ASD falling in love & anxiety

It's good that you're in a happy relationship, that is a positive thing to remember! It is also important to remember that your relationship will change over time and so both of you will have to adapt. I've been married to my wife for 14 years, known her longer, and our relationship has definitely not been the same since we first met - it is natural for things to be really happy, sometimes not great, and hopefully mostly just stable. Sometimes we spend lots of time together, other times we don't, but it doesn't change how we feel about each other.

Perhaps you should talk to your partner about your feelings. It is reasonable to expect your partner to listen to how you feel, but it is also reasonable to not assume that she will "fix" how you feel - supporting you is fine, but at the end of the day we are all in charge of our own emotions.

One thing I do sometimes is write my feelings down in a journal. I find that bottling everything up in my head is too much, so I write things down instead, which I find easier than verbally talking to someone. Sometimes I make lists of all the happy/positive things I've experienced recently to remind me that things can be good. Other times I write down the negative emotion I'm feeling (e.g. anxiety about a situation), then list all the reasons why I'm feeling it, and then I'll challenge myself to look at all these reasons a different way. For example, I was anxious dropping my car off at the garage the other day because I know nothing about cars and I would feel stupid. But really I was just overthinking the situation - the garage mechanic won't notice anything about me, so I just had to drop it off and that's it.

I guess this works for me because I'm taking the time to process the situation or feelings, which I think is what we all need - some extra time. Maybe you might find some of this useful too.

With your anxious attachment style, you're dependant on her (an outside external source) to regulate your internal emotions, and without her there, you're finding it hard to regulate your own emotions.

Two months to form a routine with someone seems pretty quick, so hopefully it'll take about the same amount of time to form a different routine. Changes can be very scary, and it's easier to have a fixed routine that always works, but it's hard to find something that works for everyone, but hopefully you can find something that works for both of you. 

I used to be very attached to people due to anxiety, but facing fears and becoming more self sufficient and independent, helped not only me, but them as well, as now instead of depending on them, they can depend on me as well. There's more balance in the relationship, instead of the relationship being one-sided.

Perhaps when your partner works late, you can take that time to focus on yourself, improve your skills, take up a hobby. Maybe even plan a nice dinner for the both of you. Just something to do to be productive with your time. 

Anyways, hope you all the best.

Hi Oran G. Utan,

Thank you so much for your response, it’s very much appreciated. I’ve just found a therapist who specialises in ASD so hopefully I will connect with them to work on some personal issues. I find romantic relationships so confusing and the intensity of the emotions very hard to navigate, especially at the falling in love stage.

I have limited interests which mainly consist of music and exercise so could really do with finding something to get my head in to at home. I do work how ever I’ve just had a week off and feel like this hasn’t done me any good in terms of thinking too much about things.

do you have any advice on managing these complicated emotions?

Now, there are in my experince two sorts of "relationship anxiety", the one where you have good cause to be anxious, and the one where you do not.

Sounds like you have the nasty one, like I get from time to time, which is why despite being a nearly old man I believe I can offer you some advice on this.

Keep it to yuorself, and deal with it yourself UNLESS it turns into the first type of anxiety which is NOT entirely your probem, say for example if your partner starts hiding things from you (be very careful to be sure that they were actually hiding things from you) or lying to you. Again be sure before taking action.

Communicating mistrust of your partner (which is what such anxiety will be received as) is of course a relationship killer.

If the anxiety raises itself to psychotic levels, I.E. starts to really dominate your thoughts then I am afraid, you now have a lot of unpleasant and secret work to do, along the lines of "trust but verify". I first sit down in a quite place and have a good talk to myself. I challenge myslelf to justify my anxiety, and identify the cause of it. 

As a Christian I see my relationship anxiety as either a warning, OR and attempt by satan to destroy my happiness, you may substitute, the phrase "an unwanted psycholgical artifact", either way I don't like it and it has to go.

So having had a long talk to myself I can decide if my anxiety has any real basis that needs investigation, or I will have worked out that I am being stupid and insecure, adn shoudl stop ding that immendately adn go clean soemhting, or fix somehting or do anything but give it any more time, because I know I was being stupid. 

IT's MY anxiety, MY problem, and I'm still not going to share it with my partner. Sharng such things might work on T.V. but not so much in real life especially early on n a relationship. I love my partner, why share such a buzz kill.

However if after talking to myself, I realse that my anxiety is only "probably stupid" and thus it cannot be easily banished, then it's time to "collect evidence" that will defnitely prove that you have something to worry about in your relationship. Take your time, figure out the minimum effort you need to expend to obtain the evidence to be positively sure you have cause for concern, and without being caught, (most important that) go looking for it.. 

Why this is a bad strategy (in my opinion) you have to be sneaky and act in a way that you know would really, really upset your partner if you get caught.

Why this is a good strategy (In my experience) is that your anxiety over your relatiohship actually gets dealt with and doesn't just fester and corrupt your joy over time. Confronting your self can be done as much as you want without upsetting anyone else. Every time you "fail to find the evidence" weakens that particular form of anxiety. NOTE: Make damn sure before you start sneaking about that the thing(s) you will be monitoring or looking for really are "reliable indicators" the purpose of the testing is to get useful information. When after a few occasions you keep coming up empty your anxiety will reset itself to a new more comfortable "sensitivity" and bother you way less. 

I've used variations of this approach to tackle all sorts of anxieties of all sorts and it's been golden for me. 

Not saying it will help anyone else of course, but it might...

It does sound like you're going through a lot of complicated emotions right now. I've been there myself once before, so I get how extreme it feels to not have that special person around the way you like. If you have access to any kind of therapy, that might be a better place to let all these feelings out.

It sounds like your partner has taken a really positive step forward in her life. How is yours going? If you're finding yourself with more personal time than you like, could you find some productive or progressive way to fill that which works for you?