I am feeling so lonely

I've also noticed a lot of first posts that are about quite a troubling scenario but where the text is all in a block with barely any sintax.

I wonder if these could by AI generated posts. To what end I don't know.

I notice that this post was made 4 days ago and the O/P hasn't returned.

The lack of reply by the O/P to these more 'intimate' questions, including ones I've responded to in the past, is something that has put me off replying any longer.

Contributors here give detailed, soul searching replies, putting some real effort in, and I feel at least an acknowledgement that they are read would be good.

However, I hope that the responses help others who may be going through something similar.

I've been in exactly this situation as the autistic person. I was helping completely burned out by the level of contact with my partner, caused by the pandemic and him having to work from home and not see other friends. When he had an active social and work life before the pandemic, we worked fine as I got the amount of alone time I needed, and we get on extremely well now he's moved out and we see each other 2-3 times a week. But while we were in this intense period of being together all the time I completely burned out and got to the point where I couldn't do it think about anything but eating and sleeping. Not being able to talk to myself freely was one of the hardest things as it makes me feel like I don't fully exist when I can't do that. It took me 6 months of alone time to get back to a higher level of functioning.

Your partner desperately needs space. You need companionship, but does it have to come from him? Can you focus on friends and hobbies for a while?

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I have to ask when you’re having conversations with him are they mostly ‘we need to talk’ type conversations? Because I think any man autism or not would start to get irritated and distant under that situation?

do you know as I’ve said before I think the hardest thing in a relationship is when people change and particularly change in different directions. So we know you’ve changed, you used to think you’ll be okay not having kids and now you know you’re not. Possibly you’ve changed in other ways. Possibly he’s changed. I don’t think autistic people change as much but we do definitely change.

I think the start of fixing your relationship is understanding how both of you have changed in the last 10 years. Because both of you have to come to terms with those changes in yourselves and in each other. And to be blunt it’s possible you may not like the people you’ve become and to some degree might want to change again.

One thing that might help is joining in with his world. He talks to him self but about what why don’t you talk to him about those things? He goes out to do things with his friends? Why don’t you go out and do things with him things that he enjoys?

The same applies to him of course. If you’re going to have a relationship with a woman you need to be invested in her Life and concerns. But maybe he feels he can’t because recently all you seem to care about is having a baby? Maybe it would be good to give him opportunities to opt into your life. Things he could do with you. Activities and aspirations of yours he can support.

The fact of the matter is at 41 now there is a low chance as I understand it that  you will be able to have children naturally, although it is certainly not impossible. The figure I read somewhere was around 40% of women are sterile by 40. By 50 it’s generally over 90%. And even those who are not sterile still often have reduced fertility. IVF is an option, probably with a donor egg. Adoption may be an option. But if he’s been intransigently against the idea of any child-rearing even though you’ve been raising the issue for quite awhile, I think it very unlikely that he will relent and you probably need to come to terms with that one way or another.

NAS87487 said:

we don't have children because he never wanted children, but I did, now that I am 41 years old I regret bitterly I listened to him and now we don't have children.

I can give you some insight as the male in a similar situation - married over 20 years and my wife was concerned that her fertility window was closing so changed out long standing semi-agreement about not having kids. When I say semi agreement it was something we discussed early in the relationship and I told her I didn't want kids at all, but didn't rule out the possibility if it was important enough for her in the future.

My experience with family having kids was that they can be a complete nightmare and I had a strong aversion to puting myself through that experience as I saw how much it impacted their relationship, health and wealth.

I was pushed - hard - into agreeing to it and we tried, including fertility testing (rather humiliating having to produce a sperm sample while the doctor waits) and fertility treatment that led to all sorts of mood swings for my wife. There were some early stage miscarriages before we gave up on it (by mutual agreement).

My point in that is he may have his reasons for not wanting kids. Many of us autists have a strong aversion to change and uncertainty and a kid is that times a thousand. He is probably terrified at the prospect.

NAS87487 said:

I feel like is getting more and more distant towards me.   We don't make love.  He just want to go out with other people.  When I try to have a conversation with him, he just keeps shouting at me and getting aggressive. 

There was a period of distance in our relationship following the failed attempt at getting/staying pregnant, partly because we didn't know how to communicate about it and part because we didn't really know where the relationship was going - we seemed to be going in very different directions.

It was about that stage we had a difficult conversation and decided that we needed to get couples councelling as the marriage wasn't going to last.

It helped, but largely in helping us talk - and listen. It turned out we really had few shared interests outside of work and food, and out appetite for things like travel, entertainment, friends and long term plans were not aligned at all.

About this time I was also diagnosed as autistic which led to a lot of self understanding for me and I felt a degree of contempt from my partner - she wouldn't say it by I felt she treated me as a broken thing.

Fast forward a year later and we divorced but have a better relationship than ever as we no longer have to spend all day around one another, put up with the other persons annoying hobbies or unwillingness to go out to a jazz bar etc.

My point in that part is that you need to find a therapist who understands his autism and can handle the couples aspect of it as well.

Your challenge will be to get your partner to engage willingly so you may need to lay out your reasoning in terms he can understand - explain why you are unhappy, what you/he can do about it and what the consequences of it not happening are.

The chances are he loves you too but is unable to communicate clearly and he may well have his own struggles that are causing the distance. Talking won't necessarily solve these but you can at least understand and work on the basis of this new knowledge.

If you are both wiling to work then there is a relationship worth saving there. If he refuses then you need to start preparing your next steps.

Sorry for this over-long overshare. I hope something in there is of use to you.

Hello NAS87487,

I'm sorry to hear that you have been experiencing this in your relationship. I'm sure members of the community will share their experiences and advice with you. You may find the following page from the NAS useful: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/autism-relationships

All the best,

ChloeMod