Emma Leigh-Currill
Yesterday morning, we had an important meeting that was cancelled with quite short notice. I had not slept very well in anticipation of it, Hubbie had arranged his workday to have taken the 2hrs that we needed, and we had spent time thoroughly preparing for it: we really needed it to be done and over.
When I’ve anticipated something important for a time and it’s changed, however well meaning, I find that difficult. I get emotional, frustrated, angry (and increasingly sarcastic I’ve found) as I work through my emotions to process the disappointment.
Recently Hubbie and I have been talking about the positives of a diagnosis and during my disappointment yesterday he mentioned that knowing that I need time to process and that I find change very difficult he now totally understood how I reacted. He also said that he knew that he needed to give me the time to talk (his ear off) and by the afternoon he knew I would have worked through my feelings, and I’d be back on an even keel.
And he was right.
After lunch I wrote this blog at the lakeside café while the boys were out on the lake in the pouring rain. (I absolutely know I got the better end of the deal with this situation by the way!)
And I was calm and I had perspective and I knew we can rearrange the meeting, and all will be fine.
And I realised that the blog I wrote discussing my pathway to my autism diagnosis was all about me and why I needed to understand myself a little better but actually the diagnosis has helped Hubbie to also understand me a little better too. It’s not that in the past 20 years we’ve been together that he’s not listened to me or not supported me because he has, it’s more that he totally gets that I really can’t help the way I feel and behave and that processing these thoughts and feelings is incredibly important.
This clarity for both of us, is relationship altering.
