So if you would just like to start by telling me your experience of having Asperger's then.
Richard: Well for most of my life I didn’t know what it was. Seven years ago.
Sue: Six or seven years ago now.
Richard: Well around seven years ago I was diagnosed. So the majority of my life I didn’t have Asperger's. I was just the way I am. And a friend of my wife read a newspaper article, showed it to my wife, who then persuaded me to consider the diagnosis and eventually I was diagnosed. I don’t know whether it was more your experience of living with me than it was now, because I mean that would be valid from beforehand anyway.
Sue: I thought it was important to get a diagnosis even though having read the article I was quite sure that that described Richard quite accurately. When I pressed my GP about it, he basically said, “Well if you think that is what it is, why do you need a diagnosis? Why does it have to be official?” Basically from my point of view it made quite a difference to me that it was a matter of living another 30 years with somebody with a disability or living another 30 years with somebody who apparently didn’t care. So I felt it was important to get that clarified really. So that I could find my way in the situation really, find a way to deal with the difficulties that we had been experiencing right through our marriage, up to that point.
