Struggling to cope with boyfriend's behaviour

Hi all,

Myself and my boyfriend of 3 years are in our early 20's and are coming to the end of our degrees. We're both stressed, but my boyfriend is always on another level and it affects me too. He has high-functioning autism and overthinks things all the time to the point he just pops, shouts, and is moody. I was wondering if anyone could please help me and take the time to read this?

I have always done my best to understand him even though I am not autistic. He is high-functioning so most of the time you don't notice and you certainly wouldn't know just upon meeting him. Sometimes I wonder if in a way that makes it harder to understand, because you wouldn't know so you end up almost forgetting that he will have autistic traits. Some things are also hard for me to distinguish like what is autism and what is just selfish behaviour. I have done a fair bit of reading on it, as I want to understand it the best way I can, but not all autistic brains work the same way. Anyway, most of the time things are perfectly fine, but then some inconvenience or stress happens and its a nightmare. He is currently working on his final research piece and is stressed because he doesn't think he has done it right and feels there is no time to fix it (he has thought this before and done amazingly, though). He gets in a mood, feels sorry for himself, and insists he can't do something and that he should give up or says he is losing the will to live. This is what is happening now and the last few days. He has been having a daily episode where he literally shouts at the top of his lungs and says horrible things to me and the rest of his family. Just earlier he said he didn't want to be in the room if I was in it. I try to remind myself he doesn't mean these things but its hard.

The situation is made all the worse because I have my own work to do, and I am so focused on making sure he is OK and calm all the time. I am stressed, and at this point I am looking forward to his deadline being over more than mine (even though, who knows, if he doesn't like the finished piece of work he may still be upset after he hands it in). My deadline is two weeks away and his is next week. I can't wait until his is out of the way. I find it hard to focus when I know he is distressed. Because I love him, my emotions tend to mimic his. I can't possibly be calm when he is freaking out all the time. I am trying to help him, and am succeeding in some areas (head rubs for example), failing at others (advice - he never listens and just gets angry). It leaves me not knowing what to do. We have places to study for a masters in September, but now he's saying he 'can't do a masters' just because he is looking at his work so negatively. I definitely think he needs to keep persevering in his dream of being an academic, he just needs a way to deal with his negativity and anger.

Is there a way to calm someone like this over the next week? Also is there any kind of counselling/help for his negativity and anger? He needs to be able to handle it for the future - I worry he will be like this over every essay like he has in the past, and he can't keep doing that all through his masters, PhD, teaching, etc, especially when it effects other people. If something bothers him at work he is like this too (but doesn't act up at work, only at home). I even worry about further in the future - we plan on marrying and having kids one day, and I would be concerned about him behaving like that in front of children. He exploded the other day and threw things and shouted as loud as possible. He only threw minor small things and would never ever aim it at anyone or hurt anyone, but it is unpleasant and I always feel upset when he shouts. I am by no means a sensitive person otherwise, but there's something about shouting that makes me want to cry, whether it is related to me or not. I just feel very sad because he is so stressed and annoyed and I do need to do my work too.

Is there anything that can help him? Both for this final week and the long term? I want to be an understanding girlfriend but I also feel like I have spent so much of the relationship putting him and his happiness above me. I was kind of firm with him earlier and raised my voice - I worry that I came off as insensitive but I think there's only so much shouting and moaning you can deal with and he's been like this for 4 days now. Thanks for reading, would like some support, I feel kind of alone and as if my stresses don't matter in comparison to his.

NAS39212 over 5 years ago in reply to NAS67304

Thanks for the response and advice, it is appreciated. You are right in that there is little, if anything, that my choice of words do. No matter how good or truthful the advice is, he shuts it down immediately and doesn't digest it. I have found calmly giving him advice once he has calmed down to be more effective. Over the years I have tried various methods to see what works best in calming him down - at the start I certainly leaned more on giving him my full attention and not resting until I calmed him down. I felt it was my job to 'do something' about his behaviour or that I was a terrible girlfriend if I didn't calm him. I used to get far more upset too, and took everything he said to heart. Fortunately, with time, I feel I have realised he doesn't mean the insults he throws when he's angry (he usually apologises or often, doesn't remember saying it at all).

I have told him today that when you are stressed and worked up, you can't think straight. That seemed to help somewhat, because he jumps to too many conclusions when he is like this. I have more recently adopted letting it 'ride out' - sometimes I think he just needs to vent or he will explode, so I try to ignore what he is actually saying and just carry on as normal. Sometimes this has helped, in terms of my productivity and when you don't say anything, there is less for him to blow up at or make personal. In the past when I have interrupted his rants in order to debunk his worries, he turns it back on me and starts getting personal and throwing insults. So I have learned to keep quiet when he is in the midst of it. I also don't think, due to his lack of empathy, that he realises that his behaviour negatively affects others. He will calm down and then ask me why I look unhappy or stressed not realising until I tell him.

Thanks again for the advice - I will look into professional help I think. One of his tutors, who knows he is autistic, has suggests he finds counselling to deal with his negativity as there are ways to handle it more effectively. He seemed willing to give that a try so hopefully he will.
Plastic over 5 years ago

You are experiencing the problem of us masking - we have a fake 'acceptable' persona which allows us to interact with NTs and the daily social nightmare that shields the real us from the chaos and confusion of interacting with NTs.     We get confused, stressed and annoyed by their randomness and chaotic behaviours and demands that we cannot understand and their motivations are a mystery - so we take all that stress on-board and it fries our brains trying to figure out what the hell is really going on - and did people mean what they said and what was the hidden game that we didn't spot.    This brings our stress levels up to about 99% if we manage not to melt down with it all.   Unfortunately, we're programmed to 'be good' in company or at school or work so we hold it all in until we get to a safe place to explode.

Unfortunately, our mask looks exactly the same from the outside - we look fine, we appear fine, we behave exactly the same - but we're close to the edge internally.

In this situation, if you put even the slightest additional stress on us, that 1% pushes us over the top so, unfortunately, you get the full blast of the 100% as we vent all the internal stress.   During this venting, we can say the most horrible things that we don't really mean but we can't take back.

One way of safely venting the stress is doing something that we like or can completely control to our satisfaction - like model trains or playing with Lego or gaming.    it's a little world of calm predictability.

What does he like?   It might be something like visiting a museum where we can get a techy-fix or a picnic in the woods or knitting.

Additionally if he's undergoing a period of extreme stress, he may have difficulty in knowing which way is up so he might be quite unpredictable.    You need to measure this and decide if he will be able to cope in future as life invariably gets more complex as time goes by. The pressures of mortgages, careers, marriages, kids, getting older, retirement planning etc. all can be very stressful and our ability to deal with the stress is better when we're young and seems to diminish as we get older.    This is evident as older people suddenly finding that they can't cope and being diagnosed as autistic.    They've lived their lives fitting in until they reach their limit of masking.

You might need to do a lot of evaluation of him and try talking to him about his own thoughts about stress handling and see if he understands his own behaviours.     You might be able to come up with a system that works to help him function and de-stress in a more practical way.
NAS67304 over 5 years ago

I have a similar issue sometimes with my NT partner. At times of extreme self-induced and what can from an outside person's perspective seem to be quite an unreasonable amount of pressure that I put myself under. For no apparent reason other than I am an obsessive perfectionist that is marred by my human flaws and inner narrative.

If he is wound up in this state, unfortunately there is little you might be able to achieve through your choice of words. Recalling recent events with my understanding boss and my partner, often the best thing to do is focus instead on the tone you use to communicate to him. For instance, when he has finished and submitted his work and you can tell he is focusing on how he could have done better, perhaps comfort him by saying that there isn't anything he can do to change it now and combine it with a back rub (permitting he is still in an acceptable state to accept this from you) so that he can see that you do not mean this in a cruel manner. You are on his side and are trying to reassure him that it will turn out the way it will and until he gets the results back then there is no point dwelling on the subject as it will only create further anxiety and misery.

One of my boss' favourite sayings to me in recent weeks during the covid-19 lock down has been 'when you're in a better frame of mind, we will look at that in more detail'. He is right because at the time I am experiencing things so acutely that I cannot possibly be expected to rationalise and assess my own mental state at that particular moment in time. This comes much later once I have calmed down, taken a step back and realised that actually my mood has had an impact on those immediately around me. Perhaps being female allows me to empathise more easily, however I am by no means saying that males on the spectrum are incapable however this may not come as naturally.

What I am trying to say is you may well need to interpret many more visual cues than verbal ones. It can be extremely upsetting for loved ones to see us in distress and want to help relieve it in some way. Sometimes the only thing you can do is let it run it's course and reflect later to learn, grow and develop. He may even have some suggestions of his own that he can ask of you when he is starting to display patterns and signs that he is heading down a similar path to one that you have seen before.

I'd say that above all though seeking professional help would perhaps be something he might be willing to try. But it would need to be his choice and he may not see that there is anything wrong with the way he currently handles things.

Hopefully there are some things that you can try there.