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Relationship help - dating someone with autism/aspergers and unsure of what is best to do

NAS67035

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 

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  • I’m an autistic woman and the past two days I’ve done the same as your partner. Last week work completely overloaded me, my mental health took a huge dive and I was just unable to cope with having to “people”. 

    The toll of masking always takes me by surprise, whilst I’m doing it it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when I get home I am so exhausted and overwhelmed that if people text me it’s just too much demand to carry on masking and respond to them. Over the weekend people texted me - people who I love and care deeply for, who were concerned for my wellbeing - but I just did not have the capacity to open their messages or respond to them. If people asked if I was ok I did not know what to say - I needed help but had no idea what that help would look like and did not want to be a burden to them. Knowing they had messaged me and thought of me was enough to know that they cared, I just could not formulate any sort of response or deal with the mental load of reading a message.  In some ways I figured not opening their message would be better for them anyway, so they just figured I hadn’t seen it rather than me reading it and choosing to not respond.

    I was still active on social media, as my Facebook and Instagram are now “curated” to only show me things which are not detrimental to my mental health (such as cute animals, things related to my special interests etc). I was not engaging with anyone but just opening them up and scrolling through was a low-demand way to pass the time until I could go to bed again. In between I did a lot of sitting doing absolutely nothing, literally just staring into space or staring out of the window. No music, no tv. Just staring. My brain needed to reset. 

    So, I would say that it sounds like your partner is just going through multiple shutdowns. He enjoys your company, cares about you and trusts you enough to open up to you in a way he feel he can cope with. He knows you care about him. He probably feels guilty for “going missing” but may not know how to communicate that to you, especially if he doesn’t really know what’s going on himself. He may not need help, just time to reset before he will be back to being able to respond. 

    Personally, I am considering ways to communicate further shutdowns to my family and friends. Some sort of “code” to communicate that I’m alright, I just can’t respond right now. It might be an emoji or I might create an image with text in it that I can send so that I am not required to think about what to say to them. Before I had this experience I found it hard to understand how just replying to a text could be too demanding, but having gone through it myself it genuinely is just too much at the time. 

    I hope this helps, and I hope your partner is ok and can reduce his stress and anxiety in the long term. 

  • in reply to NAS65552

    Thank you so much, this has really helped. Hearing how it could be for him helps me to understand. I like the idea of a code or him just sending an emoji. Will definitely suggest something like that (if I ever hear from him again) 

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