Feeling alone and frustrated with a 180.

[Psych77]

This is my first post, so I don't really know how to start. However, I feel that I need to talk to somebody, and that is not happening with my wife now. So, I figured this would be a place to meet people who can talk with me.

My wife and I have been married for almost 18 years. They have been turbulent. Part of that is probably because I have Asperger's syndrome, which makes me fairly advanced in intellectual matters but very much deficit in being able to understand even the obvious, socially.

I don't suppose it makes sense now to try to give a narrative of our marriage. Put simply, for years we had a cycle of intense conflict (often due to my difficulty keeping jobs or organizing important things in my life - I also have ADD ) and intense love and affection. During the times of conflict she often threatened to divorce me.

Now that is not happening. All that was happening was she was getting irritated and offended by what I did (it usually seems to me that she is overreacting, but with my Asperger's it is just as likely that I am failing to recognize something positively offensive that I actually did), I become defensive and scared about what was happening to our relationship, I would lose my temper (which hasn't been happening for a while, since i have been in therapy) or become clingy to try to offset the distance between us, she would get annoyed with my clinginess...well, you get the picture.

Years ago, during one of our first major fallouts, one of my first therapists suggested "Divorce Busting." We bought a copy. Strangely, I can't find it now. Maybe we gave it away to a friend in a troubled marriage during one of the times we thought we had it "all sorted out." But recently I remembered the 180 technique from the book (had not actually thought about the book for years). I looked it up online, and found the list. I started doing it, and immediately saw results. Not in terms of returned affection (at all), but a serious decrease in conflict. I am just not expecting much of her, relying on myself, and speaking cordially but not excessively to my wife.

I haven't been keeping up perfectly with it, partially because I don't know where to set limits. As we had been getting along better lately, the other night I turned to my wife and asked, "Are you up for a quickie?" I said it casually, as though half joking, to cover the fact that I was really feeling isolated (I am told that seeking sex as a form of closeness is not just an Asperger thing, but a "men" thing in general). I guess that was a pretty clear departure from the "180" program, and I guess I shouldn't have gone there, but there do not seem to be any negative results. She said no, particularly because lately we haven't really been talking, and she feels that it is inappropriate for us to have sex without much of a relationship. I can respect that.

A few minutes later, she turned toward me and told me, "I'm not angry with you." I'm not sure you will understand what that meant to me. You see, with such difficulty understanding social interaction and the implied meanings of words, I often miss when there is anger if it is not clearly stated. So, I often find myself wondering if someone is angry with me, especially on so sensitive a subject, or when someone tells me no. Her decision to clarify that point for me was a move of consideration on her part - she knew an area where I struggle, and she chose to recognize it and act to relieve it. I was very touched.

So, here I am, trying to continue (or get back on track) on the 180. But in the meantime, I do feel very lonely and isolated. And I worry - how long does this last. How will I know when it has "worked?" How will I know when to start opening up to my wife again, as the 180 feels like I am closing off to her.

I know that this post is pretty tangential, so thank you for your patience in reading. I'm just hoping to strike up some conversations with people, to talk to someone about my feelings and experiences, maybe even develop some online freindships (not really looking for IRL, but then, people here are from all over the country, so what is the chance of an actual meetup anyway?).

Hello, community. Anybody wanna talk?