Life with Aspergers

Edward Unspooled is Craig Lancaster's latest "Edward Stanton" novel.  It follows on from the events of 600 hours of Edward, reviewed here and Edward Adrift, reviewed here .  It's funny because I really wanted more after 600 hours but felt closure after Edward Adrift. I didn't think there was much left to write about. How wrong I was. Edward Unspooled is easily the best of the three.  Edward Unspooled is one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read - and for that reason, I read it very, very slowly trying to enjoy every nuance of it. I've only finished it now because I've gotten a backlog of other books to review. You don't have to have read the other Edward books before reading this one but I think it probably helps. This time, the pacing is a lot tighter. Craig has dispensed with the weather reports and added a female voice to the mix. It makes things far more dynamic and personal. One of the things that I'm always talking about on ...

As usual, this follows on from Part One , Two and Three . If you haven't read these, you really should go back and read them before moving forward - otherwise it might not make sense. At the end of the last marriage encounters session, we'd listened to a couple who talked about their recent past experiences bringing up small children. We were then given a bunch of questions to choose from which got us to talk to our partners about our feeling with negative emotions. It was time for the next couple to take the stage. Middle Age The next couple was a bit older, though not by much. They talked about how whenever the conditions around them change, their marriage must change too in order to survive. Their discussions picked up when, after years of supporting their children, the kids were beginning to need them less often. For years, they had lived almost separate weekends organised around their children's sporting events. Now finally, those sports were beginning to finish...

Once again, Part three follows on from Parts One and Two . If you haven't read those two, then this post probably won't make a whole lot of sense. Saturday Afternoon We were all asked to come inside and sit around in a big semicircle. Yep, I thought, here comes the "alcoholics anonymous" style forum. Funnily enough though, this time I was ready to share my thoughts. I was feeling positive. Perhaps we were going to read out our letters? Nope. It was time for the leaders to speak as couples. Parenting Issues - The Man's Story There were three sets of leader couples, plus one priest. As we sat there, the first and youngest couple started to speak. They took it in turns to talk, the husband would talk about long hours at work, being tired when he came home and "cactus hour" which started as soon as he walked in the door. He talked about being lumbered with all the children's discipline problems of the day. He talked about how he felt when he walked in t...

Obviously part two follows on from part one , so if you haven't started reading from the begining, I'd suggest you do. It probably won't make sense otherwise. I'll be posting this topic close together because I think that people lose interest when a series is too drawn out. I also want to post in a great deal of detail. The plan is for this series of posts to be something that others could use to build their own "marriage encounter" upon. The second day of our encounter began quietly. It was a sunny day and we were served a very nice group breakfast. We all chatted together around our tables assuming that we'd probably be great friends by the time the whole encounter weekend was over. When breakfast was finished we helped a little with the cleaning and then went outside. It was a little foggy but still nice and we noticed that a group of kangaroos had hopped onto the property. We took a quick look around but were soon called back into the workshops. ...

I had planned to move away from adult topics for a little while and concentrate on children's issues but the following comment provides such as good opportunity to explain an integral part of the aspie condition that I'll stay with the topic a little longer... If you feel your wife's smile is like the warmth of the radiating sun (what a lucky woman) do you experience the need to show her that you feel that - in the moment, I mean? In one of your answers to the comments in Part 3 you wrote: "I feel that aspies have a greater strength of emotion than many NTs but that we often lack the means to show it (or we're "afraid" to show it). So where does the emotion go? And what is the fear about in showing it? You've really hit the nail on the head here and I realise that I have probably left too much unsaid. As I described in my post, even though aspies aren't all that great at reading facial expression, a simple smile from my wife is enough for her to e...

A reader highlighted this problem in a comment on my recent "Letter Writing in Relationships" articles. At the time, the comment was aimed mainly at letters but I feel that it applies in a lot of other areas of aspie communication. Note: As is often the case, my initial writing of this particular blog went off-topic and instead spends most of it's time exploring a completely different aspie trait. I've decided to leave it intact though as I think it provides some interesting reading. Its a well known fact that aspies miss quite a lot of the nuances of non-verbal communication such as tone, expression, body language and innuendo. What is often less documented is that these things can often be determined by aspies with good coping mechanisms, though not without significant delay. Event Recording as a Coping Mechanism One of the most effective coping mechanisms I employ is "conversation recording" where I attempt to remember an event in its entirety for lat...

In parts 1 & 2 I covered how letter writing is a great leveller which removes non-verbal cues from the communication. I also gave some tips for effectively communicating emotions and affection. I now want to look at how letter writing can be used to solve relationship problems. To do this, I'm going to refer to some training which I received from Marriage Encounters several years back. A Quick Plug for Marriage Encounters Worldwide Marriage Encounters ( http://www.wwme.org/ ) is an initiative intended to give couples the tools they need to effectively communicate in marriage. It is not merely for marriages which are in trouble - in fact, it works best on marriages which are going well. The cost of an "encounter weekend" is very low there is usually a single low upfront fee with a request for private donation at the end. " However, no couple is denied the opportunity of a weekend because of financial hardship. " The initiative is supported by the Catholic ...

A Quick Recap In my last post, I made a list of some of the many aspie issues which can put a strain on relationships and explained how letters are great levellers because they remove all of the non verbal cues, which the aspie has difficulty reading. I had some great feedback on my last post about the dangers of relying solely on written communication. I'll cover this in detail soon but in the meantime, a good message to take away is that the letter should contain everything you need to know. There should be no reading between the lines . Writing Letters to Your Partner There are a few useful things to remember when writing a letter to a person with whom you're already in a relationship. Affection-isms No matter how angry you may be about something, it should be assumed that you eventually want your relationship to remain intact - otherwise, why would you bother to write a letter at all. For this reason, you need to at least remember to start and end the letter on that note. ...

Its almost a cliche that when you have problems in a relationship, you write a letter to your partner. Unfortunately, too often, in Hollywood movies, the letter says; "There's some food in the freezer - see if you can cook it yourself 'cos I'm gone gone gone..." In other words, the letter is being used to terminate a relationship, rather than to save it. Letter writing in relationships is a great thing which should not be saved as a last resort. In fact, writing letters while the going is good will actually strengthen your relationship. Why is Letter Writing in Aspie Relationships Particularly Useful? We've all heard of the legendary communication problems between couples due to gender differences. They're well documented in books like "men are from mars, women are from venus" by John Gray and on talk shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil. The Aspie world takes all of this and puts a spin on it. Suddenly, not only is the gender difference a problem b...