Realised this week without a shadow of a doubt that boyfriend is autistic. In some ways this is helpful as it explains the communication issues we're having, but in others I'm at a loss as to what to do.
We are having some communication issues where he doesn't know how to empathise or emotionally validate me, and he feels rubbish that he can't anticipate my needs like wanting a hug etc - even though I tell him it's okay and everyone's needs change all the time and he can't be a mindreader. Now I know none of this personal it does feel better, but it is still not nice. He feels very criticised when I ask him for what I need too, and says he doesn't understand 'what's wrong with him' which makes me feel awful and guilty.
We were supposed to be seeing eachother today but he has cancelled due to feeling unwell and waking up with hives / in a cold sweat. He quite frequently needs days of just staying in bed (completely shutting down) and I think it's often stress related. It makes me feel *** though as was really looking forward to seeing him and smoothing things over after a really big misunderstanding last weekend (which I now do understand since realising what's going on and reading about how autistic people can deal with conflict and emotions).
He also has insomnia which is terrible because of his extreme sensitivity to noise (he has tried everything), so is quite up and down in general.
I won't list why I think / know he's autistic - it's everything from stimming behaviours to narrow obsessions, not reading social cues, learning difficulties apart from in engineering where he excels, very little romantic history despite being 42 and very handsome and a massive catch etc....
We also had a conversation yesterday where he bought up a project he had done on education for kids with autism, aloong with the fact his brother had been on ritalin as a child and he thinks he needs it due to his violent stimming episodes. I saw this as an invite to gently bring up that I wondered whether he had considered autism for himself and he was defensive and said he didn't want to be labelled but would go for a test 'for me'. I said I didn't want him to get a test purely for me but that it might help him to explain some of the things which have been distressing him (a host of physical and mental issues from insomnia due to extreme sensitivity to noise to forgetfulness to hearing loss to dyslexia etc etc). I'm not sure he really heard it though and now feel bad for bringing it up.
Anyway. Anyone have inspiring stories out there of how they were able to manage this well? I'm seeing lots of depressing stories on the internet about how this is really hard on the NT partner and basically telling me to run for the hills. I'm not ready to yet. I love him and want this to work!
