Bingo!

Perhaps not in all cases, but a good deal of the time, if she actually spelled things out to me, I’d do better. She does indeed expect me to be quite telepathic, and I’m not.

Interesting the way you wrote your final paragraph. Not sure if you were deliberately separating yourself from women in general or not. I was a little surprised at the way you phrased it – almost as though you don’t class yourself as a woman. Forgive me if I reading this in some way that it wasn’t intended.

Roll the dice for a date and put it in your calendar… Truffle Day, Flower Day, Movie Day (romantic comedy), Take a Shower Together Day…

=0)

Sorry I can’t be more helpful with the work situation, that’s one I never managed to finesse.

Your wife may be expecting you to possess a degree of telepathy that you don’t in fact have.

Most men seem to have this problem with their wives. Women (not me) are much better at reading body language than men. So they often feel it’s quite unreasonable that men don’t pick up on how they are feeling.

My wife suggests the same thing to me frequently. I can make lists and schedule reminders via the Internet, so why can’t I do this for romantic gestures?

I’ve talked before about why this sort of thing feels ridiculously complicated for me. It does feel something akin to rocket science for me, trust me on that.

I’ve been talking with my wife over the last few days, trying to reach some sort of better understanding in this area. I have of course explained that I do love her. Her response is to say that I should show it. Not unreasonable, but not easy for me either.

I’ve read your posting, and despite the fact that we are both expressing something quite negative, I feel relied that I’m not the only person that goes through this sort of thing.

I too tend to fall into the trap that you mention of trying to fix the things that my wife mentions that are wrong, when really what she is looking for is some sympathy rather than a solution.

There is some odd logic to it for me. You’ve told me something that’s wrong. It must be my fault. I can fix it. Hmmmm…. It must be very frustrating for my wife, because that’s not what she meant at all.

When the kids are old enough, explain to them that Daddy has painful ears but he loves them lots.

With your wife the most important thing you can do is listen. The little romantic gestures aren’t rocket science. You could even have a secret calendar that she doesn’t know about, plotting the schedule of seemingly random gifts of chocolate or whatever.

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is a good book.

I’m glad my little rant on your previous comment didn’t put you off!

You mention being too tired to interact with your wife when you get home from work. I have this same problem too, it’s just that the evening routine with getting the kids bathed and reading them stories tends to mask it for long enough that by the time we have a chance to talk, I’m not feeling so overly stimulated. Well, mostly at least. I put this problem down to the very typical AS trait of easily getting too much sensory stimulation, which until it has time to wear off, leaves me dazed and uncommunicative.

Maybe I should just resort to flowers, as you do. I always feel that it shows a lack of thought on my part. Perhaps that’s just a crazy notion – I would, of course have had to think about my wife to buy them in the first place.

I like your decision to become a scout leader. Assuming this fits in with any sensory overload issues you have, this sounds like an excellent idea! It’s a structured set of activities at the same time each week – what better to appeal to someone with AS?

Work is one of the few areas where I feel ok. I’m a worker. Sure, I’ve got “manager” in my title but I gave most of those privileges up when I got a micromanager and friend of the CEO put above me. These days I struggle to get anything done but it’s not for lack of trying – instead, it’s belt and braces “box-ticking” approach that I’m forced to use.

Romantically, this is much more of a problem and I usually get it wrong. I buy gifts when I’ve got enough spare money at the end of the week but it’s nothing regular and often nothing particularly relevant. My problem isn’t gifts, it’s being too tired to listen, too tired to empathise at home (I do it all day at work) and too busy to make phone calls home.

I do my best with gifts. If I see something appropriate, I’ll get it regardless of the occasion. If not, flowers work everytime.

As far as the kids are concerned, I have the problem there too. I’ve recently become a Cub Scout leader and now I’m spending a lot more quality time with my kids. I think it’s helping.

My reply is too long to post here, and it’s not really all AS related anyway and probably doesn’t address all the issues you raise, so I’ve posted it to my blog with a link here.

http://awildanimal.blogspot.com/2009/08/guilt.html