At my wit's end...Aspie on Aspie relationships = EPIC FAIL

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Gah. So goddamn frustrated I don't even know where to begin. I've asked for advice on here a number of times so far as dealing with my slightly-lower-functioning Aspie BF, but at this point, it's not advice I need, it's venting space.

We'd been friends for years before we decided to get together, and I figured the fact that we're both Aspies would make certain issues that were major problems in previous relationships non-existent, since we'd each know where the other was coming from. Unfortunately, it seems that some of our 'problems' are getting in the way, and as a result of them, relationship issues and arguments often become circular. We try and talk something out, we both melt down. We have trouble seeing things from eachother's perspective....himself more than myself, but I too am guilty of this. And although I have been able to help him quite a bit with some of his lifestyle and responsibility problems BECAUSE I have been there and done that, others just frustrate me to no end, and he retreats into his own little fairyland and won't listen to me.

While I have obviously had communication problems in other relationships and friendships because of MY AS, I have never had them on this level before....much of the time it's like we're both talking to the wall. I do not want to give up, but sometimes, like now, I feel that I might have to. I realise it's not his fault, I DO know WHY he is the way he is....I just have trouble dealing with it....moreso because I am the way I am.

Have you heard of focusing? It's a really good tool for non-threateningly delving into sore spots while maintaining respect and keeping everyone grounded and with a good sense of perspective and awareness.

Actually, I have not....please do elaborate.

From memory:

There was a group of psychologists, therapists and counsellors who grouped together to try and figure out why the success rate of therapy was so low, and why it seemed to remain consistent across all fields of the discipline, regardless of the practitioners experience.

They developed a study to find out why some patients got better / changed, and why some stayed the same.

They found that it was a component of the patient that made the difference. Sucessful patients portrayed a certain quality that others did not. This characteristic can be (crudely) sumarized as follows:

1. At some point during the therapy the patient slowed down their speach and started making long pauses.
2. They stumbled for words trying to describe something for which the words did not exist.
3. They went on circuitous descriptions of the things they were sensing in themselves, often back tracking and correcting.

The therapists called this aspect, focusing.

It seems what these patients were doing is going within themselves, and looking and sensing and feeling the part of their body that was having an emotional reaction to the topic at hand. They were listening to their body give them messages. They were then trying to convey this message, through words to the therapist, and they struggled to find the words that accurately described these sensations. But they perservered until they though they had described all aspecst of the feeling.

The therapists during these explanations did not ask probing questions. They asked for more details, and asked the patients to describe more fully, and then echoed back the description to see if it gelled with the patient, if it did not, the patient tried fix the description and move forward.

It seemed that all of this looking and sensing made the body feel 'heard' for the first time, and allowed the patient, even though they hadn't rationally explained *why* they felt like that, to move forward. The message had been received, often for the first time.
The patient didnt' have to act on the message, but it does have to be heard.

This can be applied to relationships, in that you must hear the other person, accept that they are feeling the way they are, explore with loving interest, but understand that the way they feel is not necesarily the way they will act, and that it is the hearing of the feeling that is important. Ignoring the message just makes it louder.

<breathes>

Now, I probably horribly messed up parts of that, so please, read the book, fascinating, and has helped me enormously. I can't recommend it enough.

E. T. Gendlin. Focusing. Second edition, Bantam Books, 1982. ISBN 0-553-27833-9.

Will

Thanks a lot....I will try it, and look for the book as well. Anything that could help, I'm willing to give a shot.


One positive thing this experience has given me, though, is an insight into how OTHER people used to feel having to deal with me when I was a little....ehh....how to put this nicely?....less socialized?