Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I've been having serious relationship issues with my partner for the last few years now. To the point where we are both pretty depressed. When describing my partner to my therapist, she suggested he may have Aspergers. I looked it up and there is a lot of overlap with the traits described. It all seems so obvious now. I feel very lonely in our relationship, but want to give it one last shot for our daughters sake.
What advice would you give as to how to tackle this topic with my partner? I'm worried he will flip out, get very offended and I can even conceive that he will admit to it (he is generally very self-aware).
What would you say the benefit of me bringing it up would be?
At the moment I'm just trying to make things as bearable as possible so don't want to stoke a fire.
Thanks,
What traits are you seeing? How do you describe his actions? What do you understand about Asperger's?
You don't need to tackle it head on - you just need to understand his world and see how easily you can make is less stressful and more fun.
The traits are things like not liking people in general, highly intelligent, obsession with things being 'right', hates change in routine, obsessions around hygiene, things being in done in a particular way, lack of friendship in the relationship i.e. doesn't follow up on things that are going on in my life, doesn't ask if I would like a glass water if he gets some, not recognising what my basic needs are etc. Honestly no I don't know a lot about Aspergers, Iread some article but not read whole books. If you have any recommendations please let me know.
You might not accept this - but 'normal' people lie all the time - about everything - mostly little things for status reasons - and then seem to just jabber about nothing - it's almost like their way of breathing.
It's UNBELIEVABLY difficult for us to interface with people who lie - there's nothing solid to base our internal model of them on - they are totally unpredictable - who knows what lie will be next? The easy option is to just avoid it. (eg. facebook is one massive 'Beat The Jones's' fake status game).
We suffer from stress - and anything unknown or not absolutely clear and controlled creates intolerable stress - we would rather arrive somewhere 3 hrs early to get parked and sorted than arrive late. Late would be a failure - it's rude and incorrect.
Think about all the things that are out of control - it's all stress that we can't cope with.
As we get older, our ability to deal with all the stress and chaos diminishes until we often burn out and need to reset.
Our life is like living in a Las Vegas Casino - everything is too loud, too smelly, too sticky, too bright - it's all just sooooo tiring.
You may have become a mystery to him - if you do the typical 'opposites' game - he might think you're upset - he asks if you're ok - you say yes - he's totally confused. We cannot play that game - you can become your own worst enemy in that case.
He might also feel you gang up on him with your friends - he might feel extremely isolated with no way to understand you..
Thank you so much for this perspective, I'll keep reading it over. It fits very well into what I've experienced with him and what he has described his life like. Thank you for taking the time, it is much appreciated.