Partners possible Aspergers , he doesn't know he has. Help

Dear All,

I have recently signed up to the community as the past week have been researching a lot to find answers to some questions. I have been with my boyfriend for a year and a half. He is 39. We are in quite a serious relationship however during the past year we have had real difficulties with communication and has almost torn us apart sometimes. I have made adjustments over this time thinking that some traits he has displayed was just him as a man and something I would either have to adjust or accept. Which has not been easy. And it is very draining for me up until this point.

Anytime he has done something to upset me whether big or small he never understands or thinks theres anything wrong. I have spent a lot of time sometimes hours or weeks trying to explain sometimes trying different approaches in order for us to settle issues so we can move on. A lot of the time this resolve doesn't come and he follows usual behaviours when he thinks he will lose me which for me I accept and decide to move forward as I want us to be happy because when we are not having these problems we are so very happy and both of us can see a long future together.

There are so many other things that have happened in a year and half and I have never understood why he doesn't understand something or how he can be so insensitive, rude, unhelpful. He lacks compassion/empathy all the time. Never compliments me or tells me how I make him feel or says anything good about me. Its rare and when I have asked for these things in the past he snaps at me claims he tells me all the time or says I am just picking flaws in him. Rather than understand I'm trying to communicate things I would like from our relationship. When he is actively trying he typically repeats the same sentences 'I like you because I think you are attractive, you have nice eye and a good heart'. I don't usually get more than that. My compliments stretch to 'you look pretty'. Which is the same whether I get ready to go for lunch or a big night out. I have learned to try and take this comment as something rather than nothing. There is definitely an emotional disconnect there. Fortunately he isn't bad with physical intimacy sexually. However he does not like to be touched sometimes.

He doesn't know what to do when I am sad, can not understand what to say or how to help. Gets frustrated and makes it worse by saying or doing something to upset me more. It has been awful going through all of it alone. I support him in ways he does not even know or recognise and it has become very sad and lonely.

I am now expressing myself in this forum because I have had a really hard week because a few more things happened over last weekend and someone suggested if he was on the spectrum. I had thought this a few times over the year and half but I didn't know much about autism really and like I said before I just thought certain traits was his personality. I guess I was in denial because he had never mentioned it. I had a bit of a breakdown when I did research this week and saw that almost everything I was reading related to him and made sense as to why we had this constant block in our relationship. He seems to think something is wrong with us as a couple and we can't stop arguing. Because he is not even aware its a strong possibility he could be on the spectrum. This changed my whole world this week to have to sit and face what was in front of me and it has really got me down and I feel so alone. I couldn't tell him as we have been arguing about something he did the other day which was not able to be resolved yet again even after I tried so hard - I decided to cut my losses with that one.

I turned to my friend and she has since a couple days ago supported me to get the courage to ask him if he is aware some of his traits may fall on the spectrum. He said he was not aware. I was able to say that I had done some research and if and when if we could discuss it as it could be the block in our relationship that can be easily rectified. He said we could discuss it. This was a huge relief that he said this. But now I don't know what to do I have printed off some material.

We are moving in together in 4 weeks which is the step and commitment we have wanted. We have been planning a future together. But I am just so scared that I may not be strong enough to deal with this if its true (and right now I know it is true now with everything I know and have experienced).

At the same time I can't be mad at him for the hurtful things he does and say - I have wanted him to take responsibility and apologise to allow me to be able to move past things. But am I just going to have to accept this constant hurt and loneliness. I don't know if I can do it. I'm so scared. I myself suffer with depression but nothing like autism. I feel and understand communication and emotion very well. So I wish sometimes he could give me the support and emotional connection and comfort I so much desire from him. I get insecure sometimes because he never tells me things that others get easily in relationships so I am left to wonder if he even loves me the way he says he does because its hard to see it some times. I have had to adjust my thinking and accept basic things. I am so sorry if I offend anyone with this post! I truly do not want to. And yes I have considered his feelings, I always am and I keep things from him so he doesn't have to feel worse.

But please can someone help me in this next step - I need support from someone that has been in this situation as I know no one. And I can't tell anyone as I don't want to expose him to anyone we know before I have the discussion with him.

The discussion is scaring me because I know any discussion doesn't go well my best friend said I shouldn't plan it but I didn't want to go unprepared. Im also concerned I will break down and cry as I have been carrying it for so long but he won't know what to do. So I can't show any emotions.

I don't know what to do at all - This christmas was supposed to be so exciting and happy for us and I just feel exhausted from all the energy I've had to put in to making this relationship work

Trogluddite over 7 years ago in reply to Alien Girl

Alien Girl said:
If he asks for examples shall I give him them? Or defer this to a later time when he isn't having to process so much information at once.

I wouldn't go out of your way to avoid examples if he asks, but you're quite right to be wary of overloading him with information. Being overloaded is a good example of the difference between "inside" and "outside" - very often, when we seem unresponsive, it isn't because we don't care, or have no thoughts about something; it's often because we have far too many thoughts, but not the same social instincts as other people for picking out which is the right one by "gut feeling". This can just make our heads fill up with thousands of possibilities, so that there's a kind of "traffic jam" that prevents us from taking any action or saying anything.

In a sense, that can be key to some of the problems communicating in relationships. We might think to say "I love you" perfectly sincerely, then bottle out, because our mind gets so busy trying to analyse whether it's an appropriate moment, whether the way that we say it will sound sincere, what reaction there might be, how we might react in turn to each and every one of your possible reactions, and so on, just thinking round and round in circles. So the difficulty we can have judging another person's emotions and thoughts can easily make us seem uncaring, even though the emotions which we have inside are just as real and powerful as anyone else's. Autistic people don't generally lack compassion, as this forum demonstrates so well; the problem is with how to recognise when it's appropriate, and how we should show it.

This can also lead to us having difficulty recognising our own emotions. It's not that we don't have them, but we can struggle to know which of our emotions match up with what the people around us describe, and this makes finding the right words to describe how we feel very difficult sometimes. In fact, because we struggle to express them, our emotions can be extremely overwhelming; it's just that after years of learning that we can't find common words to use with people to talk about them, we learn to keep them bottled up very tightly - partly because we feel that we might accidentally hurt other people if they misinterpret what we're trying to say.

Alien Girl said:
How are you coping with your recent diagnosis? Have you had to make any adjustments in your life which you have found to be useful?

I think that generally my relationships with friends and family have improved quite a bit since diagnosis, and I've even had a brief romantic relationship since then, too (my first ever!) In part, it's helped me to learn where my "blind spots" are - when I need to think twice before I jump to conclusions about other people's feelings or act without considering them. That doesn't mean that I always get it right nowadays, far from it, but at least I'm a bit more aware of when I might be missing something and need to ask! It's also helped that I understand my condition well enough now to be able to describe what's going on to other people - I never could before because I couldn't even explain it to myself. Losing the sense of shame at being inexplicably weird has also helped a lot, and makes it easier to open up to people. I probably seem "more autistic" to some of them, as I don't stress myself out trying to hide it so much, but when I'm more relaxed about it, communication goes a whole lot better usually - with people who are "autism-friendly", at least.
Alien Girl over 7 years ago in reply to Trogluddite

Dear Trodluddite,

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond to my post. I think you are right about approaching it scientifically and I think it is what I plan to do although I am human so will have to be very aware and careful. It will be hard not to use examples referring it to our relationship issues. I will of course try and not do this at this stage and just find out how he feels and what he thinks. If he asks for examples shall I give him them? Or defer this to a later time when he isn't having to process so much information at once.

I really hope he considers it and is willing to be self aware and hopefully reach out on similar forums to talk to people who may be in a similar situation.

Can I ask you how you have coped? How does it feel on the "inside" for you? I am a very good researcher so good at reading a lot of different things and trying hard to imagine yet it feels so alien to me.

How are you coping with your recent diagnosis? Have you had to make any adjustments in your life which you have found to be useful?

Warm Wishes
Trogluddite over 7 years ago
Welcome, Alien Girl.

Firstly, good for you for finding the courage to broach the subject with your boyfriend. Of course, none of us here can say for sure whether he is autistic, but the things that you've mentioned so far seem to be common experiences for many of the partners who come here, and, as a middle-aged autistic man, they are things that I've belatedly recognised in myself since my diagnosis. I'm sure that no-one here will take offence at anything that you've said; you are here for help, and you've expressed your compassion for your boyfriend admirably.

Trying to establish whether he's definitely autistic, and whether he's comfortable with going ahead with that, are definitely the right next step, I think. For any relationship advice to work, self-awareness on his part will be just as important as any effort that you put in; so I would concentrate on that for the moment. If he is autistic, then approaching it quite scientifically, rather than emotionally, will probably be most effective. Try to keep to establishing facts at first, and leave linking them to particular problems in your relationship until he's comfortable with the idea that he may be autistic.

It might be an idea to have him take a couple of on-line autism tests, preferably when he's alone so that his answers won't be biased. The two tests linked below are scientifically designed to be self-completed without prompting and are recommended by the NHS for screening potential autistic patients (they were used as part of my NHS assessment)...

Autism Quotient Test

Empathy Quotient Test

I'd also recommend pointing him at these, or other, autism forums if he's at all convinced that you may be right. Autism looks very different from the inside than it does from the outside, and that's part of the reason that we often don't see it in ourselves for decades (I was 44 when it was first mentioned to me, and I was totally flabbergasted). The official descriptions don't really match up with how it "feels" to be autistic, so reading the experiences of other autistic people is more likely to spark some recognition than looking at medical websites etc.

I hope it all works out for you both.

Best wishes.