Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
For the last year, I’ve been in a long-distance relationship with a girl with high-functioning autism. I wasn’t ever really told how severe it was by her or her parents but she was allegeable for a car in the UK through the government scheme for people in the higher bracket. She warned me when we first started talking that she gets feelings very quickly, falls distant, feels trapped, and pushes people away. She’s 20 and it’s her first relationship since her diagnosis when she was 16–17, so there’s a lot of feeling that she didn’t know and things that she may not have understood.
She had told me about past experiences, her journey through self-harm, and how she split with her boyfriend at 15/16 because of sexual abuse. She told me when we first met that I was her first hug in 3 years, and the guys she’d agreed to meet before had all stood her up due to her autism.
A few days ago, she sent me a message in the morning saying that she has a responsibility to look after herself, and at the moment, a relationship isn’t what she needs. She said she needs her own space and time to heal and work on herself. I feel she’s burned out, and she says that the relationship is too much, there are too many feelings, and it's too much energy. She told me she felt trapped, as knowing she was in that relationship meant she had to put energy into it, even if we weren’t communicating as much; just being in that relationship was taking her energy. I wanted to have a conversation with her to clarify and maybe try to sway her mind. I told her that I would speak and she could text, which she did. Her sister was with her to help and eventually said that once she’s made up her mind, there's not much I can do that will change that. I heard her weeping in the background, clearly distraught about the situation, when her sister said that it was goodbye.
I guess I’m looking for clarity in the fact that this is a normal thing with autistic people in relationships? Do they feel trapped? I get she needed time for herself but in my mind she could have done that in the relationship.
She told me that once she’s healed and feeling better, she may reach out, and maybe we could work. I know it'll be hard for her to speak up or reach out, so would it be advisable for me to do that in a little while? She told me she still loves me and cares for me but my issue is that I don’t know if, because she’s made up her mind that she doesn’t want this at the moment, she won’t want it at all in the future.
Is it likely that someone with autism can go back into a relationship like that? Or is it a done deal once it’s done? She told me she still loves and cares about me, but she has to look after herself.
I know this may sound horrible, but I care about her a lot and don’t think she’ll find many people like me who have been so willing to learn and so patient with her over the last year. Not doing much going out or planning dates, more of just laying in bed or going to London to sit in a hotel room watching TV because she couldn’t deal with the crowds of people or being in public a lot.
I feel like because she's had this happen in the past and because it was in her mind when we started, she'll never break that cycle of feeling trapped. If she's not willing to work on it, try to overcome it and communicate it. I know that it was hard for her to communicate, and I was so patient with her in that regard. However, I know she's deserving of love, but it feels like she doesn't think she's built to be in relationships.
Sorry if it feels like a lot of words, but obviously I'm very emotional at the moment and looking for clarity, which she may not have been able to give.
I'll look forward to any replies or advice anyone can give. If there’s any need for me to clarify anything I will.
Thank you.
Hi, I thought your post was very clear, thoughtful and insightful, and I'm sorry to hear about your relationship breakdown.
One thought flagged up to me though - how well do you know her sister?
I of course do not know any of you, but this part stood out to me: "Her sister was with her to help and eventually said that once she’s made up her mind, there's not much I can do that will change that. I heard her weeping in the background, clearly distraught about the situation, when her sister said that it was goodbye." What I immediately thought was - why is her sister speaking for her? It may be that she asked her sister to help with communicating because she knew she would struggle to tell you, but you obviously understand that as you told her she could text you what she wanted to say.
I had problems with my own sister, related to jealousy and her inability to fully understand me and my partner, so I may be reading something into this that isn't factual, however I did wonder if this girl's sister had influenced her decision. It might not be malicious, it could be she believes she knows what is best for her. However I can say that as an autistic girl and woman, over my lifetime I've sometimes been frustrated by other people "knowing" what is best for me.
But to finish on a hopeful note: My partner and I got together when I was just 16 and he was 18. It hasn't been all wonderful and other people tried to break us up several times when we were young, but we're now in our sixties and wouldn't be without each other.
So don't give up. Keep trying to contact her from time to time by text, email, or even an old fashioned letter or card, telling her how much you want to be with her and how happy she makes you.
Good luck :)
Thank you so much for the advice. It’s lovely to hear your story and how you’ve been together for so long!!
I did wonder if she had been speaking to people at work as well as her sister, as when she sent the text to me in the morning, it was between her late shift, presumably when she had woken up that morning. I don't want to be that person, but I've worked in retail for many years, and women like to speak at work. Everyone has their own opinion on what a relationship looks like and what's best for them and their needs, so others opinions could, in my mind, have swayed hers in the end.
Prior to all of this, we had chatted about having more interaction, as from the end of January up until the breakup a couple days ago, she had been quite distant. Just simple things like I wouldn't get a phone call for a week and sometimes two, I wouldn't have the chat with her before bed over text, and we weren't playing games together. During this time, her 'special interest' was playing GTA, and it ended up being that she would go from work, take a nap or go straight on GTA for a couple hours, have dinner, maybe have a shower, and then go back to GTA until stupid times in the morning, but normally around 03:30-05:00. She never wanted or would let me join her in this interest where she had previous games or hobbies that had her attention.
During this period, she never told me she was struggling, and maybe hindsite I should have known, but we had a couple conversations about it, leading to us sitting in her bed last Friday crying together. This is when she told me about not having energy. I told her that I needed to understand that to be able to help or to give her the space she needed. However, I did tell her that although she was saying that she didn't have energy for me, she was talking to others while playing, and it felt that they were more important at the time.
She reassured me about all this, and I suggested we work on slowly trying to ease into things and that maybe, feeling the way she is, she needed to speak to someone. I set up a calendar that we could agree to call on certain days, and she could easily see everything coming up... She never joined the shared calendar, and the second call we scheduled she didn't want to as she was having fun on GTA.
During these couple of months, I have had my own struggles, and maybe I feel I put a lot on her, but I couldn't know how she was feeling as there wasn't enough communication around it. She took me for not being right in myself and wanting some of her attention, meaning that neither of us were happy, so why continue where this is going?
I don't think her being in the rut she was in had anything to do with the relationship itself, and what has been said here and by her personally confirmed that to me. It's more the social energy of it all that's making her struggle.