Product Description

Written by the wife of a man with Asperger Syndrome (AS), this work should provide the answers to many of the questions asked by the increasing number of people in that situation. It explains how behaviours that may have appeared odd are the manifestations of AS, and shows how understanding can lead to change, or to greater tolerance. It also provides strategies for living successfully with characteristics that cannot be changed, pointing out that AS brings also enormous strengths to a relationship, and emphasizing the value of understanding.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162662 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

About the Author
Ashley Stanford has worked as a technical writer for 11 years and has published many technical guides, teacher guides, parent guides and children's activity books. Her husband and her two sons have Asperger Syndrome.

Customer Reviews

Not quite the whole story
Ashley Stanford is a pseudonym used by a woman married for 14 years to a man with AS. They live in the US and have four children, three on the autistic spectrum. She and her husband both have successful careers, hers as a technical writer, and her husband’s in computers.

This book is most complete analysis so far published of an AS/NT marriage - the one I would give to anyone who has just discovered that they are involved in such a relationship, and to professonal just encountering the condition. It includes a chapter on where to look for help - books, articles, websites and organisations - plus a glossary of AS terminology and an index.

The book is built around the USA-based set of AS diagnostic criteria, DSM-IV. Taking each AS characteristic in turn the writer examines how it may (or may not) appear in an AS individual, then discusses implications and solutions for managing this particular characteristic within the relationship. For illustrative examples and quotations she cites her own experience and that of personal friends and “information that is classified as common knowledge”.

It was not until page 256 that I read “Please note that this book does not address issues of adultery, abuse, or other pernicious behaviors that are reasonable grounds for divorce. These issues are not AS-related and therefore are irrelevant to this book. If you are currently dealing with such issues as adultery or abuse please find help through a competent counselor, therapist or lawyer.”

The book’s weakest point is that it scarcely touches upon those topics which seem most to concern the partners of people with AS who post on message boards – verbal, emotional and physical abuse, the sense of being trapped in a hopeless situation, exacerbated by poverty, depression and illness, and lack of support and understanding from family and the medical profession.

By Far the Best book on Subject
The most important person to provide an Asperger with friendly empathetic support - the SPOUSE.

I have Asperger's Syndrome am married with a young son.

This book is packed full of useful information, tips and self-help. It is the best written, intelligent, outstanding, and most complete and comprehensive relationship book I have read on the subject of Long-Term NT/AS Relationships.

There is so much important information in this book that I read it twice in the first two days upon its arrival through the letter box.

This book is straightforward and easy to read as Ashley Stanford tells of the joys and explores the struggles of living with a husband who has Asperger Syndrome. She honestly describes her own difficulties understanding and translating her husband's at times rather odd and irritating behaviour.

Stanford has extraordinary insight and ability to technically analyze each Asperger trait then in turn methodically goes through in detail the Implications and Solutions for that specific trait.

At all times Ashley's tone is light, inspirational, full of understanding, acceptance towards the difficulties her husband experiences as an Asperger struggling and agonising through life's daily mind-numbing social hick-ups.

Stanford highlights time and time again the enormous benefits and strengths an NT gains from being married to an Asperger. She shows with compassion how to make an NT/AS marriage work also drawing on the experiences of others who have had lived with Asperger partners to give real-life positive practical solutions that have worked for her and other couples dealing with problems.

This book is most benifitical and aimed at the N/T spouse/partner to build a healthier, happier marriage, less stressed existence by better coping and appreciating an Asperger's partner's often alternate-universe.

Like with any book on Asperger's Syndrome it does not have all the answers as no one does.

I highly recommend this book not only for adults, but also parents who are looking forward to their AS child's future. I'll actually go further and say this is a must have, which I do not say lightly-it's that good.

Useful and detailed, but offers little advice for the Aspie partner
This is a good book that explains very well the various issues that can appear in someone with Asperger's Syndrome, the implications of their behaviour, how it could affect their relationship/marriage, and how you might address that issue or find a solution that can work for both partners.

However (in common with other books on Aspie relationships) the advice, and indeed the whole book, is aimed primarily at the partner of the person with Asperger's Syndrome, not at the Aspie him/herself. It's a book on how to be successfully married to an Aspie, not a book for an Aspie on how to be successfully married to a non-Aspie. Maybe the assumption is that Aspies are beyond help or advice, but I don't accept that.

The structure of the book also seemed not ideal. The chapters and sub-chapters are broken down by following a list of symtoms from an official medical diagnosis of AS. While there's a certain (and slightly anal) logic about this, it doesn't really work - some diagnostic criteria have a much greater impact, and much greater range of impacts, than others, and so deserve much more attention; some diagnostic criteria have very little impact on a relationship and so aren't really worth bringing up at all. Some behaviours come up under several different diagnostic criteria and so are repeated; there are behaviours that are common in Aspies that don't really come under any of the rigid headings used, and so get left out. Breaking down the chapters by behaviour, rather than symptom, I feel would have made the book better.

I don't want to come across as criticising this book too much - it remains a good and detailed book with a lot of useful things to say, and much good advice. It's just a pity so little is aimed at the Aspie partner in the relationship.