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Is my boyfriend autistic?

Jasmine

Me and my boyfriend have been together for just over 15 months and over this time I have begun to think he could possibly have high funtioning autism. At the beginning of our relationship he was incredibly anxious he would constantly cry of frustration if I wanted to go out with a friend, it was incredibly emotional and I constantly felt guilty. 

This stage is over now although he does still cry sometimes. He doesn't understand how I feel, if we argue and I try to explain my feelings he won't sympathize, I would love for him to spend more time with my family and when I invite him over for dinner or to family events he will NEVER go. He came to a funeral with me one time and spent the whole service counting how many bricks there were on the wall infront of us. 

He is highly intelligent, yet refused to go to school when he was younger, he now works with computers and coding and gets highly frustrated if anything goes wrong, he is extremely passionate about app/web development. He finds it highly difficult to fall asleep and won't get to sleep until 3am on most nights, I have tried staying at home in order for him to have his own space and get a better nights sleep but he will still be unable to sleep. 

He constantly tells me that he feels unloved although I will show him with affection. I constantly cuddle him and kiss him but this is all nothing to him and he makes it very clear how he wants me to TELL him how I feel, and I do, but this still doesn't seem enough. His mother also thinks he has autism and he is extremely horrible to her in an unsympathetic way, although secretly to me he will cry about how much he loves her and how scared he was of losing her when she was diagnosed with *** cancer during his childhood, he just seems incapable of actually showing his love to her personally. 

Most recently we went on our first holiday together, he struggled with this greatly. During our week there (even though we were supposed to be there for 2 weeks) he phoned home 5 times and found it very abnormal that I wasn't as fussed about keeping in touch with my family. He felt dizzy for the whole duration and we decided to go home a week early. 

I get frustrated with him sometimes and just feel like he is being difficult but I really do think this could be autism. Please help me and tell me if any of this could relate to autism?

  • I agree with what others have said. Your boyfriend sounds a lot like what I was like when I first met my wife.The AQ (Autism quotient) test, will give a good idea as to whether he is autistic or not. But the only real way to find out for sure is to go for assessment, he needs to ask his GP for a referral (he may need to fight for this). Also at present not all areas offer adut autism assessment on the NHS, this is however starting to change, but in my experience it hasn't quite filtered down to GP's yet. When I first went to ask for a referral from my GP the first doctor I spoke to told me that, there was no way I could be autistic, if I was autistic I would have been diagnosed as a child, etc. It was only when I went to see a different doctor with supporting evidence, that they agreed to refer me, and even then they didn't actually know who I needed to be referred to. I have now had 1 assessment, waiting for further appointments, and they said I am ticking all the right boxes, so you really do need to keep trying. But at the same time your boyfriend needs to want to find the answers.

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    He is a computer programmer (like me) It's extremely common amongst us. His emotional communication difficulties all sound as though they fit. He could be Asperger's or HFA although I don't think it makes  much difference to anything.

    There are some excellent books that can provide real practical help. I think that is important that he knows what his talents are rather than obsesses about his weaknesses although an understanding of the condition can help enormously in my experience.