Life with Aspergers

This is the start of a series of articles on how to show your non-aspie partner "appreciation".  It follows on from my article; Working on Your Asperger-Neurotypical Relationship Part 2: Appreciation .  You won't find information on living with an Aspergers partner here because this particular series is aimed at teaching aspies to become better and more appreciative of their neurotypical partners.  My point of view here will be from the aspie male in a relationship with a neurotypical female. After all, it's the only one I can speak about from experience. If anyone has any insight into the way in which the needs of neurotypical males differ from aspie males, then please feel free to note them in the comments. If you've been dating your current partner since you were young, you might think that she doesn't care for flowers. Certainly, that was the case in my situation. The Past As a "first girlfriend", my now wife never expressed any interest

This follows on from Part 1: Talking . Last time, I talked about the need to talk in our relationships and specifically, to ask your partner what they need. In my case, I got the rather vague answer of "I want to be appreciated more". That answer really confused me. If she'd said, "I want to go out to dinner more" or "I want more flowers" then it would have been a specific and measurable thing but she didn't. Instead she used a vague and undefined term - and the only thing I got was that I must have done some of it but it wasn't enough. I had to do more. I guess to really appreciate my point of view, suppose I'd been asked the question and replied that I wanted a bit more lavacultophilia (not that I actually do).  My wife would be in a similar quandry (except that lavacultophilia is a real word which actually means a desire to stare at someone in a bathing suit).  I got this randomly out of the Grandiloquent Dictionary . In my case,

Welcome to 2012, the year the Mayans thought it was all going to end. I'm not actually a big believer myself and I'm pretty certain that I'll be writing a similar new year post next year. 2012 is set to be a momentous year for the autism community. The revised DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) will be finalized (though it's not due out until May 2013) and will bring with it some quite controversial changes which will no doubt throw some members of the autism community into "damage control mode". If the writers have their way, Aspergers will become an obselete term and the name of this blog will no longer have any meaning. You'll notice that I'm not rushing to change it. This year, we'll be finishing off a few articles which have a part one but no part two. The "best of the best" series will hopefully be back and we'll have some more reviews including one for the best asperger relationship book I've