First time in history!! !! The NT/AS open hotline ! !! !! !

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Hi all,

I am a female NT (although I don't think I'm NT at all, just not AS). I have been in a long term, committed relationship with my bf and he is absolutely wonderful. I feel head over heels and think he is talented, smart, kind, funny, hot, inspiring, and truly good hearted. Needless to say, I love him.

However, there has been a lot of issues for me and they are only getting worse. I feel isolated from him a lot and our sex life has slowed almost to a halt. My love language is primarily touch so not having regular hugs and kisses and cuddles is really hard on me. It makes me feel like I repulse him and that he doesn't love me. But everything else in the relationship is good - he makes other gestures and choices that tell me that he loves me more than ever.

My therapist recently suggested that my bf may be AS. She hasn't met him so it's not a diagnosis but after she said that I did a lot of research and it does seem to fit, down to the fact that he is very sensitive to sound, touch and smell - particularly light touch.

All the research I have done says that it is ABSOLUTELY important that both partners be aware of AS and to seek a diagnosis. What I have read says that it can only work if both partners are knowledgeable about the unique challenges of AS-NT relationships. So, I know I should bring this up with him (especially before things progress and we end up getting married or something), but I don't know how. I am afraid he might be offended (although he shouldn't, he is wonderful and being AS does not change that at all).

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone been told to seek a diagnosis by a loved one? How did it feel? Was there anything you wish they had said or hadn't have said? Do you think it would be helpful to reach out to my bf's family?

I'd really appreciate your perspectives.

No one ever suggested I get a diagnosis, it was something I discovered myself, so I'm afraid I can't help you there. I can see that it would be a sensitive topic, though. One thing you might try doing as a way of broaching the topic is taking the Aspie Quiz and the Broad Autism Phenotype test and seeing if there's anything unusual about your score. You could then go to him if there is and say you're curious about him. I emailed four of my friends with my Aspie Quiz graph without making any suggestions -- just included the link -- and two of them took it (neither were Aspies).

But I did want to comment on the touch and holding issue, since I have it, my mother had it, my father's third wife has it. It was very hard to overcome my aversion to being held. I mean *very* hard, as in it elicited terrifying symptoms -- I felt like I was going to plunge out of a window. And struggled with that again and again and again. I was ultimately able to dispense with most of it but chances are he will *not* be able to. And so you have to take him as he is. If he's like me, it isn't a matter of choice. It's a phobic response. Perhaps he's an Aspie, perhaps he just got it from his mother, perhaps it's both as in my case. But one rule of relationships is that you never enter one thinking you're going to change the other person. Change is great if it occurs, but most often it doesn't, and if you predicate the relationship on change in your partner, it probably won't work out.

Know this: the fact that he has an aversion to touch *doesn't* mean he doesn't love you. This I can tell you from personal experience. It's more akin to a phobia. The fact that I have a fear of heights and so get scared in high places doesn't mean I don't like the Grand Canyon or the view from the top of Notre Dame. It means I'm scared to death when I go to those places. Similarly, I don't think the fact that he shies from physical contact means he doesn't love you. It means he was emotionally damaged, perhaps by Asperger's, perhaps by something else. Keeping that in mind may make things easier. In general, we Aspies aren't going to be very good at some things that are part of a normal relationship -- expressing sympathy, telling white lies. But we make up for it (I hope -- I'm not unbiased here!) through good will, generosity, honesty, dedication, and a lack of guile. It just may be that you have to settle for the qualities that attracted ou to him initially, and recognize that he probably can't do much to change the things you don't like, because it really is a struggle for us to do some things that most people find second nature and even enjoy.

Thank you josh338, that is really helpful. I don't think I can or want to change him but I do want to understand him. If it turns out that the touch aversion is rooted in AS then I think we will both be able to maneuver better if we know. Right now I just automatically assume its my fault in some way, which isn't healthy. Your comment gave me really good insight into a perspective that is far from mine (I'm the opposite, I want to jump out a window when I go too long not being hugged). You are also so right, if my bf is indeed AS, he "makes up for" touch aversion in a million ways. He's the best.

Personally I think it's more important for a couple to take each other's perspectives than to seek a diagnosis or to be particularly knowledgeable about AS-NT difficulties, though I don't discount the tremendous value of those things in the right hands. And unfortunately the competence of diagnosticians is not always great, so beware of false positives and false negatives. Of course the process itself can be very useful because whether you have AS or not, you get a lot of information about your traits, and the more you know about yourself, whether NT or AS, the better your relationships will be.

It was my (then) wife who first suggested I had AS, and although very skeptical, I wasn't averse to taking a look, so I proactively did a couple of online tests and took the result seriously, and sought a diagnosis. So much depends on the person, some folks just don't want to think there's something "wrong" with them, and if they know about the social stigma that is often attached to autism, they're even less likely to want such a label. Luckily I didn't know that, and my pride doesn't seem vulnerable to the notion that I may have a particular condition, as long as it's not laid on me by others - I think it would have done more harm than good if anybody had tried to lay the idea on me, my ex simply and quietly said that she thought I'd got it and suggested in a very soft-touch way that I looked into it, and allowed me to find out for myself rather than trying to spoon-feed me her beliefs. She wasn't normally like that, usually when there was a problem she went at me like a hammer and tongs. But she'd studied autism for her job so maybe she'd seen some advice and wisely decided to use it.

We'd had similar problems to those you mention, but they were never resolved. My autism probably played some part in the loss of touch and physical intimacy, but I think our very different personalities and outlooks had a great deal to do with it too. I feel that unresolved issues had sent me into my shell, and she tended to approach her concerns so aggressively that I felt like I was trying to survive in spite of her, which obviously didn't help. I'm now with a partner who is much more compatible with me, she suspects she has AS, so maybe she's more able to see my Aspie perspective than most. There's perhaps a hint of the same intimacy problems, but nothing like so much as before. We both have a lot of emotional baggage from previous failed relationships and upbringing, but what we've done is to talk things through, and to have faith, stay calm and patient,always looking for win-win solutions, and like I said before, taking each other's perspective. This is just my 2 cents as one Aspie, but I hope you find it of some use.

Thank you for sharing ToughDiamond. I'm sorry you went through tough things with your ex but it sounds like you came out in a good place.

I'll definitely use your advice.

Question for an NT:

When a commenter makes their first comment on a post/forum (such as Reddit, but I've seen variations on several forums) there seems to be a common "preface" that is followed. The format is as follows:

- he/she states that they've been lurking for awhile
- he/she states that it is their first time posting
- he/she says that they are sorry for anything that might be found wrong with their comment

I am wondering, what is the purpose of this preface? It does not makes sense to me, because

1) Why would somebody care if it is a person's first comment or not?

2) Why would anybody care if they've been "lurking"? This seems random to me (as I'm sure my aspie comments seem random to others)

3) If they've been lurking for awhile, they should feel pretty confident about the content of their comment... so why are they anticipating making an error?

Thank you ahead of time for help in figuring this out!

Well, I think they're hoping to mitigate the stigma against n00bs (new people in an online community) by indicating that they're (a) not that much of a n00b to begin with (hence the lurking), yet also (b) self-aware of their relative n00b status. We NTs often hate at least a little less those people who are self-aware of their failings. Also, in the absence of body language, NTs behave more Aspie-like online than in person: with only text to go by, we may miss some cues that are usually transmitted nonverbally and for which emojis may not be sufficient, or, as the flame-war culture demonstrates (see the dumb comments after any article), be way more blunt than we would dare to be in real life unless, perhaps, we were drunk.

Thank you. Mind blown!

IMO this "preface" thing is mainly an Aspie thing, or to be more precise an insecure Aspie thing. The purpose of it is to show that they are insecure, and to plead for indulgence, so that they dont want to beget blamed for something, or if so, when at least been told what they did wrong.

I sometimes try to reassure people, or here on wrongplanet, I add that it is pretty easy-going here, and if I criticise, I tend to do it softer.

Sounds about right to me as an old Aspie. I see it as akin to having an "L" plate on a car, or a "GB" sticker when driving in another country - it means "please cut me some slack, I'm not as familiar with the rules as you might imagine."

This one goes to the NTs:

Would you befriend someone if you knew they would never ever miss you? If not, why?

I'm not able to display emotional attachment or miss other people but I still can enjoy some people's companies A LOT. That's why I'm asking.

No. It would feel like I was just there for them to have fun with at that one moment in time and then they could take me or leave me the next moment and then it's on with having fun with the next available person. A person doesn't want to feel forgotten, then it's as if their life doesn't matter and just anyone can fill their place. Same feeling as a one night stand, I guess.

It took me a looooong time of denial and pretending to finally accept I don't feel it. Thank you for you answer.

I actually have experience in this topic because one of my Aspie friends told me he didn't feel anything - didn't miss his family, any friends and didn't even have feelings for his cat. He actually forgot about people once they were out of his sight and this included his dad that had just passed away several months before even though their relationship was good. It just hurts a lot when someone doesn't even think about you at all when you aren't with them. This may be something that you might not want to share with people in your life - especially women. That is just my opinion.

I wouldn`t mind. Some of my friends are like that, it is easier to stay friend with them because they are less demanding.

I don't. They've figured it out long ago without my help.