Aspergers and NT Support
If you have a son or daughter (or child with gender dysphoria) with Aspergers, or are an NT (Neurotypical ) married to, or in a relationship with, someone with Aspergers, you are at the right page.
Since 2004, I have been supporting parents of children with Aspergers, and helping NT husbands, wives, and partners navigate, manage, and fortify these unique relationships. In 2004, I became Canada's only Aspergers Support Coach for parents, and quickly realized that the parents' relationship, as a couple, in a marriage or relationship, needed support and guidance as well.
Aspergers was first identified by Hans Aspergers in 1944, as seen as having differences in psychosocial and cognitive thoughts, thought-processes, and sociological understandings, compared with a Neurotypical person. These differences often involve behavioural challenges or inconsistencies, cognitive struggles, emotionally charged and driven misunderstandings, comes with their own 'set', set of values, beliefs, and perceptions, and may sometimes be opposing, quick to anger, and have other variations in social behaviour and communication.
Having said that, very often the individual who is Aspergers is very intelligent, often highly focused, and very efficient and proficient at certain things, to a very high degree of understanding, and success. In certain settings and circumstances, this of course is highly desirable and lauded.
Yet, for the neurotypical in the relationship, or as one of the parents, these relationships can often be tumultuous, full of misunderstandings, one-sided, frustrating, and lonely. The Aspergers' brain wiring is just, different. Success in any relationship with an Aspie is going to require you, the NT, to make many of the changes, let go, and shift the way you communicate and understand. The Aspergers brain is more fixed and static, and will require more changed thinking and strategy to get along and understand each other from you, than from them.
With immense sensitivity, understanding, and practicality, I teach parents and NT partners and spouses how to do this, and how to not loose sight or compassion for your self. These relationships and the dynamic that often accompanies them serve to divide, whittle, crush, invalidate, unacknowledge, and tear away at the soul. But it doesn't have to, and I will teach you how, because sometimes, doing the hardest thing, and the right thing, are the same.
