Published on 12, July, 2020
Dear all,
I will summarise as much as possible to make things clear.
I have been with my partner for two years and I love him. In this journey together, we have discovered that he is autistic. He has two teenage almost adult sons, one of them with Asperger's.
During these 2 years , I have been hurt many times, but always told myself/ excused him as he is autistic.
My problem now is that I don't know where the autism ends and the conscious decision starts.
To summarise:
I have not been introduced to anyone in his family and I haven't been introduced to his children.
We do not live together and I am not allowed in his flat.
He has been divorced for more than 10 years and told me his ex was controlling, yet he meets his sons 3 times a week, including saturday and sunday at her place. Because of that reason, we have never spent a weekend together.
They go on holiday together as a family once a year
He often omits to tell me things regarding his schedule or outright lie about various things. Sometimes I do not understand why the lies as they do not hide anything malicious but it makes it hard for me to trust him.
Our meetings are always based on his schedule. I am always prioritising him and would be happy to drop my plans to be with him. If I was busy, he would not mind seeing me less and he would certainly not drop his plans to see me more.
Finally, I have asked him to buy me a cheap ring as a symbol of commitment. I mean something very cheap, not a diamond ring and I was clear that i did not want an engagement ring, just a token of commitment. He told me he did not find anything.
I have find that some of the behaviours do fit with the autistic mind, but at the same time, it seems to me that I am just a thing on the side, really at the bottom of his priority list.
I am happy to work on this if knowledgeable people on this website could explain to me that- yes he does this because it is typical of an autistic person...( for example, I know how much hobbies are important and I have never tried to prevent him from doing what he likes) but i can t find any excuse for not being introduced to his family or for him to refuse to give me a cheap ring.
anyway, before I make the decision of saying goodbye, I wanted to make sure I am making the correct decision with full knowledge. Any help/guidance will be much appreciated.
I've tried re-reading this a few times to make sure I'm not jumping to conclusions, but what I'm immediately thinking is that this does not sound like a healthy relationship, possibly toxic.
NAS94489 said:I have been hurt many times, but always told myself/ excused him as he is autistic.
This I found the most concerning, because you don't elaborate. Do you mean emotionally or physically? If the latter, then I can find no excuse for that, regardless of his autism.
I can read your summary and I suppose I could see it all as his particular autistic behaviours, but really what are you getting out of this? For 2 years you have done so much for him and received nothing in return, it sounds like. If he cannot see that your relationship has to evolve, no matter how hard it may be for him to understand, then you will end up in an extremely unhappy relationship from your side - it already sounds too one-sided to me.
This is the most opinionated I think I've been on this forum, because I have strong beliefs about balance and what is fair, and I think this is all very unfair on you. I won't tell you what to do, but I hope you think carefully about looking after yourself whatever happens.