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Hi NAS94922 ,

Firstly, sorry to hear about your break up  . Secondly, please understand that what I am about to say is purely just my opinion based on my experiences in life, I am am far from a relationship expert! But what I can do is share insights from an autistic point of view. 

Bit of context - I've been happily married for 15 years and with my wife for almost 19 years, we met when we were both in our late teens and very early twenties. I was only recently diagnosed with autism though. 

I bet there are many of us who will read your post, and like me, go "yep, I recognize that" . My wife would be better suited to answer this, but what I can say is that we have had many conversations where she has felt I have shown a lack of interest in the things she cares about, and a lack of effort in things which needed effort. But there is a huge caveat.... I did, and do care, I just didn't express it in a way that she  could recognize.

One example - holidays. She loves travelling, and I love that she loves travelling, but I don't express excitement in a way that she could recognize. She would talk about booking them, show me all the lovely pictures of the place, talk about all the arrangements etc and I just didn't share her excitement. I loved it made her happy, but I just didn't really care about the holiday myself. But we recognized, even before my diagnosis, that we just had different ways of displaying our excitement. Crucially, she would make all the effort to book and organize them, which could be seen as a lack of effort on my behalf.

But I do care, because let me tell you, my autism crushes me to bits when I go on holiday, its un familiar, heat or hot weather completely over stimulates my sensory inputs, queuing in airports makes me an anxious mess, planes freak me out, strangers spend way to much time in my personal space on holiday, I constantly feel obliged to smile and make eye contact which burns me out and I can barely eat when in a foreign country. I would go through all of this hell because I knew it made my wife happy, and she is the kindest and most beautiful human on the planet, so happiness is the minimum of what she deserves.

But when you read this, who would you say is the one who does not care or make an effort? Her doing something she loves, or me going through hell quietly because I know it's what she deserves. It took a long time, but my wife slowly began to understand my quirks, and I committed to making sure I could adapt to situations so she could enjoy her passion, not outwardly, but inwardly addressing my hesitations and concerns with travelling.

But communication was key, and this is my first bit of advice. How you communicate, and what you understand and recognise as care or effort, might be very different from how your boyfriend sees and experiences the world. However, just because he is autistic, that does not mean you don't deserve to be treated in a way that YOU understand and appreciate too. He needs to help you understand his way of communicating so that you can find a common language. 

My second observation, he asked you what you like, and you were hurt by it. Completely valid, after 2 years you would hope that he knew what you liked! But sometimes, at least for me, autism makes me extremely black and white. I read is response to you and though "valid question" . He genuinely wanted to know, at this point in time, what do you like? Again, for me and my wife, we have realised that if she hints or is vague about something she wants, there is zero chance she will get it! I guess my question is, have you ever been specific with him on what you like? 

The fact you are here makes me think you love this boy? Don't ever give up on love! You should be proud of yourself for the incredible effort you have made to make a success of you relationship, but don't lose sight of the fact that he just might not be able to fully appreciate your effort in its current format. He might see you doing things that only make you happy , and so it might not resonate with him. 

I'll leave you with one last story that helped me understand what it's like when two different brains love each other, but don't understand each others love. A few years ago, my daughter was about 4 years old. My wife said to her, what would you get daddy if you had all the money in the world? She answered "a new peppa pig teddy" , I remember at the time thinking "bless her, obviously, like any kid, she thought of getting me something that she could then have" . But a then it dawned on me, how could a 4yr old possibly know what a 30ish year old man would want? How could she even conceive, let alone articulate what I could possibly want if she had all the money in the world? So she choose something she recognized as an incredible and loving gift, she spoke to me in her language and choose something she associated with happiness and love. Her desire was to pass that internalised feeling of love to me, through an object she believed could be a conduit between her love and me. 

I don't know much, but I know I love my wife, I know I care deeply for her, but I also know that the conduit of my love, or my care, or my efforts, aren't always obvious to her. Sometimes, often times in fact, I fall short of speaking to her in her language, but we are both committed to understanding each others method of communication. 

If you love him, and just as importantly, if he loves you, you will find a way. Just because he's autistic does not mean he can't walk this journey with you. 

I hope and pray it all works out for you both.

NAS94922 said:

What frustrates me is that throughout our relationship I told him to express to me if what I was asking wasn’t possible for him, so I could either adjust my expectations or find another partner more suitable. But he kept saying everything was fine while I continued to be disappointed by him.

This does sound like he was "masking" - another common autistic trait where we act the way we think we are expected to and often chose the path of least resistance.

At the end of the day there is also no reason to think that there is not an element of you ex being a bit of a jerk too - you gave him adequate opportunity to ask things and tolerated his differences yet he continued with his actions.

It is impossible to tell for sure but I think you did the right thing for you in this situation - you deserve to be treated better.

Thanks for the reply!

to answer some of your questions, what I meant by him not knowing my likes wasn’t necessarily about gift giving, I can see I should of been a bit clearer. But that after years of being together he couldn’t say one accurate thing about me, and the stuff I was listing I know I had told him before, like what my favourite food as just an example. And he blamed this lack of knowledge on his autism. 

I also know that I would have not acted any differently. I was upset but at the time his excuse of ‘I’m autistic it’s just what happens’ meant I was compassionate towards him but the more I thought about it afterwards the less it made sense to me. I.e I expressed I was hurt by his lack of knowledge but his excuse towards this curbed those feelings until I actually thought about it properly.

What frustrates me is that throughout our relationship I told him to express to me if what I was asking wasn’t possible for him, so I could either adjust my expectations or find another partner more suitable. But he kept saying everything was fine while I continued to be disappointed by him.

thank you for your insight as well!

I think you were right to break up with him because the relationship isn't right for you, which is fine. I can understand why you want to know if he was being honest. Not having enough brain space to remember things people like is normal, but when you said that I was like 'oh sh't' because that's a serious thing and I would remember things like that myself. For example I am currently talking to a girl for a few days and I am tired today, but I like her, so I am making myself message her at a reasonable rate, I go over board to help and support people I care about. I can see why it felt to you like he doesn't care that much about you. 

Another thing is if I am in a shop around people I just have the brain space to get what I need, thinking about someone else is an extra pressure, so that's another aspect which you don't have to deal with as a NT person. Like I was looking for electrolytes on Tuesday for the first time and I had to spend 5 minutes standing there stimming to find what I wanted, if I wasn't stimming I would have lost it and just left the shop. I ending I think his autism would make things more challenging for him, but if he focused on it more he could have made the changes you needed in the relationship. 

Another note is this sort of break down is something I worry about when I get into a relationship and how I can manage my autism with the other person. 

NAS94922 said:

after two and a half years he couldn’t tell me what I liked. Like he literally had no idea about my likes, dislikes or anything about me.

If you didn't actually use terms like "I really like that handbag" then there is a very real possibility that he would not be able to identify that it was a present option for you.

Many autists struggle with social cues including working out what present options are. I used to have a hard time deciding what to get my wife after 24 years of marriage and that was with me trying to stay alert to potential items of interest - it can really be that opaque for us.

NAS94922 said:

I honestly got quite upset with him as I was pretty shocked and things ended a month later.

With the benefit of the knowledge of the above, would you have acted any differently? We can be hard work for "normal" people and if you are not able to handle our level of differentness then it is a good thing to be aware of so you can add it to your potential partner filter lists in future.

NAS94922 said:

I’m also questioning a lot of the other stuff he blamed his autism on too.

My personal opinion is that this is likely to be a mix of legitimate issues he is talking about and some that are just convenient as they require effort that he may not have the energy to deal with. Without knowing the specifics it is impossible to give you an answer but the fact he was causing you to feel the way you were is probably the sign that a relationship with him would not work out long term.

All the above is in my opinion only of course.

From my experience, yes, and no.

Everyone with autism is different, I know that goes without saying, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships I've seen it go both ways due to having autism myself and having two autistic exes. Ex 1 would remember everything I ever mentioned and would send the nicest gifts. EX 2 was a lot more like the person you're describing here, sent a christmas gift in our first year together, two more birthdays with no gift and one christmas with no gift, not even a card. Sometimes people disassociate or distance themselves even in relationships where a partner ideally shouldn't, it's not intentional, but it happens.

For myself, I'd say I am good at remembering things and my friends/ex's interests. Gift giving is something I'm passionate about and I like to make sure no one feels alone in their interests (heck knows I was as a kid anyway).