Why this marriage is different

Chris and Gisela Slater-Walker are just like any other married couple. They make love, they have rows, they go to work and they play with their young son. To the world they are nothing special. But this marriage is different - because Chris has a form of autism, a disorder which has wreaked havoc with many aspects of his life and has at times driven Gisela to the edge of despair.

The word autism strikes terror into the hearts of parents everywhere. As more children are diagnosed with this devastating disorder - said to have increased tenfold in the past decade - controversy rages over the MMR vaccine, which some claim may cause it.

Autism doesn't end with childhood, however. The children grow up and must face the world with a range of disabilities which can prevent them from earning a living, finding love or caring for themselves.

Yet Chris and Gisela are proof that some who have this disorder can find happiness and maintain a relationship. Not only have they come through the worst of times, they have now written a book about their remarkable marriage.

They met at Manchester University where they were studying Russian. She was a mature student, nine years older than Chris, with a broken marriage behind her and three children. He had little experience of love, his timidity holding him back when a girl seemed interested.

He felt different from his peers and had great difficulty communicating, existing in a world of curious obsessions, preferring computers to people. Paradoxically, he was a brilliant linguist who had already been to Oxford but couldn't cope.

So what did Gisela see in this awkward young man? She admits it was his language skills and the thought that he might be able to help with her course work that first attracted her to him. "He was shy and I'm quite happy to go and make people feel more at home." And there was one other important factor: she did - and still does - "fancy him".

But as they set up home together with her children, she couldn't fail to notice the difficulties. At first she liked his quietness and the fact that he didn't complain when she suggested her ex-husband come on holidays with them, for the children's sake.

When Chris's quietness began to present itself as long, infuriating silences, however, Gisela was not amused. "He has silences for hours. If I ask him a question it can take him a couple of minutes or even longer to process what I've asked him and then to process the reply. He can ignore it altogether if he doesn't make sense of it or doesn't know what to say," Chris says: "It's an extremely uncomfortable experience for me as well. Mostly I've absolutely no idea what the right answer is."

But the worst aspect was what, to most women, would seem like his insensitivity to her needs. He wouldn't hug her spontaneously or remember her birthday, and when Gisela had to go into hospital for an operation he didn't collect her as arranged. She waited, but there was no sign of him. "I went from being upset to storming." Finally she rang his work to find out when he had left. He was still there, physically unable to bring himself to ask his boss if he could go to get her.

Now Gisela understands the mental blocks that prevent Chris from acting as a normal husband would. But at that time, neither of them had any idea he had a form of autism called Asperger's syndrome. All Chris knew was that he was "somehow different". Only when they were given a book written by neurologist Oliver Sacks and read a description of Asperger's did the penny drop. "It was almost like a caricature of him," Gisela says. They made an appointment with a specialist and their suspicions were confirmed.

Chris is 36 now. The discovery came five years ago. "I wasn't surprised," he says. "Having read Oliver Sacks's book it seemed it could be describing me."

Asperger symptoms include a lack of imagination, painful awkwardness in social situations, and an obsession with certain topics such as, in Chris's case, computers, classical music and amateur radio. In addition, sufferers' voices are flat and speech is stilted. They can seem interested in themselves to the exclusion of all others, and they may appear to lack all common sense. They can also be depressive and may get angry easily.

There are believed to be about 30,000 children in the UK with Asperger's syndrome out of a total of 500,000 believed to have autism.

It seems astonishing now that no one diagnosed the disorder in Chris earlier. Neither his parents nor his schools sent him for an assessment.

"My mother says she knew there was something different from about 18 months," Chris explains. "She says she used to have to try to make me play with other kids. I would always stand on the edge. I wouldn't naturally join in, but she didn't suspect I might have something like autism."

Few people had heard of autism in the 1960s and even now Asperger's can be missed because of the subtlety of the symptoms. As Chris was academically able no one asked too many questions about his inability to communicate, join in class discussions or make friends.

With marriage, however, came rows. Gisela, who describes herself as "placid", shed tears and broke crockery, not understanding Chris's silences, his failure to make eye contact or react to body language.

He was terrified by her emotions. "It made me feel like running away. But usually when I got over it I would try to make some gesture towards trying to rectify the situation." Yet he admits he has "a short fuse".

Chris works in IT and does well - he earns more than 45-year-old Gisela, an English teacher. They live in a four-bedroom semi in Watford. In many ways their life is normal. They go on holidays to France, they shop together at the weekend and go to the cinema.

But the marriage very nearly ended at one stage. One of the biggest hurdles was the presence of Gisela's three children, Hugh, Henry and Olivia. Things got particularly bad during their teens. But with his own son, George, now nine, things were different. During Gisela's labour, Chris wept when she cried in pain. Now father and son have a tight bond. "George is like his father," says Gisela. Does she fear he may also be autistic? "No, I'm certain he doesn't have Asperger's syndrome," she says, despite the fact that the condition is believed to have a strong family link. "My mother is convinced her father had it," Chris says. "He died when I was 12 or 13."

Since the diagnosis, and particularly since writing the book, Chris and Gisela have forged a better, more honest relationship. She understands now what is behind his silences. He, in turn, is doing his best to improve.

"Not that it was ever a marriage from hell," she says. "Now I can understand the way he is thinking about things. There is a chapter saying why he values being married to me. He's never said anything like that before. When I read it I felt I had received a love letter from him."

Chris has a lot of self-awareness, which gives hope, too. "The differences between me and other people are quite subtle but they are also profound. I feel the way I look at the world is so utterly different that it's like coming from another planet."

For the past four years he has taken a drug called Citalopram, a Prozac-like medication prescribed for depression, which has "got rid of a lot of my obsessional behaviour and anxiety".

So what is life like for Gisela now? "It is difficult to be married to someone with Asperger's. I'm aware every day that he has the syndrome and that I speak to him differently. If I want a hug, I'll have to ask for it. I'm never going to have a really intuitive understanding. But it has become easier and easier to deal with."

Chris says: "I think I can be quite difficult to live with. We've had some tough times. There was total non-communication for a time. I think I did very nearly bring our marriage to an end." But while he doubts he will ever be able to say "I love you" to Gisela, he did astonish her this month by buying her a dozen red roses for Valentine's Day.

An Asperger Marriage by Gisela and Christopher Slater-Walter is published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers at £12.95.