Karen Rowlands

Asperger Marriage and Relationships Karen Rowlands

This book aims to help the spouses or partners who are married to or in a long term relationship with someone diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome or more likely, suspected Asperger's Syndrome (AS). This book is an honest account of what my life has been like with my AS husband and how his Asperger's has affected our marriage. We have had many crisis moments over the years but most of these have been through joint ignorance of my husband's condition. With realisation came a long 'getting to know you' process and learning more about the condition and David's idiosyncrasies. Advice that worked for us is clearly signposted. There are about 500 articles on a vast range of subjects plus lots of links to the latest research. David also writes about the topics I have chosen from his autistic experience, providing insight into how our relationship works (or doesn't) from his perspective. I want to share with you the everyday, nitty gritty, tiny details that most people outside of your family would miss, that really affect you as a couple. I have gone into detail about these and explained why these behaviours happen. Not every man with AS is the same but you will recognise some of these behaviours in your husband or partner. I graduated with a Masters in Autism from Northumbria University and used my 18 years of experience (research) of living with David to write my dissertation about our marriage. I couldn't help but be worried when he read through my dissertation at the end as I was concerned that I may have misunderstood some things or upset him with some of the detail. I believe it was probably quite hard for him to read how much his behaviour over the years had affected me but all he said after he had read it through was that it was 'very insightful'. I knew then I had done a good job.