by David Finch
Chapter 2
Use your words.
Determined to find out what that first step would be, I sat down with Kristen in our family room about a week after my diagnosis, along with my notebook and pages upon pages of information on autism spectrum conditions that I’d printed from various Internet sources. The kids were upstairs napping, and at that time of day the sunlight fell directly upon our television screen, making it impossible to watch. Kristen was relaxing with a celebrity gossip magazine and eating black olives straight from the can. I plopped down beside her on the couch and arranged my materials neatly before her on the coffee table.
“What’s all this?” she asked, leafing through my stack of papers.
“This is all the Asperger’s stuff about me that we need to fix if we want to save our marriage. You’re the expert, and I need you to show me where we’re going to start.”
I felt proud: I’m doing it! I’m stepping up! I’ll be Asperger’s-free in no time! Kristen nodded thoughtfully, then shuffled the papers together and set them aside. Then, for the third or fourth time that week, she reminded me, “We can work together to fix our marriage, Dave. This isn’t about fixing you.”
I opened up my notebook and jotted down, Fixing our marriage is about working together and managing my behaviors. Not fixing me.
“That’s good,” I said. “Keep going.”
Kristen suggested that we begin by working on communication. Our ability to talk to each other, she told me, was paramount, yet we’d been struggling with it for years. When it came to discussing anything other than what was for dinner, we fell apart.
“There are many things that we need to address in our relationship,” she said, “but we won’t get anywhere if we can’t communicate with each other. Communication has to come first, then the other pieces will start to fall into place.”
I wrote the word communication in my notebook and said that I agreed, especially considering that she was an expert on speech and communication disorders.
“Those aren’t exactly the issues we’ll be dealing with,” she said. “It’s not like you’re nonverbal.”
“No, really. I read about it.” I searched through my stack of papers. “People with Asperger syndrome have difficulty communicating. Hang on, it’s in one of these printouts.”
I found the article I was looking for and handed it to Kristen. Kristen, the actual expert on speech and communication disorders. She frowned at the title and handed the paper back to me. It was full steam ahead on the Asperger’s Express, but apparently I was the only one riding.
It was true, she explained, that people on the autism spectrum tend to have difficulty navigating social interactions. Effective communication requires more than an exchange of words; conversational partners must adequately read each other’s emotions, reactions, and underlying motives, and they must be able to understand each other’s perspective. These abilities are a product of social intuition, a resource with which people with Asperger’s tend to be relatively ill equipped. But that, Kristen told me, was something we could worry about later.
“For now, don’t worry about the implications of your diagnosis,” she said. “Yes, you have Asperger syndrome and that’s part of the barrier. But let’s face it, Dave, you can communicate. What’s holding you back are thirty years of habits. We need to practice talking to each other, that’s all.”
Though she didn’t spell it out for me, I understood exactly what Kristen meant by thirty years of habits. Growing up, I was never taught the importance of healthy, therapeutic discourse. I was discouraged from talking about negative feelings toward other people, especially family members. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all—this old chestnut was both a philosophy and a firmly enforced rule in my family. My brother and I were not allowed to argue with each other, nor were we encouraged to voice any differences of opinion with authority figures (especially my parents). The airing of grievances, we were told, amounted to whining—“bellyaching,” as my dad called it—and nothing irritated my parents more than bellyaching. If we did have a personal issue with someone we loved, we were supposed to internalize the attendant frustration and hope that, like a virus or a stomachache, it would simply run its course. This kept emotions from boiling over, but just barely. It kept the house quiet, anyway.
My parents led this crusade by example. If we had a family crest, it might bear the image of four smiling faces sweeping animosity under a rug. Which had always been fine with me, truth be told. As a child, I never (not even once) saw my parents argue. Sometimes I saw my friends’ parents argue viciously—right in front of me, their invited guest—and the tension it created was unbearable. This family sucks, I’d think. I can’t be friends with this kid. But that wouldn’t have happened at my house. My mom and dad clearly loved each other, so as I understood it, people who loved each other never argued.
That’s not to say that my parents had nothing to argue about. Far from it. They were married, and like anyone else they must have had their own needs and disappointments. I remember my mom being angry on occasion, indignantly throwing silverware into drawers, but she never told any of us what was bothering her. Not me or my brother, and certainly not my dad. And I remember noticing how my mom’s fits coincided with my dad’s own bad moods—often I found that if I had to avoid my mom, it was best to stay away from my dad, too. Beyond that, I never thought anything of it. I didn’t understand that they were unwilling to sit down and talk about whatever the problem was, just as their parents had been, and their parents before them. And now me.
“My parents never talked about their feelings,” I said to Kristen, “but they have been married almost forty years now and they’re getting happier all the time.”
“That’s because their system works for them. But look at us. Can you honestly tell me you think it’s working, all this silence?”
I sat back and propped my feet upon the coffee table, thinking of all the vacations that had been ruined over the years because I had chosen to brood for days over an issue rather than spend ten minutes confronting it. Of all the holidays and parties rendered awkward because Kristen and I hadn’t seen the point in talking to each other. The countless times Kristen had urged me to share what was on my mind and I’d simply said, “Forget it,” and walked away from her, convinced she wouldn’t understand.
“No,” I said, “it’s not working.”
Kristen pointed out, too, how damaging it is to withhold things like resentment, anger, and frustration. That doing so had already taken a toll on our relationship and that she worried it would eventually make me sick if I kept it up. I nodded and wrote down swallowing anger = swallowing poison. The other problem with saying “Forget it,” she told me, was that I wasn’t someone who knew how to forget about things that were bothering me. I took another note: She is onto you.
“If you could actually let go of an issue and put it behind you, then okay, I’d say we could just forget it once in a while,” she said. “But you retain things. If something bothers you, it gets stuck inside your head and you wind up stomping around the house in a terrible mood for days and you make everyone else miserable in the process. Most of the time, it’s something we could easily sort out if you’d just take that first step and talk to me about it.”
I agreed, though I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. It was clear that we had become the couple that couldn’t communicate with each other. Kristen and I were never supposed to be that couple.
Before we were married we always talked, and though we had different opinions about things, we never argued. She was still that girl in the high school auditorium who kept the conversation flowing, who kept my mind and my mouth involved, the girl who played with my calculator and asked me about math.
Adulthood hadn’t changed our friendship much. Our conversations centered on lighter musings: “If you could live anywhere, where would it be?” or “I once saw a guy put his entire fist inside his mouth.” Even heavier topics d
idn’t bother me back then because whatever we talked about bore little consequence to me personally. We were just friends, after all. (“Of course I think you should quit your job and go backpacking through Costa Rica. Why wouldn’t you?”) Perhaps most important, when we were friends it was perfectly acceptable for me to be egocentric. This quality actually seemed to make me more interesting as a conversational partner, as I was her only pal who related everything back to himself—something that, ironically, had always made her laugh: “On second thought, don’t go to Costa Rica because (a) I’ll miss you and (b) I don’t want to have to water your plants.”
Then we married each other and things changed. When you’re in love, you can’t beat the notion of two souls uniting, two lives becoming forever one. Sooner or later, though, the romance fades. One day you realize you are two souls united . . . but there’s only one cupcake left in the Tupperware container in the fridge. That’s when reality sets in: We’re going to have to deal with stuff, and it might not be easy. Whether Kristen and I were ready for it or not (which, clearly, we were not), our relationship changed after we were married, and the nature of what we needed to express changed with it: How shall we handle our finances? What’s your philosophy on child rearing? What do you mean you have interests and aspirations beyond being my wife?!
We weren’t alone. Most couples don’t consider or discuss these types of things until they have to, until they’re both staring at the same cupcake, wondering what they’ve gotten themselves into. Kristen and I would learn that these were the things we would have to talk about if we wanted our marriage to work. As we got farther into married life, we’d also discover that I was particularly unprepared—unequipped, it seemed—to do that.
When issues arose—and believe me, when you’re married and have a mild form of autism you’re not even aware of, things tend to come up—I couldn’t talk about them constructively with Kristen. That would have required me to have the ability to understand her point of view, to consider her needs rather than mine. Which I didn’t, and couldn’t. Not only were we dealing with issues common to every marriage, we were also forced to deal with extremely bizarre challenges that plague relationships for people on the autism spectrum: my daily routines, my obsessive tendencies, my unwillingness to participate in social events.
When Kristen and I needed to talk about these things, we would almost always end up having an argument; she couldn’t believe the things she had to talk to me about (“When we have company over, it’s not okay for you to get in your car and leave for an hour, Dave. Don’t you understand that?”), and I couldn’t handle the reality of constantly—there’s no other way of saying this—fucking up. I didn’t mean to spoil the parties. I didn’t mean to cast a shadow over the entire holiday weekend because my schedule had been thrown out of whack. It just happened that way, so to Kristen I looked like a jerk, which seemed completely unfair to me.
The condition I was born with led us to these moments of heated discussion and profound misunderstanding. But the way I was raised dictated how I handled them. Because I firmly believed that arguments were symptomatic of doomed relationships, I would refuse to participate. It didn’t matter how small the disagreements were. Deciding when to have kids or selecting a laundry detergent—if we disagreed, I couldn’t handle it. I would get frustrated. By the end of our first year of marriage, I had learned that voicing frustration led to arguments, so I wouldn’t say anything. Fine, I’d think, go with the generic detergent that I wouldn’t be caught dead using. I guess it doesn’t matter which detergent I prefer. I would shut down and brood, or pout, as Kristen would say. (And, oh, how that word pout pissed me off.) As coping strategies go, brooding was one of the worst; Kristen could see right through it. She’d see that I was angry, she’d know why I was angry, and yet I would deny my feelings, insisting that nothing was wrong. Then I’d try to prove my point, I suppose, by stomping around and acting mad for a few days. Being short with her and mean to salesclerks. Throwing a temper tantrum, in other words.
By our second year of marriage, Kristen no longer saw the point in trying to get me to talk. She no longer appreciated the daily challenges and constant feuding. She no longer saw me as the wonderful man with whom she could discuss anything; instead, she saw me as this temperamental man-child who couldn’t handle the demands of real life. And who wouldn’t love going to bed with that guy every night?
Looking back, even I find it hard to believe that Kristen and I lived like this for the first five years of our marriage. Not five weeks or five months. The first five years. Let alone that our marriage survived long enough for us to turn things around. My diagnosis had made things click for us. It allowed both of us to take a deep breath, wipe the slate clean, and start thinking about our relationship in a different light. It allowed us to think about why we had stopped communicating years before and what we could do to start talking again.
The key to becoming a couple that could communicate was to communicate. (I know this is tricky stuff—try to stay with me, here.) And the key to communicating, Kristen told me, was to use my words. She used this approach when dealing with Emily, our two-year-old. Kristen had taught Emily sign language long before Emily was able to speak. She knew that many of Emily’s temper tantrums were the result of her inability to express herself; if she wanted more banana, for example, she had no way of saying it. But she could sign it. Whenever Emily wanted something and started getting frustrated, Kristen would tell her, “Use your words.” Then Emily would calm down and press her little hands together, saying, “more,” before rubbing her chest, saying, “please.” Emily quickly learned that tantrums led nowhere, but communication produced results. It was an important concept for our daughter to grasp, and at thirty years of age I was going to have to do the same.
The first opportunity came only a few days after Kristen and I agreed to start working on communication. It was Kristen’s day off, and we thought it would be fun to meet for lunch near my office with the kids. We had never done that before, and I was excited to show them where I worked. At home I wasn’t very impressive, but at the office people listened to me, and I wanted the kids to see that. Best of all, one of my coworkers was likely to high-five me right in front of them. For once, my family could see that I was totally the man.
When Kristen arrived, she pulled into a visitor parking space and called me at my desk to let me know she was there.
“Come on up,” I said, peering down at our car from my fourth-story window, trying to sound indifferent. “I’ll meet you by the reception desk.” People were always milling around the reception area, and I figured at least one of them would give me that crucial high five the moment Kristen and the kids stepped off the elevator.
“Really?” Kristen said. “We’re all buckled in. It would be a lot easier if you just came down.”
“But I wanted the kids to see where I work. I thought they’d enjoy it.”
“Well, Parker is gnawing on his foot and Emily thinks we’re driving to Disney World. I doubt they would understand they’re in Daddy’s office.”
I felt a swell of disappointment as I looked around my cubicle, which I’d spent all morning cleaning in preparation for their visit. “Fine,” I said, “I’ll be right down.”
At the restaurant, I had a little temper tantrum. I ignored Kristen’s attempts at making conversation and went out of my way to be rude to our waiter. I felt I’d been made a fool and I couldn’t let it go, but I wasn’t going to bring it up and ruin our lunch with an argument. Instead, we sat for fifteen minutes in that familiar, awkward silence, watching Parker as he worked his way through some dry Cheerios and Emily as she scribbled on her place mat with a crayon. Finally, our food arrived.
“Are you going to tell me what’s the matter, Dave?” Kristen asked, cutting Emily’s chicken and broccoli into tiny, bite-size pieces.
I didn’t say anything, so she took my plate away and fired me a look that said, We are not doing this today.
“Give i
t back,” I said.
Kristen smiled and shook her head. “Not until you start talking.”
I quickly looked around the restaurant, hoping that none of my colleagues were there to witness what was shaping up to be a defining moment in my life.
“I’m serious,” I said, stifling a nervous grin. “Give it to me.”
Without taking her eyes off me, Kristen plucked a french fry from my plate and popped it in her mouth. “Mmm, this is so good. You should try some.”
I folded my arms and sat back in my seat, scowling at her. Emily started to ask her a question, but Kristen wouldn’t break eye contact. “Just a minute, Emily,” she said, interrupting. Slowly, she held out my plate, and when I reached for it, she pulled it back playfully.
“Gimme the damn burger,” I said.
“I will. Here, take it.”
She did it again and started laughing. She had me now, and all I could do was laugh in return. Finally, she handed back my plate, saying, “Now, use your words.”
It took a little more coaxing, but I finally explained what had been bothering me. I told Kristen that I’d cleaned my desk and that I’d planned on giving them a tour of the building. When I got to the part about the kids seeing me high-five a coworker, we both busted up laughing.
“Well, I’m sorry that we foiled your plan.” Kristen chuckled. “Why didn’t you just say that to begin with? We could have been enjoying ourselves this whole time, but instead you just sat there, brooding. That’s why you have to use your words.”
I admitted that I felt reluctant to submit to the process of communication when it mattered. I understood that we had to talk about things, but it seemed like an exercise that would invite a lot of arguments. “I don’t want to fight all the time,” I explained.