3rd Anniversary Observed (Great Expectations)

This weekend, Brock came for a visit (as I've mentioned before, we live two time zones apart). We celebrated our 3rd anniversary over homemade asparagus and pancetta harsh and mimosas. Brock has wonderful taste in jewelry and gave me a beautiful necklace set with 2,000 year old Roman glass. I've been eyeing up these beauties since 2004 and casually mentioned it last time I saw him. I'd like to get Brock a nice, personalized leather dopp kit, but Brock is pretty particular about his things so I'm waiting to see if it meets his size specifications.

I absolutely adore this man, but the dude is hard to be married to.  The marriage has heretofore been a complete disaster, but I stay because I'm crazy about him.

I'm beginning to see that the disaster comes from a mismatch of expectations and what can be. Brock and I each have expectation of what a wife should be, what a husband should be, and what a marriage should be. The mismatch is two-fold. We each have different expectations of these three things and these expectations are different from what these three things realistically could be. This is where the neurodiversity comes in -- we are both limited by the configuration of our brains. I wilt without attention. Brock shuts down without enough time to himself. As of this weekend, I've pretty much given any expectations I've had about myself as a wife, Brock as a husband, and our marriage in general the heave-ho. But now that we've stripped our marriage down to studs, I'm not sure how we're supposed to build it back. There's no blueprint.

Luckily, since Brock and I don't live together, we've got some time and space to think about this.

I've been asking myself a lot, "Why did I get married?"

I finally was able to answer that last night. Because I don't want to do everything alone. I want to share my life deeply with another person. Intimacy. Connection.

But, ironically, of 300 men I could have married, I picked one particularly intimacy-disabled. C'est la vie!

The action item is to ponder what we expect of each other and of this marriage. I'll continue to share as we figure things out. This blog is a counter-narrative of what a marriage can be.

Further reading: Giving Through Relationships 

Alias

Page from Trixie's journal Marriage Year 1. Note Brock spends all his time having "Me Time" and the empty thought bubble because Trixie never knows what Brock is thinking.

"So what do you want your alias to be?"
Without skipping a beat
"Brock Dalton"

I asked my husband for permission to write this blog anonymously to help organize my own thoughts as well as potentially help other people in a similar situation. We think the majority of the issues in our marriage are linked to our neurodiversity -- he's an Aspie; I'm neurotypical. As of today, we've decided to remake our marriage into a partnership that allows each of us to flourish. Not force Brock to behave neurotypical. Not force me to accommodate every Aspie quirk. We'll meet in the middle.

"I've been trying to learn how your brain works. I think maybe you should do some reading about it too so you can better explain it to me and learn some things that work from other like-minded people. I'm starting to finally 'get it'. Like the books. I hated the books. I resented the books. I wanted to set fire to the books..."

Brock is a big-time bibliophile. He generally reads two to three books at a time. He's read and cataloged 2,000+ book, most of which are currently in storage awaiting future display. The time he wants to spend reading seems to stretch to infinity. He gets stressed if he feels he's not reading enough, not making enough progress towards his 'reading goal'. Thai Spicy Basil, our cat, also hates the books. She's learned that books are the things that make the humans not pay attention to the kitty. When she's frustrated, she'll take it out on a book. But generally my books because I leave them laying about, not carefully organized and cherished like Brock's.

"But now I understand the books serve a greater purpose. They're how you cope. I get it and I want you to have all the book time you need."

"I've cut way back," Brock says.

And he has. Tons. Friday used to be magazine night where he caught up on The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and various trade publications. Now he only gets Harper's. Even still he reads more than any human I've ever encountered.

I need a few more behavior modifications from Brock around the subject of the books and reading.
1.) I need an idea of how long he needs to read for until he's ready for company and the next activity. Particularly because Brock needs to read for a while after he comes home from work. This gives me an estimate of when we can start dinner and what 'me' activity I can do while he's doing his thing.
2.) Brock has a habit of disappearing to go read when I'm under the impression that we are socializing. All I need is a verbal transition from him -- "I'm going to go read for a while now."