Published on 12, July, 2020
I’d really appreciate some advice about how to proceed now that my partner has ended our relationship. We got together more than 6 years ago, but it is only in the past year that I’ve become convinced that he has Aspergers. He is now in his mid-50s and I am more than 10 years younger. At several points in our relationship he has gone through very deep periods of depression and anxiety and is in a particularly deep one right now. I need help to assess whether to accept it is over and move on, or try to help him even more, as I believe that he may be shutting me out because of fear.
He has been struggling with these issues all his life and has developed sophisticated tools to disguise what’s really going on with him, has no close friends and although he had girlfriends before me, the relationships were highly dysfunctional and almost devoid of intimacy. In the early part of our relationship I just thought that he had “commitment issues” which I was relaxed about as he wasn’t really my type even though I liked him very much as a colleague, and found him attractive. After about a year of having caring but casual fun, I tried to bring it to a natural end but to my astonishment he strongly requested that we give it a proper go. I agreed on the basis that we deepen the commitment and the intimacy and he did. It was an astonishing and lasting change and ever since physical affection has been the strongest, loveliest part of our relationship, even when I’m struggling because we don’t really have anything to talk about.
He matches the Aspergers definitions very strongly is some ways but not in others. He is highly functional and most people (including myself in the early days) think of him as private, but more-than socially competent and easy-going. But I’ve been able to see ‘behind the curtain’ over the years and he matches all of these http://www.autism.org.uk/professionals/teachers/breaking-barriers/asperger.aspx and almost all of these points http://www.autism.org.uk/gp#Checklist for adults. After the first couple of years his lack of social skills became almost paralyzing,; we’ll visit my friends and he is sullen and distracted to the extent of causing general discomfort, so that I’ve just stopped seeing them when he’s in town. He’s known my mother for years now and we’ve even lived with her for a while but she says that she feels like she doesn’t know him any better than the day they met. He has a limited range of interests, mostly related to his profession, but they’ve lost their ‘interest’ and he confesses that they’ve become little more than joyless distractions and he's struggling professionally and spiritually now. Communication between us is stilted and I confess that I’m feeling lonely and bored.
He has disguised these issues in large part by maintaining an itinerant lifestyle – a professional one in which he is very well-respected. It means that social interaction is kept superficial and ensures that he can “escape” (his word) whenever responsibilities become too pressing. This is where I get confused about an Aspergers diagnosis because his love of routine is actually a regular change-of-routine, although he maintains very identifiable habits and methodology in each new place. Our whole relationship has been punctuated with gaps of weeks or months at a time, but I had a similar lifestyle until the past year, so it worked well enough and we’ve have been working towards building a more stable base together, which is what he said, repeatedly and vehemently, was what he wanted. Until a few days ago when he said he realized that it isn’t, and that he wants out permanently.
I am also a trigger. I’m prone to ‘reactive’ depression and can be overly sensitive anyway, but recent events have been uniquely hard. In the past 18 months I have had 2 of the most challenging experiences of my life, including the recent traumatic death of my father, whom I loved very much and nursed through his last few months. My partner absented himself from both of these experiences – literally and figuratively – and my feelings about him have been deeply shaken by his lack of support. He even tried to break up with me the day after my father died because I wanted him to come back to help me through the funeral; he said it was “too much for him”. He did eventually come back for the funeral but I made that clear that even if he is in a bad state, this is unacceptable behavior if we’re in a relationship and the tension has been clearly been a factor in his current state of mind. He rarely says he loves me, but despite how bad it all sounds, he is extremely loving in almost every other way; faithful, generous, and generally tries very hard to be a good boyfriend. I was also single for a long time before we met and I know that meeting someone new won't be on the horizon for a very long time, if ever. I'm a very independent person, but I like being in a committed relationship. At times there is a very beautiful bond between us, which I will be very sad to let go of.
I have been trying to get him to think about the Aspergers possibility, but he has completely dismissed it. He shut down to the point of almost non-functionality last week and I eventually persuaded him to take the online test. He did it in private and it came out at 18 – well under the limit. When I reviewed the questions with him, he had fudged the answers, whether to deliberately ‘pass’, or just because of a profound lack of self-awareness, I’m not sure. I re-took it on his behalf, with him present for consultation and the result came over 32. He found this very difficult to accept and told me that the relationship was over the following morning. He has since left on one of his trips, resolute and having changed his arrangements so that it is possible that I may not see him again.
I’m clearly struggling. The relationship was far from perfect and I’ve wanted out myself many times, but so far I’ve always come to the conclusion that the good outweighs the bad. Now I’m not sure if I have an option of whether to continue or not, but I am deeply concerned about the welfare of this man that I care deeply for, particularly as he’s pushing away the only person he has ever let into his life.
Advice from the Aspergers community would be very much appreciated.
Hi Mara,
I'm sorry to read of your struggles. As a mid-50s Aspie male myself (finally diagnosed last year), and one who has never had a 'functional' relationship, I can identify with quite a bit of this. I can't really offer much help, I'm afraid, except to tell you of my own struggles in this area. It might offer some perspective for you.
My only long-term relationship was my 5-year marriage, which ended 12 years ago (long before I knew anything about autism, though I can see now that the depressions I was suffering then were most likely related to it). It was very traumatic for both of us. I loved my ex-wife very much, but for some reason that I still can't quite explain I was singularly unable to show it after about our second year together. I didn't like touching her. I didn't, in the end, even like sharing a bed with her. I stopped telling her that I loved her, and couldn't say it - even though I did love her. There was a combination of factors involved. She, too, had many issues. Oddly enough, her behaviour was very like your partner's. She would be sullen and withdrawn at social occasions, such that they became embarrassing for me. I've never liked social occasions myself, but I always involved myself in them as fully as possible (though looking back, I can see that it was 'learnt' behaviour, and I was over-compensating in many respects). I think the crux of it, though, was that I found cohabitation difficult. I need to have control over my environment, otherwise I become very anxious. And having another person sharing it became increasingly difficult for me. I became colder and colder towards my ex-wife. In the end, this was a coping mechanism, because I was simply unable to function any longer in the relationship.
This became evident again in my most recent relationship - the only other cohabiting one I've ever had. Again, I loved my ex-partner very much. But our being together under one roof was disastrous. She was extremely messy and untidy. Also, she had severe depressions, and severe exhaustion (I suspected CFS) and wouldn't go out for sometimes weeks on end. I did all the housework, washing and shopping (which I didn't mind as I've always done those tasks) - but her untidiness made it very hard work. She couldn't understand why I couldn't just let things go over my head and relax a bit if the place wasn't quite right. In the end, she took more and more control of our living environment until it became essentially her flat with me living in it (even though it was mine and I paid the rent) - yet she'd rebuke me for not being more generous. She also accused me of not caring about her, or showing any concern for her feelings - even though I went out of my way for her in every other respect, and always told her I loved her. In the end, she left because she could no longer stand my 'abuse' - which was my constant shouting rows with her because her own behaviour was causing me so much anxiety. But then, of course, the feeling was mutual.
I don't entirely rule out another relationship. But I don't want to cohabit again. There is another side to it, though, if I'm totally honest about it - and that's the time and commitment involved. I'm extremely possessive of my time. This is an aspect of my condition, I think, because it's about routine and order, and the need to be able to focus on my own interests. If I'm away from reading or writing, for instance, for any length of time, I get anxious. It's also a reason why I don't actively seek relationships and prefer not to have friendships - because (aside from the obvious social communication problems I have) they mean having to divide my time to make them work. Autism essentially means 'self-absorption' - a tendency to view life in terms of one's own needs and desires.
This is why I've never wanted a job that has involved lots of extra hours, or varying shift patterns. Nine-to-five is my ideal state. And then, when I get home, I'm into 'me' world, and that's where I like to stay. I don't answer the doorbell or the phone. Disruption is simply that: disruption. But it's not just an irritation, as it might be for other people. It's a source of great anxiety, and it throws my head completely out of synch for a while.
Maybe there's a clue in that.
I hope things work out well for you, whatever happens.