He kisses her on the cheek, slings his golf bag over his shoulder and heads out the door with a breezy,”Don’t worry, honey, he’ll grow out of this autism-thing on his own.” In the meantime, she keeps a rigid schedule of appointments for every autism therapy – traditional, biomedical, experimental or pure black magic – she can find. He listens to his mother. She listens to whomever will take her call. What little time they have together is spent arguing about who is right and who is wrong. ’Quality couple time’ turns into an opportunity to fight without the children overhearing. Marriage is difficult enough, but autism can make it even more so.
One way to help neutralize autism’s effect on a marriage is to engage your spouse in creating an aligned viewpoint. Alignment is simply another often-used corporate term that means getting on the same page. To start building alignment with your spouse, start with a fresh sheet of paper and answer these three questions: (more…)
