Hey,
I don’t really post much but I’ve been reading this forum for a while and thought I’d try writing this out.
Maybe it’ll help me process or maybe someone will just relate.
I was in a relationship for a couple of years with someone who’s Autistic and likely has ADHD too. I’m not diagnosed but I’m pretty sure I’ve got ADHD myself, maybe some autistic traits too. It was a big part of why we connected, in that we understood each other in so many ways, but we also clashed in others.
She’d say I wasn’t in control of my emotions, but the truth is I felt everything so physically that it came out through my body, tension, tone, pacing, that kind of thing. I wasn’t shouting, but she’d still sense “anger” and shut down or try to stop me, which would just make me feel worse. It became a loop.
Neither of us meant to upset the other, but we’d trigger each other without realising it.
I spent a lot of the relationship trying to make her happy by doing practical things, sorting stuff out, trying to keep the house calm, but it never felt like it was enough. She’d say she wanted me to “want to do things” and not just do them, but I was just running on empty most of the time. I was exhausted, not lazy. I
She carried a lot too, work, kids, sensory stuff, anxiety and I think she needed to feel in control to stay regulated. But that control felt like criticism to me sometimes. It’s weird because now I can see she wasn’t trying to control me as a person; she was just trying to stop everything from spinning out. We were both surviving, not really living.
Since the breakup I keep looping on it.
I miss her every day.
I think about whether it was really impossible, or if we could’ve made it work with more understanding. I also think about the kids, they became a huge part of my life and now they’re just gone, like I never existed.
I guess I’m wondering if anyone else here has been in a relationship where both people were neurodivergent, cared deeply, but just couldn’t regulate together. Did you ever find peace with it? Or did you ever manage to reconnect later, when both people were in a better place?
I’m not looking for false hope, just trying to make sense of it all.
It feels like she’s still in my head every day, and part of me still believes that with time and understanding, maybe things could have been different.