Hi there.
First time poster here. I'm in my late twenties and was diagnosed with level 1 ASD earlier this year.
Initially my partner of (at the time almost) 3 years was really supportive. However as he's had chance to process the diagnosis he seems to be struggling with it, knowing I can't really support him emotionally as much as he might like or have experienced with past relationships.
He suffers from depression anyway and has received regular counselling during the 3 years we've been together.
Our biggest issue is I do things that to me are little, might cause a small annoyance but you move on. He sees them as a bigger issue, a sign of bigger problems that I don't consider him. For example we went camping at the weekend, I took my travel pillow and he asked me to pack his pillow off the bed but I forgot. Another example, I asked if he could tidy some paperwork away as it was stressing me out being untidy but his view is we both live there and why does the flat always have to be my way.
I've tried explaining when I do something like that it's not conscious or with intent to hurt him and I can usually see the point he's making after.
Issue is this will blow up- for example he hasn't talked to me in 2 days since the tidying up thing. So to me I feel his reaction is out of proportion and to him he feels hurt I don't consider him more. It seems to be happening more and more since my diagnosis, things that weren't so bad before seem magnified now, as if confirmation I'll always be this way makes it harder to deal with.
I also made the mistake of not hiding my dislike of his mum (also his only family member) - not to her face and I've always been pleasant but she comes across manipulative and quick to judge. This hurt him a lot, which again I understand and tbh I wish I could have just lied when he asked how I thought the day was going but I couldn't.
I love him to bits, I don't have many people in my life (people are hard work!) and I really see him as being the person I'll spend the rest of my life with. But not if we can't get past handling these situations better. The rest of the time our relationship is amazing, we don't argue, he's truly my best friend. I just feel stuck in a loop not knowing how better to communicate with him. I also feel like he over-reacts but he says not as I hurt him. I don't want to hurt him but I really struggle to see why such little things have the effect they do and to see it from his view point and he, understandably, finds that hard.
I'm sorry my first post is such a long one :-/ I guess I'm just curious how others have handled relationships (either if you have an autism diagnosis or it's your partner) and similar mis-communications.
