Living well with Ethan's aspergers is as much about me
changing as it is him.
I don't mean losing who I am or wearily giving into the way
things are. But I do mean letting go of self-righteous anger and condescending
rebuke - even when it feels justified. I mean nurturing a calm approach and
actively reigning in my desire to react angrily when Ethan has let me down or
is, frankly, being an idiot. I mean increasing my understanding and finding
effective ways to handle disputes. I mean by accepting, sometimes, that I need
to be the one to act like a grown-up, to take responsibility for not fuelling
and heightening stress and, if needs be, sacrificing my right to 'be in a mood'
so that he can be in his, come through the other side, and calm can be
restored.
I don't mean to big myself up at all. It's all very well, in
the tranquillity of this moment, to write all this. In reality, it's flipin'
hard to do.
Take today for instance. I was going to be out during school
pick-up time meaning Ethan needed to collect the kids. He was well briefed on the
matter. I warned him the day before, told him again on the morning in question
and made him sit down and focus whilst I went through arrangements one last time before
leaving the house. Ethan rolled his eyes at me.
A familiar sense of foreboding overcame me as I pulled up on
the drive a couple of hours later to the sight of Ethan happily hacking at our
front room wall (yes, the project lives on - it's good and bad. Good because it
occupies him and bad because it occupies him...to the exclusion of everything else).
School had finished fifteen minutes earlier and I couldn't see or, more to the
point, hear the kids. As I walked through the door I knew my question was
ridiculous but I hoped for the best.
"'Are you back from school already?"
Ethan gasped, swore
and scrambled for the car keys. This, my friends, is when my wise words and
good intentions came tumbling down around me! A tiny part of me was desperately
trying to hold onto that still, small voice telling me to be calm, not to
shout, to employ understanding. But my carnal instincts won out.
"I don't believe it," I chastised, "I can't
rely on you for anything."
"I know you can't," boomed Ethan as he stormed
past me and slammed the front door.
For the next five minutes I battled inwardly between the
desire to have a go at him and pity myself for having such a useless husband,
or to make the conscious decision, despite the circumstances and my feelings
(which are fickle companions) that I would try to understand, that I wouldn't
overreact, that I wouldn't feel sorry for myself and that I wouldn't make
everything worse by attacking him any
more than I already had.
It took huge resolve. Particularly as, when he got home with
the kids, he snapped at Ava, shouted at me and then stomped into the front
room, slamming the door closed. Everything in me wanted to burst into that room
and tell him what a horrible person he was. To ask how he dare shout at all of
us when he was in the wrong. But I'm learning through experience that such
reactions just sink us both further into anger and resentment. By choosing to
stay silent and keep away, I starved the furious feelings in us both of oxygen.
I forced myself to chat with the kids, to engage in their days and to take my
mind away from my frustration. The situation ceased to be so huge. And about
half an hour later, having had time and space to 'come down', Ethan surfaced
and apologised. I wasn't very gracious. I couldn't quite resist pointing out
that he had acted like a s**t - not by forgetting to pick up the kids but by
shouting at us all afterwards. But I said it calmly and packaged it in
understanding ('I know you were absorbed in what you were doing') and,
crucially, after the heat of the event itself. We listened to each other,
hugged each other and started again - again.
As I wrote this blog entry, I'd just phoned Ethan to remind
him to pick up Sam from karate at 6.30pm because, as well as learning not to react angrily in the moment, I've also
learnt that by micro-managing Ethan, I can avoid these situations arising. I
need to tell him what to do, then remind him, then remind him again. There's no
use getting frustrated, it's just the way it is. Some things, again I'm
learning, I just need to accept and make the best of.
I agree Laura, some things you just have to accept and make the best of. But it's a two way process, and in my case, I'm reluctant to allow Mr H the luxury of not having responsibility for his actions, and I'm not prepared to be the only one to make changes. For me, micro-managing Mr H would work, but sometimes it seems like too much effort, I did it with my children, a bit of me feels resentful that I should have to do it for my husband.
ReplyDeleteHannah x
"It's all very well, in the tranquillity of this moment, to write all this. In reality, it's flipin' hard to do." This. Not reacting to them can be sooooo hard. I just pray I won't, but last week I lost it and yelled at him. I refrain from giving my husband a task unless it is totally unavoidable because it is easier to do it myself. It's like having a child. Your posts are so relatable. I have been living this for years. (Married thirteen yrs-learned about Asperger's two days ago)
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