Romance. It’s a simple concept: the invoking of love from one person for another.

In any romantic relationship there’s going to be problems. Infatuation fades, fires cool, and careers take up more energy then each person has to give. But in a relationship where an autism spectrum disorder is thrown into the mix romance becomes a foreign concept, and very often, a forgotten dream.

When I was dating my Aspie husband he once confided in me that previous women had called him the most ‘unromantic’ man they’d ever met. At the time I couldn’t see what these women meant. He was attentive, gracious, seemed to think of all the little things that other men just never saw.

Many years, and several kids later I know exactly what they meant!

I should have seen the signs. My husband had been married before and that relationship had ended badly. In our first year of marriage my father-in-law sent me roses. Not just once, or even twice, but many times. Upon asking why I was getting these roses I was told that my new in-laws adored me and didn’t want me to leave due to something as silly as not getting the little forget-me-nots that husbands often give.

In retrospect, I realize that my husband has only given me flowers once, and even then it was because one of his female friends bothered him until he did. They’d been roommates when we first met and I think she was afraid that if she didn’t help him be a ‘good husband’ that she’d eventually end up having him back at her house.

When we first got married we had coffee together every morning before we both ran off to work. Now I’m lucky if he leaves me coffee in the morning at all. There’s nothing quite like waking up to a house full of screaming kids and seeing an empty coffee pot. Or worse yet, a pot with burnt down dredges that’s only good for a quarter of a cup.

I expected the fire to cool. I expected the infatuation to fade. What I didn’t expect is that these things would never be seen or heard from again. With a neurotypical man they come back after time, never the same as it was before, always in different ways, but it comes back in waves and stages. With my Aspie husband these concepts just packed up and moved out leaving no forwarding address.

I realize that my husband loves me, even without the show of fire or the heat of infatuation. But it was a long time in coming that I began to see this without the obvious signs.

For a while I felt bereft. I kept expecting him to suddenly do something, totally out of the blue, to show me how much he loved me. But it never came. I looked for the overtures of undying love, but couldn’t find them. I waited for him to sweep me off my feet for a second time, but he never did.
After a while I started to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t expect to see these things again. Ever. I knew that divorce wasn’t an option for me. I loved him, I knew he loved me, but I needed to find a way to fill that gaping hole in my heart and in my life.

A friend of mine suggested I have an affair. That person is no longer a friend of mine.

However, they did have a point.

I was looking to fill my own emotional needs. In society we’re taught that these needs should be filled by those around us, by our partners in life in particular. But for the husband or wife of a person with Asperger’s it isn’t that simple.

Another friend of mine was in the same situation. As man was married to a woman with HFA he often found himself alone or emotionally overtaxed because he was always catering to her needs. He started making a point of doing things for himself. Hanging out with the boys wasn’t an option for him. His wife needed him at home and his teenage son needed him to be both mother and father. So he made a point of spicing up the everyday activities he had to do with little touches he liked to do.

I took notes from him and altered his ideas to fit my own life. I began, essentially, romancing myself.

I thought of all the little things I’d like my husband to do for me and did them for myself. I set the coffee up the night before and even taught my teenagers to make sure it was refilled after dad left for work. I treated myself to a coffeehouse mocha while doing my shopping and imagined it was my husband’s idea. I bought flowers. When my husband asked where they came from I told him “You.” I indulged in good bath products then spent one night a week imaging my husband had sent me to a day spa. I decorated my house to be the way I wanted it, and didn’t continue to fuss over getting his impressions. I started doing my hair and make-up simply to be pleased with the woman in the mirror.

To some this may sound sad. To some it may sound like I’m fooling myself and settling for things that don’t truly make me happy. To them I ask, “Is your self esteem dependant on another person’s point of view?”

Mine isn’t.

In romancing myself I began to love myself. I stopped worrying about what I was or wasn’t getting from other people, including my husband. Because of that I’m more secure. Because of that I stopped looking for things I wanted my husband to do for me and started seeing the things he’d been doing all along.

My husband gets up every morning and goes to work. For a neurotypical man this may not be a big deal, but for my Aspie husband it’s a constant challenge.

My husband cooks when I’m sick. He had to learn to cook at the ripe old age of 34, but it was either that or our kids would starve on a days mom was sick. He doesn’t cook for himself; he’s happy with tortillas and a can of refried beans. He cooks so that the kids continue to get the consistency of family that I want them to have. Truth be told the kids are happy with tortillas and beans too.

He does his own laundry, not once in a while, but most of the time. He doesn’t think I should have to do his work uniforms for him, so most often he washes them himself. On the rare occasion that I beat him to the hamper he’s always tickled by how much softer the uniforms come out.

He makes sure that the regular food items we use on a constant basis are always in supply. He checks the cupboards before going to work and picks up things like bread and milk even though he’s on a dairy free diet.

He even picks up chocolates when the candy dish on my desk starts to run low. Sometimes.

My husband isn’t perfect, but neither am I. And as I’ve found, though the years, he may not be perfect, but is perfect for me.

~Candes Meisenheimer, wife of a man with Asperger's Syndrome

To respond to this column send your emails to candes@asdrendrewolf.org.

Candes Meisenheimer is the Editor in Chief and co-Founder of APOV on Autism. She works from her home office in Arizona and lives with her Asperger’s Husband and their three younger children, two of whom are also on the Autism Spectrum.