My Asperger partner: top three gripes

The three top things that annoy me (this week) about living with a partner with Aspergers are:

1.  His complete unwillingness/inability to see that he is in the wrong. He owes a parking charge at the moment that he refuses to pay. By his own admission his car stayed twenty minutes longer than the ticket allowed. He’s been done fair and square: except that he can’t see it like that. He thinks the charge is unduly high – which, I agree it is (although it would have been a great deal less if he’d have paid it straight away), and his mistake was genuine – in his mind these two things means he shouldn’t have to pay. He just won’t/can’t admit to being in the wrong and accepting the consequences
2. His absolute necessity to have a half hour toilet/shower/ipad session every single morning – even if it means making us even later for something than we already are or, more often than not, leaving me to do everything and even forfeit having time for breakfast (let alone have a wash) so that we can be on time.
3. His absentness (if that’s a word) both in conversation and in practical terms. So I can go on and on about how important it is for Ethan to take Sam’s cheque into gym that evening as we’re already a week late paying it. I can get him to look at me while I speak and repeat back what he needs to do with the cheque. I can even put it in his hand as he leaves... and he’ll still come back holding it.

In the interests of fairness, I guess I should include the top three things that, I’m sure, annoy Ethan about me:

1. Being stressed all the time – and making a point of telling Ethan why I’m stressed - relaying my to-do list to him and generally off-loading the side effects of my stressed, rushed, busy life onto him as he lies on the sofa and watches film trailers.
2. Being flighty – changing my mind, changing my plans, changing my mood at a moment’s notice. Although I must say that the kids have a lot to answer for here. But for Ethan to keep up with confusing mood changes (even within the hour sometimes) and a family picnic in the park morphing into friends coming round to our house for lunch is challenging to say the least.
3. Talking too much – at him, to him, around him. Combine this with our eight-year-old daughter feeling the need to share every thought, sight, sound and smell she ever has with us, and Ethan has to put up with a lot of prattle!