Maxine C. Aston > Quotes

“Trying to cope with too many external pressures at the same time is very stressful and difficult for people with AS. The response may be loss of temper but could also be complete shutdown or withdrawal from the situation.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Being a mother with Asperger syndrome seems to present more difficulties than being a father with AS. This may simply be due to society’s perceptions of the roles of mother and father. Mother is supposed to be warm, empathetic, intuitive, insightful, psychic, loving, caring and much more. Father is supposed to be provider, protector, somewhat distant, in control and disciplinary. These roles are changing now in Western society, but fifty years ago would have been quite traditional and rigid and being an AS father then would have probably been accepted as standard behaviour.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Asperger syndrome causes difficulty in other specific areas, such as social interaction and communication, verbal and non-verbal, empathetic thought and possibly obsessive tendencies”
― Maxine C. Aston, The Other Half of Asperger Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder): A Guide to Living in an Intimate Relationship with a Partner who is on the Autism Spectrum Second Edition

“It is easy for the NT partner to forget that her partner may not know what it is he should say or how he should respond to a given situation.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Many AS men have a history of being rejected and bullied, so when he meets a woman who meets the necessary criteria for wife or partner he will make every effort to impress her and make her happy. He will focus all his attention on her and make her feel very special indeed. Many women describe this courtship time as a happy and a special time in the relationship, which unfortunately often comes to an abrupt end once the relationship is sealed. At this time many NT women are left disillusioned and wondering how they got it all so wrong that they did not see their partner’s true character.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“I am often told by a very desperate and frustrated NT partner that she knows he cares about her, knows he is doing his best, so why is he so damned selfish?”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Use the example of dyslexia as a comparison, explaining that rather than affecting reading, writing and spelling, Asperger syndrome”
― Maxine C. Aston, The Other Half of Asperger Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder): A Guide to Living in an Intimate Relationship with a Partner who is on the Autism Spectrum Second Edition

“If the NT partner has little or no awareness and knowledge of AS she will continually receive the wrong messages and form a false perception on why some of the things he does make no sense whatsoever and just appear cruel and callous. It is almost impossible to understand this complex and confusing condition without any knowledge of its effects.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Asperger syndrome affects the ability to read the more subtle signs of non-verbal language,”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“the AS men I spoke to felt a sense of relief and some described discovering Asperger syndrome as a revelation. Many had struggled for years with relationships and had not been able to understand why they kept getting it wrong, despite trying so hard to get it right.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“If both partners in the relationship are left feeling as though they were deceived into believing their partner was different from their current behaviour, they could become equally resentful and both will stop giving and trying to please the other. This can have a very destructive effect on both partners and when the NT partner tries to explain why she is reacting differently, it is often misunderstood by the AS partner. He may have difficulty realizing that when he gave her so much attention and care, she was happy and went out of her way to please him. However, when he suddenly stopped putting in any effort into the relationship after they moved in together, she became unhappy and reacted against this.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“It has been said that if you want the truth you should ask someone with Asperger syndrome. The only way he could understand the pain he had caused was to relate it back to something that might have made him feel inadequate and inferior. This was the only way he could comprehend what effect his words had had on her. As a consequence of this incident he became very careful about what he said in the future.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“They want their partners to intuitively know and understand what is required of them. They want to feel their partners understand their needs and desires without having to spell it out to them time after time.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Research by G. W. Brown in 1993 showed there were links between stress in relationships and mental and physical health.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“The only time I have seen AS men change their perception of themselves is when they have had a diagnosis and realized that what their partners were saying was true: there really was, for instance, a problem in communication – he did not always know what she wanted. For some adults with AS, finding that there is a reason for why they do not always get it right or why they cannot seem to make their partner happy comes as a complete revelation.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Control is as essential to adults with Asperger syndrome as air to breathe. Keeping control is the only way they feel they can survive in a complex world full of mixed emotions and inconsistent feelings, all of which are a complete mystery to them. They have to try and interpret a language they have no knowledge of; there are no guidebooks on the unspoken word.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Both withdrawing and explosive behaviour are an attempt by the person to regain control of the situation.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“if one thinks about non-verbal communication and how it is so taken for granted by NT people. Try to imagine that, after many years, you discover that other people on this planet could read what someone was thinking if that person wanted them to, and you were one of the few people who could not do this. You would have grown up in the world without this knowledge because all those around would have presumed you had the ability, which was natural and automatic. It would not have occurred to them that you could not do this and it was therefore never questioned by them and, of course, you never said anything. Because you did not know this ability existed, you just struggled to understand people according to what they said and the non-verbal language they used, and when they got upset because you had not read their internal thoughts, you could not understand what you had done wrong. How could you have known what they meant? Why had they not communicated to you what they meant? Your partner accuses you of giving out the wrong signals and not sending the right thought patterns. This is simply because you do not have and have never had this ability. You can work things out up to a point, but could never reach the level that other people can, because this ability to read minds does not exist in you. If you can imagine what this would feel like, you will be able to grasp what it is like for people with Asperger syndrome and just how confusing the whole process of communication is for them.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“These roles still hold true in some cultures and indeed in some relationships today. I think it can be said that, even in today’s society, in many cases men are put under a lot less pressure to be nurturers in the family than women are.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs

“Many women felt they could not trust their AS partner or rely on him for anything: money, talking, looking after the children, being honest, offering emotional support or being responsible. It was even felt by some women that their partners were an actual risk and danger to the family.”
― Maxine Aston, Aspergers in Love: Couple Relationships and Family Affairs