Sorry this may be long. The man I'm seeing is on the spectrum, I believe his diagnosis was for aspergers or high functioning autism but he never shared the full details/outcome of his assessment. He is very high functioning and only really struggles with communication and anxiety, but for communication he struggles in a massive way. His family have never understood his issues or taken the time to try and see things in his way, and are just very nasty about him. Luckily I have worked in an SEN school and my teenage sister also has autism so I understood him very well and helped him get the diagnosis. We've worked through a lot of things together, I've needed a lot of patience at times and I did lots of research on how to communicate with an adult on the spectrum so as not to distress him etc, and he has now developed a huge level of trust with me and really opens up to me about a lot of things, even talks openly about his feelings (via text message when not in my house, he cant handle a face to face conversation about anything serious). So things are great, with the exception of one thing which I cant understand. Whenever he is faced with something stressful, he shuts off from me completely. As in just suddenly disappears for between 3 and 5 days at a time with no warning or explantion, wont open any messages, and on those days doesnt even come to visit our son who we now have together (9 months old) or even ask how he is. I should add we dont live together yet, perhaps due to him needing his own space a lot. I often never get any sort of explanation for these 'episodes' and I just have to carry on as normal because if I try to question it or confront him he would just take off again. Now I fully understand that if he is overwhelmed by something he may just need to shut off from everyone and every thing. But it is really hard to believe it's nothing I've done when he shuts me out to the point he wont open a message or visit his son and for that amount of time. Can anyone tell me if this is normal behaviour or whether I should be wondering if the problem he has is actually with me? For example this time he hasnt been in touch since Thursday afternoon, hasnt opened my watsapp messages but has been active on facebook and instagram. And he knows how distressing I find it each time he disappears so it makes me wonder if he can really care that much. So just really wondering, is this something I just need to accept isnt personal, its not sonething he can help and it's just what he needs to do to get through stressful times. And I just keep carrying on letting it happen and say nothing. Or is this something he is doing without caring and knowing I wont ever say anything, so I should address it with him even though it could push him away for good? Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks
