Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I am with an aspergers guy and have been for seven years, we are going through a very difficult time due to it. I am stuck at home all day on my own - we have no friends or family in the area, so I never see other people or speak to them. I work online on my computer, but I CANNOT do much because I am physically disabled.
My guy is at work all day and then comes in and does not talk much, when he is at work he is surrounded by loads of people and gets lots of emails texts and phone calls from customers and other workers, when he does talk it ls about the weather, what is on television and all that stuff.
He never ever wants to talk about anything that matters / us.
I told him that I have been getting so bored and lonely that I started to chat on some forums and rang an anxiety helpline.
He has no idea of how bored and lonely I am.
He will not listen about it, he just does not get it. So he finds fault with it saying he cannot understand what the point is to going in the forums or chatting in a chat room.
I am here for maybe eight hours a day bored to tears. That is what the point is. It is better than being more lonely and bored.
I tell hm and he still cannot se it and finds fault.
I am sick of being bored and lonely and sick of him finding fault with me doing what I can about it.
because i wanted to
why did u delete the text about u and ur partner being divas ?
I understand that but that wsnt the point.
This not about him not opening up.
It is about him moaning and groaning about him not approving of me being online while he is out, because he says it is a waste of time.
And you dont know him at all. If he did not want to be busy or chatting to people he would make sure his life was different.
This may be a bit too blunt - I apologise - but you don't seem to understand what aidie is saying. We mask like crazy and it's REALLY difficult to get to the 'real' us. His 'home' persona may be having difficulties opening up to you fully so he's unable to say what he really means - there's a period of time between friend, girlfriend and partner so we have to adapt the mask to include you and to fully open up. The mask gets us get through the social day and it gets more rigid with age - and at 65, he'll be very difficult to get beyond him presenting what he thinks you want to see and who he really is. The more you demonstrate displeasure with him, the less he will open up.
We are not fighting and if he was sick of me he would have left and moved out. so that makes no sense at all. If he was sick of me he would not be going on about how much he loves nand must be with me. and sending me flowers. You keep ignoring what I tell you and making it up.
i cant really say what i want here this is public. thats why i need u to allow me to PM you ------ he may have several personas ----- "Mr Club" and "At home". "Mr Club" has loads of energy,,,,, but with you hes not switched on at all
you are both fighting - maybe sick of each other --- maybe there could be more --- maybe you are a real diva
Yes that would be good Aidie, that would help, and maybe help those peole too.
But as I said I am sick of my partner finding fault with me chatting or being online when I am on my own for eight hours a day bored to tears inbetween work.
allow people to message u from here
Hi Aidie, thanks for your reply. No he is not tired when he gets in, he is bright and breezy and eager to chat away to whoever, often making phone calls all evening to family and stuff. He thrives on it. Its why he does the job he does and runs a club. We go out sometimes. I am physically disabled, hence stuck at home a lot on my own and not able to do much physically. I used to own my own business with a lot of staff and chatting to clients all day. I like chatting. I like interacting with peole. I miss it.
So because I was alone and bored all day I started tol post on forums, chat in chat rooms, just to pass the time and interact with people. It made the day go a bit quicker and meant I wasnt relying on him for all of my interaction and company.
But when I told him he got very judgmental and cold about it. Going on about how it was a waste of time and pointless.
This is quite ridiculous as he spends a lot more time than me on just chatting to people - and he is much busier than me. I need to chatter during that eight hours to get some sort of interaction and fill the time. He already has lots of things to keep him busy, phone calls and meets etc which I dont have.
He is so dismissive about it, you would think I have started to take drugs or break the law, it is just a way to make that eight hours pass better and he will not accept it. He is being a hypocrite. He spends more time chatting about nothing in a day than I do in a week.
allow people to message you from here and u can talk to us !
I would take a guess as follows
he is coming home very tired and is not capable of much when he gets home. You are getting cabin fever and more and more upset.
OK
reply to me - with a list of things you want him to do to fix you. No more than 10 please. no more than one sentence per item.
You do not understand.
I dont need advice on what he is like or how to talk to him. we have been together seven years.
I dont need advice on how to spend my time, thats all worked out as best it can be considering I am physically disabled, housebound most of the time and alone a lot.
Before this I was managing director of a big business with three secretaries and a lot of staff, very busy. And used to chatting to clients I have a lot in common with.
My guy is a professional person who chose his job because he loves to mix with and chatter to people all day. he is not doing some job he hates doing and wishing he could chat to them less. He set up a club so that he could chatter to people and meet people more. He is often chattering away at work and then when he is here evenings and weekends. That has nothing to do with what i was saynig other than that it makes him a hypcocrite. He thinks its fine for him to have loasd of long pointless chats all day with people. But if I chat to someone online or put posts in a forum while I sit there bored and lonely all day then that was a waste of time and pointless. He will not accept that simply passing the time and having an email arrive and someone to chat to for a while is a point in itself. Even though he does it too.
I understand what you say. But I am not unemployed. I have things to fill my day and if I was not disabled and more mobile I would be working more with clients, not going to meet ups etc - which are about 30 miles away.And always full of unemployeds I have nothing in common with.
Obvously if you can go out to meet and have lots of spare time going out and doing that is better. Our situations , personalities, and lifestyles and pasts are very different.
My guy is not anti social. He loves chatting. He is not forced to do it. HE CHOSE THAT JOB BECAUSE IT INVOLVES MEETING LOTS OF PEOPLE AND CHATTING. This has nothing to do with our evenings or weekends or how he interacts with me most of the time. He wouldnt have set up and run a club if he didnt like chatting and was anti social, that would make no sense.
This about the fact taht he is being a hypocrite. He thinks it is fine for him to chatter away all day and a lot of the evening to loads of people. But if I chat to you for half an hyour on here whle I am on my own he finds fault with it. He gets it into his head it was a waste of half an hour.
If you cannot run your business and get out and do much then you have half an hour to waste. It is better than being more bored and more lonely. He will not see or accept that.
Please if you are going to reply concentrate on what I am saying and not keep changing the subject trynig to fix things that do not need fixing. Or suggesting things that are pointless or worse than they are already.
I go along to local Meetup events - coffee mornings and pub evenings etc. I'm very Aspergers and very ill but I just need to get out of the house and interact / people watch for a break from the monotony of being indoors all the time. By meeting at an external venue, it sets boundaries to stop people using me - and allows me to withdraw if I'm losing interest or getting overloaded.
You may be expecting too much from your partner - if he's forced to be social during the day, he may be partially fried by the time he gets home so if you then start asking difficult 'open ended' questions at a time when he wants to defrag his brain, it's not going to end well. He'll switch off and you'll be frustrated.
Aspie blokes are much easier to deal with when you de-stress them by indulging their hobby so they can push the daily stress to the side to concentrate on the subject at hand - a plane museum or car show etc. That's the time to start these difficult conversations over lunch. Be concise and precise so his answers can be short and simple - the more vague questions will take too long for him to process - things like "how much do you love me?" are unmeasurable so it will jam his brain up.
Hello, I work full time, i can easily make time for other things by working less, but it has to be something worthwhile. I own my own business and am very happy with my work. No need to change it.
I am not into groups. I tried them before I became too disabled to go out on my own and they bore me to tears. I would much rather be working and getting paid for my time during the day. IF I had a good friend I would arrange to see her sometimes, but not a group. Please dont say that if I go to groups I might find a friend, I tried all of them. It dos not work. It does not work because all of the people I met expected me to let them just turn up on the doorstep when they were bored and wanted to moan about their problems. Never wanting to invite me around theirs, or socialise when they were happy, always just when miserable. I am not going to go from being a busy successful businesswoman who say clients who paid by appointment to running a drop in centre for bored lonely people who only come around when they have nothing better to do and want to bore me about their latest visit to the doctor for hours.. And always ignoring that I need people to arrange a day and time and not just turn up. The people I met were usually people who did not work at all and had loads of spare time yet they resented arranging a day and time and sticking to it. Many were much too old for me and we had nothing in common. some were inarticulate, uneducated, no job, no prospects and wanting money. IF they could not just turn up when bored they lost interest. FIne. They are selfish. If I wanted people I hardly know to come around I could make appointments to see paying clients here, but I would rather do my work with them online and not have strangers intruding here. Even though those people pay for my time!
I get days where I am quite ill, where I am not up to doing much at all, let alone tidying up and cleaning up for visitors, or sitting there chatting. And on the days I feel well enough i need to be organised. If its a housework day I have to spend that day doing housework , not getting all behind.
I am not looking for suggestions on how to fill my time, I have done that already to the best of my ability. Due to my situation the best I can do is to chat in chat rooms and go on forums during the day inbetween work. Its not great but its better than the day dragging slower and me having less contact with people. I know which forums etc to use, I own my own websites too. I am very well organised. If I needed ideas on how to fill my time it would make more sense to talk to hubby, he at least knows me and my background and the area.
My guy is very sociable and loves being with people. As I said he does that all day at work. He runs a club. He is often on the phone in the evening with these people or his family. He has lots of contact with other people and loves it.
We go out sometimes when he is not too tired - he starts work very early and it is very physically demanding, he is also 65 - I dont expect him to take me out a lot, when we do go out it is shopping or something, which is fine by me. We dont have friends or family in the area so it cant be anything else.
The reason I posted was not for suggestions in how to fill my time - you are talking to a woman who was managing director of a big business with a lot of staff, I had three secretaries/ personal assistants. I was getting down because I was doing the best I can - i.le. chatting on forums/chat rooms when bored and lonely and alone, yet aspergery partner finding fault with it. Despite the fact he gets more contact with other people in a day than I do in a month.
IF I tell him that I posted on this forum and you replied and I thanked you and replied to you he will say what was the point? It was a waste of time. That person cannot help you at all. He doesnt accept that it meant I had an interesting 30 mins and had some contact from someone and it improved the day that way.
In our area it is easy to go out evenings. But remember I am disabled and cannot get out without him. If I could i would do far better than groups of the unemployed and penniless. I would be running a successful business and talking to clients who I have more in common with.
Our evenings and weekends are sorted.
My job etc and hobbies are sorted. I write. It is what I do for a living and love doing. I have just had another book published. Idont need to go on forums for advice about it, most of the others there are amateurs and I am the only professional. It becomes boring then, I really do not want to go there just to advise everyone else.
i want to interact with people about normal life and other things as me, not work all the time. Hence the chat rooms and other forums.
I simply wanted him to stop going on about what a waste of time it is to go in chat rooms or forums when I am at home on my own, bored and lonely , for at least eight hours most days. He keeps on abo0ut how it is pointless because it has no end result. He often chooses to chats to someone for an hour just for the sake of a chat. It is the same thing. Only he has already had hours of talking to and seeing other people earlier that day. in my case because I am disabled and on my own stuck at home a lot I have more time to fill so need to do it more. In his case he will chatter away to someone for an hour and then realise that means he got behind with something important, which i think is daft. He does not get that.
That's a difficult situation and there aren't really any easy answers due to current Government restrictions.
If you're not working full time during the day is there scope to go to a local coffee morning or other form of 'outside gathering for people in isolation'? My village has a couple of those.
Are evenings out possible? Pubs tend to be quiet these days and even if you're in an area that doesn't currently permit mingling you can at least enjoy the social environment. It might help him focus on chatting to you too.
As an Aspergers person he may not like the sensory overload and forced sociality of pubs, but they're quieter than normal now, or find one with a quiet eating area.
He may also be seeking respite at home, needing to recharge internally and recover from the stresses of being at work. I need an hour or two to myself after a day at work before I'm fit for human company again, so is that potentially an issue?
I don't see any issues in you engaging in forums or a chat room. I'd suggest finding ones associated with your hobbies (e.g. photography or writing or whatever else you do for fun) as that gives you an automatic shared interest to chat about, and also makes it an adult conversation that isn't about sex (which is sadly the topic of many chat rooms that aren't directly about something else). That also gives you conversation points for your partner, around the things you've learned or are trying as a result of those hobbies, which is safer than difficult emotional conversations.
Those need to happen too but I can't offer help on that point.