Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all,
I'm so glad to have finally found somewhere to discuss this.
My partner and me have been together for a couple of years, and we both feel he has AS. Both of us have siblings with AS and I have professional training and experience with people with this condition, plus his behaviours match up on online tests he's taken (though those things are a NIGHTMARE for literal thinkers like him!). We're in our late twenties and have discussed him getting a diagnosis for some time, but we're aware of the time/ effort/ chance of it not being recognised and we're not sure there'd really be any benefit for him or us. However, I'm starting to struggle a little.
I'm a very emotionally colourful person- enormously expressive and open- and I find his lack of emotion so challenging at times. There's zero affection unless I instigate it, though we have a relatively healthy sexual relationship. I can be crying and he'll just sit, blinking at me. He's never said anything emotional about me or our relationship, in terms of how much he loves me or how I make him feel. It's TOUGH, especially as I feel loved through words. I feel like we've tried everything, and bless him, he tries so, so hard to meet my needs, but having to constantly direct him in how to love me makes me feel I'm the only person in our relationship. We're both reaching a point of frustration and huge imbalance. I think he feels he irritates me all the time and is walking on eggshells. I find communicating with him so exhausting that I'm switching off, and I feel enormously guilty and responsible.
I've come to the point where I've realised I absolutely have to stop pushing him for things that are simply not in his repertoire, such as physical and vocal affection. He's tried and tried and just can't keep it up without reminding. I want to learn to love him as he is and stop focusing on my own void, but it's difficult. I have the most amazing relationship with my brother who has AS, and I'm the only person who can communicate well with him, but it's a completely different thing with a partner and strong emotions.
I don't feel I can talk to anyone else about this, as I worry people who don't understand would simply tell me to leave. I absolutely would never leave him. He's the most amazing man- kind, funny and intelligent. I just wish I had the skills to make him always feel that way, rather than the irritating little boy I probably make him feel at times. We're the best of friends and he's the absolute love of my life.
I wondered if anyone might have any advice, such as how to meet in the middle, or even how to learn to put my own needs, regarding affection, aside without feeling resentful. I'm already a very open, honest and direct communicator, but I feel we're so wildly different, that we're still not communicating well, and I'd love to fix that. I'd also like to add that I'm happy to be on this journey with him- people with AS have deeply enriched my life and my soul and I know that learning to navigate this will make our relationship, and me as an individual, infinitely stronger.
I'm so sorry this is is so long, and I'm so grateful if you've managed to read this and could offer any tips.
Sending love, thanks and best wishes.
I may be way off here - but it sounds as though you are very happy expressing 'love' in a very free and unbounded way - and you expect him to be the same.
The problem is your are expecting him to work with something that can't be defined. Love is an abstract concept - so how is he supposed to work out 'how much he loves you' or how can he demonstrate something with no measurable value?
You're asking him to supply a commodity that has no definable units.
He's confused and not understanding your needs because there's no manual or recipe for him to refer to.
You need to calmly chat to him about 'it would be nice if you did this when..... or 'I like it when you do this or that' to give him some tools and ammunition to work with.
I'm not sure if you've realised that we mask our true selves to give a pleasant user interface for our partner. This mask is often created in our 'teens and it works well for a good number of years.
Unfortunately, life gets more complicated as time goes by so our fixed operating system becomes outdated - and you are seeing the edges of his mask..
It's not that he doesn't feel exactly the same emotions as you - it's just he's unable to measure your emotions without more data being supplied so he cannot select an appropriate response fast enough to make it look natural. Imagine if he were blind - he'd be unable to 'read' you - same thing really.
Cut him some slack and, without putting any emotion into it, give him all the data he needs to work with you - sort of an 'inside track to your emotions' and you'll be surprised.
Communication is everything.
Agree with Plastic. I am still waiting for my wife to write me that manual on how to be romantic that I have asked her for. Having said that she has told me she sees my love in all the small things I do and how I look after her.
Take this as a positive. If he has told you he loves you he really means it, probably more than any NT saying it, and if you are both close and happy he will likely be far more faithful to you than any NT. Unfortunately you will probably have to get used to how he is. If you tried to change him and get him to be more romantic / open / chatty, you might find that in order to do that he has to generate a persona for you that is not him, which then causes anxiety and is draining and will then damage your relationship. An important part of a relationship is being able to be yourselves with each other.
Also, if he finds discussing emotions difficult as I do, try having conversations by text / email / letter. I can write things down that I cannot discuss in conversation with my wife.
Thank you both so much for your thoughtful answers. I completely agree that I need to/ want to accept that some of my needs won't be met in this relationship, which I believe is absolutely worth it to be with such an amazing human being as he is! It's just that, sometimes, I lose my energy for it a little and it makes me feel deeply sad and alone every now and then. I know that's human and it's okay, but I want to try to avoid this as I'm worried about how it's making him feel over time and I was hoping that I'd speak to some people here who were managing to do exactly that. I don't want to feel like I'm compromising my own needs to be with him because that impacts our relationship- I want to be willingly accepting. I just don't know how to change my own view of things. 99% of the time I can, it's just that tiny part where I don't that I want to work with. It's so unfair on him. I often think of his face when I'm trying to explain these things and he just doesn't understand and he's sad and overwhelmed, and it breaks my heart. I've started to try to adapt the way I view his displays of affection, too. It's quite challenging, as for him it's things like doing the washing up, which in my mind has always been something you just kind of do when living in a house :) What I'm trying to remember is that I've had many, many colourful, dynamic relationships with people (friends, partners etc) where I've gained an awful lot of experience, so I see buying someone a coffee or whatever as a sort of natural mechanism of relationship. But, he hasn't. So for him, getting up from the sofa to get me a biscuit when he doesn't really want to is quite a huge gesture. It's just difficult at times to think like him, rather than myself. Did you really ask for a manual from your wife? I think that's such an excellent idea! And discussing things by text is also a great idea. Before we lived together, when we texted way more, he was actually pretty good at expressing himself in that way. THANK YOU so much, and thank you for not judging me. I wasn't going to return to this forum as I was finding it very upsetting, but I'm glad I did.
You can gain his trust by indulging his hobbies without spoiling it for him - for example, if it's aircraft museums, ask him lots of questions about the planes - let him show his knowledge and prepare to be impressed - demonstrate you're listening to him and understanding - don't hassle him to get around quickly because you're bored - the more you indulge him, the more he will want to indulge you.
I'm sure you can think of how to indulge his hobby and get him into a comfortable zone - he's more likely to open up if he can trust you won't shoot him down.
Yup- he's very, very sensitive to perceived criticism, so I definitely did make my job harder! We're getting to a good place with his hobby now. Since I realised that it's the ONE thing in the whole universe that grounds him, makes him feel valuable and safe, I realised I absolutely cannot deny him that. Just trying to wind things back now and re-write what's been said and done before. He really has been hurt/ taken advantage of before. He's the sweetest, most gentle, generous and kind person I've ever known. It makes perfect sense for him to have his guard up.
Thank you :)
If you provide him with a long list of things that you like to do, the fact he takes part is because he loves you - when he is unhappy doing things, he will likely withdraw because he might be confused and the reciprocation.
There is a HUGE risk on his part letting you into his head - most of us have been used and manipulated in our lives so we get extremely guarded about our needs (needs = weakness = risk of abuse). If you've already told him off for him enjoying childish things, that will have been logged and further masked in future. You might have just made your job a bit harder.
My wife is completely down with my hobbies - and she now realises that my inner perpetual child is keeping her young and fresh with a positive outlook. She looks at our peers and they are sooooo old!
Getting older is mandatory, growing up isn't.
See, this is where it gets a little more complex, for me. If he performs these tasks purely because I've asked him to, it can kind of lose its meaning altogether. He has sometimes been better with affection and given me a hug, but it feels forced and strange because that's how it feels for him. Or perhaps that's in my own mind and my own issue! I don't know! But that's why I'm hoping I can stop asking him for things which aren't natural to him and learn to better appreciate those that are. You are so right about him learning to mask around me, and I'm now trying to reverse that and allow him to truly be himself around me. I have asked what he wants from me, but the difficulty is that he says 'nothing'. He always says things are perfect and that I'm perfect when pressed... but I'm not sure if he's just really afraid of creating some kind of conflict, no matter how much I reassure him. We've always have a very positive, close relationship with virtually no conflict, so it's hard for me to know what to do to reassure him. However, I do know that he perceives me as just another person who might berate him at times, regardless, because of his own life experiences. I'm going round in circles! Apologies! But I do hope you have an excellent time at the water park! There have definitely been times where I've described certain aspects of his hobby as 'childish' or something to that affect, so I will certainly take more care there.