Elanso

“…….happy endings are possible, even if they’re not quite the endings originally envisaged.”

So an article in today’s Telegraph about love and Asperger’s syndrome describes the relationship between Sarah Hendrickx and Keith Newton. The couple met through internet dating:

……the first stage of their relationship was fiery and fraught. To Sarah, Keith was ‘a puzzle’. He’d plainly state that their blissful weekends were enough for him, that he’d never live with her or even move nearer. Sarah frequently found him selfish, cold and distant. Keith found Sarah hard work, demanding and ’screechy’.

Hendrickx got a job with ASpire, an organization which works with adults with Asperger’s, and realized that Newton might have Asperger’s; he eventually was diagnosed.

Learning about AS, he says, was ‘life-changing’. Suddenly what Sarah describes as his ‘isolated, biscuit-eating life’ made sense. Keith had been bullied at school and gone through university with no friends at all. He’d had only two jobs in his life doing the same thing and two very short-lived relationships (the first at 31). ‘From an early age you try to join the world, but gradually, with rejection and not being able to understand social situations, it becomes too taxing,’ he says. ‘I wanted relationships with women but didn’t have the confidence, the tools or the means.’

Hendrickx and Newton have co-written a book, Asperger Syndrome - A Love Story.

And as for that opening description of a happy ending being possible, even if not as “originally envisaged”: This is very much how I think about life with Charlie, a good and a happily ever life—-with a lot of twists in the plot and surprise of an ending. And always, lots of love.

Share This