Shocked By The "Aspartners" site

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Someone from here has posted a reply in that thread. It certainly wasn't me, though it could of been spurned on by my linking to that article.

It's not that which I have a problem with. Yes, I agree that she should probably ditch him if he is completely unwilling to help her. However, what I have a problem with in that thread are the replies and the generalisations of aspies, not the advice to leave the relationship.

Besides, what could really be the problem there is the OP's unsuccessful attempts to communicate what she needs to her partner, rather than his unwillingness. Like when she says that he becomes upset when she says anything negative about him. I would actually advise her to simply ask him to help her out when she needs it rather than going up to him and saying "you don't do this or that" because to an aspie, that sounds accusatory and comes across as criticism.

She also says that he appears to obsessed with a computer game or something to be the main. That could be his escape route when stressed, so I would recommend a compromise on that, like asking him to help her with chores before going to the game.

Wasn't me, but that poster made a good point. Life is still going to involve most of the same tasks whether you live alone or with a partner.

The OP has a lot going on so maybe life is just too busy for her to focus on a relationship right now. Between full-time college and 2 jobs, how does she have the time or energy for it? Personally I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone who is that busy, and then just harps on me for not doing things to help.



Good suggestions. I agree.

I may have been projecting because it sounded like my first relationship so I was speaking from personal experience. I don't think she should deal with it. She didn't mention about him working or looking for work so I assumed he was lazy like my ex was so I would hate to see another person making the same mistake and trying to work it out and never giving up and things still stay the same, that was my mom's fear about me because I am someone who never gives up and she was relieved I got smart and I told her "you can't force someone to change."

Communication actually isn't the solution to every problem. In fact the guy from the LoveLabs says that communication is rarely the issue in relationships in the relationships he analyses. And I think this woman makes a lot of sense: http://www.yourtango.com/experts/ph-d-s ... HeKKFesWyc

Maybe this woman is a shockingly bad communicator, but I'd make a guess that she's probably tried to ask him for more time and for more help without going to the nag first.

My husband gets upset if I say anything about anything that he does. I mean even the most neutral comment he can react with defensiveness. So I say nothing. And my soul dies a little more each day. He says plenty. He's happy to criticise me endlessly. And believe me I've tried talking to my husband about moderating D&D - focusing on family stuff first, then doing D&D. I've got no issues with hobbies, I have my own and I have always let him prioritise his face-to-face meetups unless I had a major work thing. But I can ask, I can state my needs and expectations, I can try cajoling, I've even tried screaming and threatening but NOTHING. I mean NOTHING has changed his behaviour. I recently asked him to move a D&D meetup from our house (which by the way he didn't ask me if he could do first) because I was too sick to have people over - people who can be quite loud. This lead to a 30 minute rantdown on how awful I am (I mean vile, vicious nasty stuff adult stuff) with our son in the next room.

So if her partner is anything like mine, then no I don't think communication is the issue - or at least I don't think communication is the solution that you think it might be.

Hmmn. That article actually backs up the points Jono was making. They are just calling it "relating" rather than communication, but the essence of what they are saying about criticism is the very same point that Jono made.





This is why it's hard to have any kind of objective view on what is happening, when you only have a brief description posted on the internet. It is very easy for people to personally identify and then project their own experiences into the story. It's very similar to what is known as the Barnum effect.

Every time I go on that site I am more disturbed than previously. Not by their accusations, which seem probable, but rather by the "us" "them" mentality. Reading it illuminates me about the marginalization of a group which I am part of. And the vitriol is kinda scary.

At the risk of sounding anti-social, some of the complaints are petty. These aren't Siamese twins with a shared circulatory system and might stand to be more independent -- both emotionally and situationally.

I have a conventional understanding of gender roles, so am not insecure or awkward. There is a system or set of rules, and I am trying to mind my manners.

I feel no need to micromanage, so have been surprised, at times, by the lengths people were willing to go for me. I believe these people thrive on praise or positive feedback. I had to be extremely careful, because any wrong move on my part would be crushing.

I am sometimes asked what I would like to do, or where I would like to go. I am able to articulate what I want with reasonable clarity or, perhaps, an irritating amount of detail. I am not so distant or inscrutable, and am frankly somewhat incredulous, to hear that someone forged a committal, legally-binding relationship, without knowing the habits of his partner.

Where was the bait-and-switch, or false expectations, here. There usually are none, with painfully-literal, AS people.

I have recently asked an NT family member why she seemed so 'down.' I was told that she had lost track of something. I said here it is, was told that's not the point. I asked whether I was misreading her and was told she didn't want to talk about it. Failing to see the mystique, here, I register it as being coy.

Provided that I am energetic and well-focused, I have a flawless, photographic memory, which has literally won awards -- not that I'm legalistic about it. NT's tell me about their problems, get prompt, direct answers, but, before I'm able to complete the thought, the problem has already changed. It seems manipulative -- as though I have been engaged by a false emergency, or fool's errand, and the rules of the game are being changed en route to a destination which never really existed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

The vast majority NT people don't seem so unhappy, so much as being delegative and pacing people. There is typically no nameable purpose or goal, in my experience.

When I am not focused on my own problems, I more prone to say that NT is the pathology, although I feel responsible not to harm or embarrass those rare, attentive, and vulnerable ones.

I am typically (always) registering an emergency, and the NT is invoking "emergency powers," to get through it. This is not my stress.

I guess I'd say relating isn't always about verbal communication. And you can be articulate and it still make absolutely no difference. But more important than communication is behaviour. How you do for your partner and with your partner. This naturally puts AS/NT relationships under strain.

And Dianthus for all your Barnum speculation - when you read the original post, does it sound like a good relationship to you? Does it sound like his behaviour is good partner behaviour? Why would you presume that Jono's speculation that she may be a bad communicator more likely than my speculation that she's probably tried.

And no - what the person aspieview1 (or similar) said about chores doesn't make sense. Doing chores on your own as a single person is not the same thing as doing all the chores for a household as a couple. Part of being a couple is sharing burdens, not heaping them onto one person so you can play. It should mean sharing them so both people can play sometimes - together and separately.

With AS/NT relationships, it mostly is. Or at least it is mostly about verbal communication with regards to most of the problems specifically caused by AS, firstly because part of the disorder is not being able to understand non-verbal communication and secondly people with AS tend to interpret verbal communication very literally, so they usually don't understand what an NT is trying to say to them if they don't say exactly what they mean without using hypotheticals, comparisons and other stuff. I could be wrong and maybe he really doesn't care but I was offering a perspective from my own experience with AS and I know that personally when people tell me "you do this or that" or "you never do this" it comes across to me as an accusation, so I will get defensive. If they just ask me, then it's a different story.

Anyway, I didn't say that communication was the only issue here, I actually took note of the fact that she mentions an "obsession" with a game as the main hurdle. That sounds like it could also be AS related and I know for a fact that when we find something that we like doing when we're alone, it start to look like an "obsession" to the outsider, like special interest sort of thing but also that we often retreat to those things to de-stress ourselves. So, my advice on that one was to let him have that time but also to compromise in the sense of asking for help when she needs it and letting him go back to that afterwards.



I don't know. Possible because she has Aspergers too and can relate to what I said? It's just an unfortunate fact that often most NT's are bad communicators when it comes to communicating with someone with AS but that can improve if understand the disorder and the source of the miscommunications.



It's my view that aspie1view missed the point. The OP was talking about being overwhelmed with work and her aspie partner not sharing the workload and chores in the house where they're possibly living together, while aspie1view was talking about her asking him to do the chores for her as though they living separately. While he does have a point that anyone would be doing chores whether they are in a relationship or not, he just misunderstood that the OP was talking about sharing the chores when they live together in the same house.

As I've already said, I reserve judgment because we do not have the full story of what is happening.

I would say that IF the OP's statements about her relationship were the absolute truth, then no it is probably not a good relationship, but it really is none of my business to say so or not. It is her decision.

However there is no such thing as one person's perspective being the absolute truth about a situation. It simply does not work that way. There is a saying, that there are at least 3 sides to every story.

I imagine multiple perspectives...in particular, how the OP might feel differently when she is less overwhelmed. How her partner may be interpreting things. How I myself might feel in either person's shoes, and how that might differ from their own perspectives.

Just going by what she wrote, I personally would not want to be in a relationship with either one of them, because it sounds like there are negatives on both sides. But they are both different people from me, and obviously they have their own reasons for being together, otherwise the relationship would not exist to begin with. What is a "good" partner for me, might be a "bad" one for someone else, and vice versa.

His behavior sounds typical of someone who feels blamed and/or criticized by their partner, and retreats into his own interests. Good or bad, it is the natural reaction many people have when they feel criticized.



I did not presume any such thing. Jono said she was unsuccessful at communicating, not bad at it. One doesn't necessarily equate to the other. It's stated quite clearly in the woman's own post that she is unsuccessful, because she is not getting the results she wants.

If you apply wholesale judgments like "good" and "bad" to things like being a communicator, being a partner, being in a relationship, it is assuming that there is some universal standard all people must adhere to, and does not take into account situational and individual differences.

This woman for instance may be a fine communicator in her jobs, or in other relationships with people, but she may misunderstand something about communicating with her partner. It does not make her a "bad" communicator, but it means what she is doing in that situation is ineffective.



There is no context provided for what she is asking him to do, other than "help" and reading some blogs. I can't help but wonder if it's as vague to him as it is to me.

I don't agree that being a couple means sharing burdens. Sometimes burdens are unnecessary things that people take on themselves, and then have to ask for help with because they can not manage it on their own.

I think the point still stands, because it sounds like she might still be overwhelmed if she was single and/or living alone. It's possible she has taken on more than she can handle.

When I was on work crews, sometimes with absentee managers, the workers just picked up slack, wherever they saw it, and the job got completed.

In the household, some of us are just better at certain jobs, and chores were assigned, unofficially.

Everyone seems to know which job is theirs.

But, I don't understand why this seems surprising to her, when he never particular showed any inclination to do any of the things she expects.

It's not that the guy's ambitious.

It's that she knew what she was getting into, or had the opportunity to know.

It seemed to me, that there was an established set of boundaries from the getgo, although, yes, she does seem to be carrying most of the load.

I wondered too because she seems to be a "go-getter." Two jobs and full-time school is a lot for anyone. Perhaps they are ill-suited.

Yeah it sounds like they may have different priorities in life.

As for housework, people can have widely varying ideas about what kinds of chores need to be done, and how meticulous they are about doing those things.

I assumed she worked two jobs to support him. She never mentioned if he worked too or if he is in school. I also assumed she has tried asking him and talking to him because that is what she wrote and then she wrote he gets mad at her about it when she asks him to do something. It always bothers me when people say an aspie will never change or they can't expect them to change. I take offense to that because it is implying it will never get better and that they are unable to do it.

I have thought about aspie1view and it's possible he or she may have been in a relationship with a controlling partner who was a narcissist so it may have affected his or her view on what the OP wrote. I call it projection.

I also notice the rest of the posts are marked unread. Does that mean the OP hasn't read them? It wouldn't surprise me if she has left the forum.