Be kind it's only the first one

Be kind its only the first one - April 4th 2013

This week it was Autism awareness week I felt it was a good time to start this blog. I have wanted to for a few years now after a few kind words from a lady who I spoke to once many years ago who described me as the strongest person she had ever met.  I was amazed as at the time I was a quivering jelly like substance who cried every time someone even looked at me strangely but a lot has happened since and I've never forgotten her.

I felt it was important to write this after I had enquired many years ago, if there were any  help lines/support groups for partners of Aspies who struggle with the day to day realities. A place where you can go AAARRGGHHHHH and people understand! Most of the people I have spoken too do not. I love my husband to bits but there are days when I could easily cut him up and bury him in our back garden but comments such as "leave him I would" are neither helpful nor constructive. I was told that there are no groups for partners but lots for parents? when I asked why I was informed no one stays married? This is ridiculous we have been together 13yrs? and I have since learned I am not alone. It's ridiculous to say such a thing he is a brilliant husband thoughtful, loyal,honest and hardworking but also well a bit nuts. This is the BEST quality of them all and the one I want to share with you as he has made me laugh and cry over the years but life is never boring.

I don't think I could live with anyone else now I have learnt the ONLY place for the coffee table is in the center of the lounge, country music summons up the devil and the colour yellow tastes of mold. Such things have almost started making sense, I say almost as I feel its a slippery slope that .... lets not go there eh?. I am neither clever, talented or even beautiful for that matter but the one thing I do have is a sense of humour and this has carried me through the last 13 years.  I have often been told I should write a book but I cant spell and have no knowledge of grammer at all, and I write as I speak with all my school reports stating if I was as interested in my studies as I was in talking I could be Einstein! so here goes 

I joined a gym as I was very unhappy and thats where we met, he was a struggling artist/poet who invited me to see his etchings and I was actually very disappointed as he did actually mean his etchings. I have since learned he never says anything he doesn't mean. He has a sense of naivety about him that I find very attractive and he has never lost that. Don't get me wrong I am not looking at it in a way as a mother would but he is not the typical lad who talks women and football, I found him a breath of fresh air. He treated me like porcelain he text-ed me when he said he would he listened to me intently and he appeared to know more about me than anyone else ever had. I didn't need to explain, it just was 'I became his world'. I would find notes cards etc all confirming this and I loved the attention, i felt loved and special so I fell head over heels in love with him.

One day I found him crying as he was so worried about wallpaper colours as he couldnt live with any run of the mill print I would choose. He had to have the final say in any decor as he is unable to compromise which struck me as odd and I really didnt understand what he was trying to tell me I do now. 

OH 

        I

           DO

                NOW 

Every house we have lived in the coffee table is always in the middle of the lounge, no more can I come home from work and move the furniture around like I used to as the furniture either 'tastes right or wrong' therefore its always the same. I cannot have the brilliant white paint work i used to love and I cannot have the wild bright prints I used to have every where. Our house is a mad mix of William Morris prints and greens and greys. Waterhouse ladies on walls and no carpets on the floors. Our cat Horace, a very resent addition has learnt that certain areas of the house are no go areas and that all the pebbles/stones in piles are in fact not to be played with but Jon's precious friends gathered over the years but I'm afraid the dried seahorse he has had since he was a child has since lost his head, oops naughty cat! 

It is a mass of stuff most of which kept since childhood and deemed to be precious. I used to spend hours sorting and chucking stuff in my home and a 'trip to the tip' was always exciting but again this rarely happens now. Don't get me wrong I love our house the clutter the loft/office full of boxes its ours but I do often crave open space and anything from IKEA.

I came home from work once to see all my knickers and bras strung up on fishing wire outside our flat blowing in the wind, all my tatty ones as well! Jon and the kids all smiling and laughing it was a celebration of me coming home. I was bloody furious to start with but over the years I've warmed to it and it really was kind of sweet. They were genuinely pleased to see me, few people have love like that the kids have grown up but Jon is the same. I was lucky and that feeling keeps me going even now nobody has what I have its not always easy but its always different and i wouldn't swap it EVER