Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I'm new here and an NT. I am 99% sure my ex boyfriend is an aspie.
I'm not really sure what I'm looking to achieve on here, but I'm hoping it will help some of my confussion. I met my ex online around 19months ago, we had the same political views, and we both loved our pets. Quite quickly we were chatting every day (apart from the odd day or two where he was quiet, but I figured he was busy), but he'd send me pictures of his views from work every day, or pictures of my favourite animal if he saw one. We'd also wish each other goodnight. After a 2-3 months of chatting to him I felt like I'd fallen in love with him, I felt he was the one. He decided to book a hotel near where I lived and said he was going for a little holiday and I could meet him if I liked. Anyway, of course I wanted to meet him, and every morning on the lead up he'd send me a little clock as a countdown. I was so nervous to meet him. We met, and he didn't sound like I expected or behave like I'd thought, I put it down to my expectations being off, and I didn't care, I just really liked him.
On the first night we had dinner, and wine, the hotel was kinda falling apart but it was funny, and we laughed about it being like Fawlty Towers. That night he spooned me, and it was he said 'very natural'. I had to iniciate kissing him, I thought he was a gent and maybe shy because I was 12 years younger than him. We then went to makelove, but he made excuses and said he couldn't do it because he was too nervous. The whole weekend he'd constantly watch politics on his phone, or we;d have to watch sport on his computer. I felt that it was really important to him, and I just liked chilling with him. On the last morning of the weekend I iniciated sex again, but he couldnt do it. For the last few hours I thought he'd go home and never speak to me again, as he'd sit staring at his phone not saying much. I thought he wasn't keen on me, or embarrassed about not being able to do anything with me. He went home, and text me the whole time and we met 2 weeks later. My pet had died a few days before the next meet up, so I was upset. The same sort of thing happened again on this weekend, he could't have sex with me, and had to have the room completely pitch black to even try, so I thought he was be really self concious. On the second night he shouted at me, it came from nowhere. He said his dog hadn't been eating well, and I asked him if he'd ever looked up online what it could be (I thought maybe the brand of food or teeth), and he completely flipped, he shouted at me. As soon as the shouting arrived, it had passed. I was stunned. I'd just lost my pet, and no one had ever shouted at me like that before. He went to bed and slept facing the other way, no cuddle or anything. The next day before catching the train home he appologised, and I said it was okay. He said he'd be coming to mine for xmas. So 3 weeks later he came for xmas, and spent it with me and my family.He walked into my house on xmas eve and threw 2 books at me, and said they were my present. They werent wrapped or anything. I didn;t say anything though. My gift to him was a painting of his church that we both use to talk about. I gave him another drawing of mine he loved too, and painted 3 silly things for him, and some other gifts. When I have him his gifts on xmas eve he shouted at me and said he can't open them as it's not xmas. So I thought maybe he had another present for me on xmas day, but he didn't. He said he;d have to buy me something else. He went home a few days later, and went on a huge spending spree for himself, but never bought me anything, just showed it all off to me like it was for me.
Okay, this is going to be too long for everything, so I'll jump to it. We split up in May as he wouldn't replt to my texts, even though he was on Twitter chatting away. So I cried my eyes out for weeks. I then went onto his instagram that he;d made for his dog, and decided to see how they all were as I missed them. Then I noticed cam girls were liking and commenting on his pics. So I thought they were spammers, but they weren't. Then I noticed he was following and liking, and leaving comment on teenage girl accounts (Onlyfan and cam girl ones), they are legal, but they look arounf 15 in some pictures. So I messaged him in disgust about it. He unfollowed them. Then a few weeks later we started talking, and he moved my artwork onto a better place in his house. He;d send me pictures of them, and he'd show me the roses he;d bought because I told him to. We slowly started getting back together, and he was meant to come over before this xmas, but due to lockdown couldn't. So I noticed he was back following those teenage girls again, and commenting. I did further investiagting and it seems he is a financial contributor to them too. I've been heartbroken. He'd never send me any gifts or make love to me, but he would to some teenage girls in Russia. I feel so confused, and hurt. He's 49, so could have daughters their age. I told him I'd wanted a family with him etc. but it looks like he's chosen these girls he'll never meet.
I suppose I'd like to ask is watching cam girls and paying for them normal for aspies? Is it easier than a relationship or something? I just feel so hurt.
I believe that this is not just an AS problem, but also certainly is a male problem. I can only speak to my own experience, and that is that pornography is an insidious temptation to men, especially neuro-divergent ones.
It's taken a long time for me to be fully aware that porn (or sex on demand) alters my brain chemistry. Additionally, it adds all kinds of negative expectations to sexual encounters (longevity, efficacy, performance, kinks, doubts about self image) which cause obvious nervousness and loss of arousal. It sounds to me as though this man was thoroughly integrated in all of that stuff.
It can be quite a shock to men who've built up an expectation of sex and desire, to find out how slowly you have to take it in order to form a meaningful sexual relationship, and often their viewed experience through porn is slanted more and more towards extreme fetishes, kink and performance.
As for cam girls, I can only make assumptions. I presume that a person on AS wouldn't make the association of cam girls showing themselves off as their job, and needing to be hyper-attentive to their audience.
The immediacy of this attention could come as a relief; speaking from my own experience, I don't like to be ignored and I find great awkwardness speaking to unfamiliar people. A cam girl is unlikely to argue or push back on her audience, and therefore someone slightly aspie would logically assume that their conversation was completely normal.
Don't blame yourself; this is a pit that many men fall into, and once in, it is hard to get out of if you can't see the hole you're stuck in.
It would appear that he was attempting to find a way out through having a relationship with someone (in this case you) but found it such a different experience than he was used to in his every day to day life, that he was having to relearn how to treat a real woman.
Again, speaking from experience, having to learn the hard way is something I find exasperatingly tedious and frustrating, and especially difficult when trying to work out how to function around other people.