Let Her Eat Cake

I wish I could eat cake. And pie, and bread, and pasta, and white rice…

The thought of having even a skinny little slice of that heavenly cake with a huge cup of freshly brewed Guatemalan coffee nearly makes me swoon.

The sad truth is that I have to avoid ‘white foods’. Anything containing flour and/or sugar explodes in my system and turns me into a blimp. I don’t like blimps. As long as I avoid those things I don’t have to exercise. I hate exercise more than I love eating cake.

I also love to cuddle. My Sweetheart has been playing in the cactus league lately. He’s all prickly, preoccupied, and withdrawn. Granted, I do understand why. He’s been trying to find a new position in his company, and his current college course that he is teaching is ending. He has his first student graduation to help conduct on Sunday. He is worried about his gown, hat, and graduation stoles. He is anxious about what to do.

I am not going to the graduation as Kidlet has a tournament all weekend out of town. I sometimes forget how much Steve relies on me to help him with unfamiliar situations.

So I sit myself down to re-read my Aspie materials.

Although people with Asperger’s Syndrome do feel affection towards others, relationships are not a priority for them in the same way that it is for people who do not have Asperger’s Syndrome. People with Asperger’s Syndrome generally seem to be more focused on a particular interest, project or task than on the people around them.

Because the person with Asperger’s Syndrome does not have the same relational needs as the non-Asperger partner, he or she is mostly unable to recognize instinctively or to meet the emotional needs of his or her partner. Marriages can thus form seriously dysfunctional relationship patterns.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/november102009/aspergers_kf.php

I zero in on ‘meet the emotional needs’. I think about situations where one spouse can no longer ‘meet’ those needs due to illness or injury. Does that stop love? Does it cancel out marriage vows?

James Garner has been one of my all-time favorite actors. I especially loved him in the movie ‘The Notebook’, based on the Nicolas Sparks novel. I was in tears at the love and tenderness Garner portrayed with the elderly Ally.

I’m able to differentiate between reality and fiction, but there usually tends to be a kernel of truth in many fictional stories. I can choose my own reality. I can meet my own emotional needs. I can opt out of the ‘poor me, poor me, pour me another drink’ syndrome. I do not have to allow ‘dysfunction’ to rule our marriage. I can gaze longingly at that lovely piece of cake while recognizing that it simply isn’t good for me and resist eating it.

But oh, it looks sooooo delicious….