fruitbat83:When did your H get diagnosed and how do you both 'manage'? How does it manifest itself with your Hubby?
He was diagnosed as a child, but unfortunately very little was done to help him. His parents assumed he would "grow out of it". He had speech therapy but that was the only help he received, even though he barely talked and wasn't properly toilet trained for a long time.
We manage because he is fairly high-functioning and because I'm patient with him. He was many good traits linked to autism which are very attractive, like he cannot lie. He is also very loving. He finds it very difficult to emphathise with me, but he really cares, almost like I'm a mother figure (that sounds really weird but it's the best way I can describe it).
The main ways it becomes apparent is with social interactions. They don't come "naturally" to him at all, and if he is uncomfortable he freezes, and doesn't know where to look. He finds it hard to maintain eye-contact - the first time he met my mum he didn't look her in the eye at all. He has to learn everything and make himself remember certain cues as to how to behave - I had to teach him how to make people feel comfortable around him, what to look out for when someone is upset etc. Prior to meeting me he used countless self-help books to "teach" him social interactions. He also becomes anxious and panicky at really minor things, and becomes fixated on them. I've learnt that the best thing to do is to rock with him when he gets like this, as it helps to calm him down. He cannot understand sarcasm or metaphors etc, and takes what I say really literally, so I have to be careful in how I phrase things and my tone of voice.