
He paused. Then responded, “I just wanted her to be happy.”
“How did you expect her to feel happy? Your wife expected you all to spend all your free time together. Because that isn’t happening, she feels unhappy, but what were you expecting?”
He admitted, “I don’t know.”
Then she said, “Your wife has a need to connect with you. Do you have a need to connect
with her?”
“No.”
That response rocked me to my very core, but it honestly felt like a relief to know the truth. My husband had no need–zip, zero, zilch–to connect with me.
She went on. “So how should your wife know you love her?”
NeuroDiverse Expression of Love
“I work everyday. I provide for her and my children. I take care of anything that needs attention around the house.”
By the end of that session, I had a new appreciation for the extent of his “acts of service” form of love. I realized he didn’t spend time with me because, for him, he had no need to do that. So how was I to love someone who didn’t have a need to love me in the way I needed to be loved? How was I to love someone who did not receive love in the way I gave it?
We had to study 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. I had to love my husband patiently, in a way that felt loving to him. He had to make an effort to love me in a way that felt foreign and unnecessary to him. We had to do it because Jesus gave us the definition of love in the word.
“Love is patient, love is kind.” I began to press into Jesus and ask for patience and kind feelings towards my husband. Instead of being snippy when he’d ask me a question in his effort to spend time with me, I had to be open. And for him, in his effort to follow the word of God, my husband had to sit with me and just “be” instead of obeying his desire to go after his special interests. It was hard for us both.
“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” I had to ask the Lord to help me not to envy women with doting husbands, not to boast to my husband that I was a better parent, and not to be proud that I am neurotypical while he is autistic. In the same vein, my husband and I prayed that he would not envy single men who spend their time as they wish, that he would not boast about all the chores he did around the house, and that he would not be arrogant about his superior technical skills. We had to love each other the way God made each of us. We had to accept each other because when God made us, he said, “It is good.”
“It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” We had to stop dishonoring each other with cruel, venomous words. We had to stop being so easily angered by each other, and most importantly, I had to stop rehashing my list of all the ways he’d hurt me. He, in turn, had to stop defending himself and making excuses for the past. My husband apologized to me for how he’d used me and mistreated me. I accepted his apology and pledged to stop dredging up the past when I was upset.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” We had to learn to keep the faith and to fill our home with happy thoughts, laughter, and fun. We had to pledge to stop threatening divorce. We had to make a commitment that through the power of Christ, we would treat each other with respect and love.
And this commitment to God's words on love isn’t something we did once. This is something we have had to ask God to help us both do every single day and sometimes several times within a day.
Signs that things are getting better:
He doesn’t have such a short fuse.
I’m not mad all dang day!
In the middle of what is the start of a heated argument, I have learned tol laugh.
When he is turning a conversation towards himself, and I override him, he is more willing to accept it and trust that in that moment it was the right thing to do.
We have to pray daily for God’s help. My sweet husband reads a Bible devotion daily about marriage.
So does he have a need to connect with me? Honestly, I’m not sure at this point, but all that matters is that he does try. We spend more time together, and we each enjoy the blessings of pressing into Jesus, pressing into His Word, and pressing into His power to make a marriage that seems impossible, possible because nothing is impossible with God!
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