"NT" Loving An AS, Ramblings...

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Hi everyone! I'm so thrilled to find this site. Thank you all for being here and posting. I've posted in the newbie section, I am engaged to an AS and for me it's been a struggle figuring out how this affects my relationship.

It doesn't affect my love, but the things that my fiance does sometimes perplex me! Of course, I used to take it as him not really loving me, but since I've read up on AS, I find comfort in the fact that it's just his interactions to the world, does that make any sense?

Like in a post yesterday, I was talking about moving the clothes hamper on him to another corner of the bedroom. So instead of him putting the dirty clothes in the hamper in the new spot, he just put the clothes on the floor in the corner where the hamper used to be. Ordinarily I'd just think he was lazy and didn't want to walk six feet to the new location, but now I realize that is just a way he is keeping his routine. He doesn't adapt to me moving things on him.

I am not complaining, I'm just very comforted in knowing that the things he does that I don't understand are part of his condition, and it helps me to not take those sorts of things as an indication of his lack of consideration. I hope I conveyed that correctly?

He also can't take "Non-verbal" queues very well, and I really do have to spell out what I want and need. He does give me what I need, but I do have to ask.

A lot of times I hug him, and he just stands there with his arms to his side! To me, that makes me feel very unloved until I ask him to hug me back! I worry that he doesn't like those sensations, is this possible?

OK, I am sure I've typed enough, sorry for the long post!

Ameobia

This is pretty familiar. If you're engaged with him I can assure you he loves you, and losing you would destroy the man. As I've experienced in my time, girls really appreciate the intuitive initiative of caring acts put forward by the men they fancy. Your man too wants do things for you, but yes they have to be spelled out. In time he'll probably make accuaintance with your desires and on his own deside to give you what you want. That's the thing about people with AS. To begin with we're awkward, might seem totally uninterested and we can do things that might even hurt. There are many reasons for this. Fear of yet another rejection is one of them, it's like a defence mechanism. Also in our heads certain actions may seem like good ideas the way we see them, but put forth they may have opposite effects of those intended. Our language is pretty straight forward, metaphores and hints may not apply, lying is hard to do and to detect, even the white ones, though no harm is usually intended. There are plenty of things I could have written, but I think I've gotten a bit of track now, don't know if any of this makes any sense. I hope you'll find it helpful.

Wikan covered most of it so I'll just make a comment about the last thing. You might just want to ask him if he enjoys it when you hug him &/or why he doesn't hug you back. It might sound silly or embarrassing to you, but if you tell him what you want/need otherwise, he may be confused as to what is going on or how he should react. (May not be connecting "she's hugging me" to "she wants me to hug her back" automatically). If you communicate with each other you'll be fine.

He's surprised at the hub and is uncomfortable socially in those situations....

Often my AS wife will react badly if I try to cuddle or touch. Hugs are kind of off limits most of the time. She tells me " I want to be able to touch you when I want to but I don't want you (or anyone else) to touch me most of the time."

She has very set routines and this often led to very bad arguements about how to deal w/my kids (from a previous marriage). She is now on Paxil & life is very much better for everyone. She has her quirks, but she also has many wonderful qualities. Now that her moods have stabilzed it is much easier to work on the little details.

The rest of your post sounds very typical for people w/AS. Just try & be very clear on what you mean & what you want. People w/AS interpret things in the strangest ways sometimes. : )

Theyre not the only ones....

Thank you all, I appreciate the comments, and it is comforting to me. I can see why AS marriages often fail (don't most marriages often fail though?).

If I were a less patient and understanding person, I'd have walked out a long time ago. The pain sometimes is hard to bear, as I'm also a sensitive person and am hurt easily. I do really love this man though, probably more than anyone I've ever met! I was at first so confused and hurt by his supposed "lack of empathy" or consideration, but now I have basically grown to not expect him to react a certain way. I just take it one situation at a time and try to remember he is not coming from a mean selfish place, and I try to always think about him that way, as someone that loves me but doesn't always know exactly what to do, or say to help.

One thing I hear all the time is "I don't know" when I ask him to make a choice in a situation. This is when I really need or want his input. I used to keep asking, because I could see no reason why he'd not be able to choose. Finally I did inquire why he says this all the time instead of just giving me a straight forward yes or no, hamburgers or chicken, go or stay, etc. He says he has to take time to think about it. Now most times I just try to keep from asking him questions like that, but if I have to, I have decided to just wait and ask again later. Is this typical of anyone else's experiences?

I do the same to my boyfriend at times. He has to ask me for hugs, or warn me when he's giving me one. Sometimes if I don't reciprocate correctly, he will ask me several times until he feels he has gotten a "real" one out of me, lol.

I don't think it's the sensation of it that bothers me, but I don't understand why I have to hug him every time I see him when he already knows that I love him... I do it anyway to make him happy, but it still boggles me at times.

I wonder if he does the other thing I do... my boyfriend constantly says "I love you", and I'll just stand there... of course I say it back sometimes, but it drives me nuts when he says it a lot because he knows I do.

Stuff that is needed like that for someone to feel loved by me makes me feel... awkward to some extent, because it makes me feel like they are needy emotionally, and I'm not good at expressing myself emotionally... so it makes me feel inadequate in some way-like I'm having trouble fulfilling a need of theirs that I don't understand to begin with. I just talked in circles didn't I?

As far as making choices, I've told my boyfriend to just flat out tell me what the plans are. I cannot make decisions about plans if my life depended on it. There's too much to factor in. If the person is asking to begin with, they likely have an idea of what they want to do to start with anyway. Then, I don't know what their day is going to be like on the day planned, or what might happen during that time, or if an emergency is going to pop up, or.... gosh, there are so many factors in making plans. Even in making choices about where to go to dinner, I'd prefer he just tell me where we are going unless he's being facetious and says a place he knows I cannot stand at all. It's also hard for me to make decisions, because making a decision about plans, or just things in general, means it's something that is going to disrupt my routine or how I think my day was going to go. Even if it's just for a moment.

An aside to Anxiety25... personally, there is a sense of aesthetic, of how things 'should' be, that when an experience doesn't match it can be rather jarring. That's an AS perspective; him being NT there is little idea that I have why he would want them constantly. I tend towards a balance there; I hate the touch of strangers, but appreciate her touch very much - it has a calming quality to it. Also, I'm having to recognize that my executive function, the decision making you talk about, is not as strong for me as I had thought it was developed... something that I have to accept simply is not a strength. My wife helps me with schedule, medications, etc, so that I can be a more effective person, and I appreciate it more than I could ever express.


M.

Yes, he is more "huggy" than the average person. I am glad he tells me ahead of time and such so I'm aware though. I think he's taking over the "female" role emotionally in a way... 'cuz as I watch others, they are usually the ones who instigate the hugs, or wanna hold hands and all of that... so since he doesn't get it from me so much, he does it himself just my theory on it. I've heard a phrase... but I can't think of how it goes... basically, they say in social settings, when one person isn't playing a certain role, another will pick up on it and be that role, and it will go around and around like that. I'll have to find the actual phrase thingie on that, because it'd probably make more sense than how I said it, lol.

He's been talking a lot about marriage and things like that lately... I sure he is as helpful as your wife sounds with things like that for me I know he helps me remember a lot of things as it is, and is very supportive a lot of the time (even though half the time he has no clue whatsoever he's being supportive about because he understand what is bothering me, lol), and I am happy with him.

Just a quick response, as this has had me thinking awhile... but have you taken the approach of -teaching- him how to respond to a hug? And yes... I am terrible when I move the trash bin or laundry hamper, and it takes awhile to change. Having him be a part of those change might help, and might cause a lot more trouble than it is worth - I don't know.


M.

I find it difficlut with my NT girlfriend of 4 years. The non-verbal thing is a nightmare, and I oftern find myself not knowing what the right thing to do, more space less space -what do I do? I have my failsafe which is giving her a cuddle (which are invaribly not the gentle variety but more like "bear hugs") which also oftern fails do to the fact that they can be smothering (at least this is meant in the literal sense. I should point out that when all is well she loves these hugs.). In addittion to this I have speant our four years together trying to figure out what she gets out of it and why she likes being with me (something which still baffles me to this day, but I'm not complaining.).

The problems we have are the same as anyone else, communication. Only we have better reasons than most for communication issues. In the recent weeks (She has long suspected I have an ASD but I was ruluctant to act on this until recently) we have been looking at my potential AS as cause for any problems and generally are finding that we are able to talk unemotionally about our problems and resolve them clamly. This is brilliant, and I at least am a lot happier with it if not her as well (I assume she is, how could she not if we are sorting things out without argueing?)

This happens a lot in my relationship. Hamburger or chicken is more complicated than string theory. And usually I really don't care. My partner will walk away, and come back five minutes later and I'll say "the chicken is older we should eat it first" and he'll say, "but what do you want" and I'll realize I'm in the middle of a mine field.

A lot of us learn social interaction by explicit rules, so you can often be direct and specific without offending us. But we may still like our way better.

My reaction to moving the hamper was to think "but it was just right the way it was". Even if it's just habit and routine, there is an aesthetic, an aspie feng shui, when things are arranged "just right".

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the responses! You really don't know how comforting they are to me.

This relationship is not easy for me, in some ways it's more work than I've ever had to do before. Sometimes I just wish that he'd be happy to see me and come smiling at the door to give me a big hug and kiss and tell me we are going out tonight instead of me having to cook and clean after work, but there's none of that. He does expect me to come and kiss him, and I do of course, but there's no "happiness" that I'm home from work, or any outward display of emotions at all. He tells me, "You know I love you, why do I have to tell you all the time?" or when I ask, he will say "You know I do", but those are just words, and I sometimes need some spontaneous affection, instead of having to ask for everything. I feel very awkward myself having to ask for that. Anyway, sorry to be whining, I know what I'm lucky to have him!

I'm so glad to know that decision making is not a strong point for most AS! Makes me feel better when I know how to cope with all those little things. THANK YOU all again, you are wonderful! Any more advice, I will gladly accept it.

Ameobia

I am just tackling the laundry part of your post here!

I'm mild Aspergers and my husband is somewhere on the spectrum too, with extreme ADHD type behaviour, whatever he is he isn't neurotypical, and he's horrendously disorganised in all aspects and he has a habit of hoarding things in a very disorganised manner.

One of the things that really annoys me is he cannot put his clothes away - he is obsessive about doing laundry, but then he just leaves his laundered clothes in piles around the place because he doesn't seem to know what to do with it from that point on - his behaviour was rewarded recently when one of the cats peed on a pile of his clothes that he'd left on the floor, and now many of his clothes are ruined. He discovered this yesterday. Today (listening to my suggestion about a possible solution) he went out and bought some storage boxes to put clothes in, he took measurements to make sure the boxes could fit under our bed, and he has spent the day diligently folding and packing up the 300+ t-shirts that he just has to keep. This is a HUGE step forwards. I have my own quirks, but this is one of his.

I am not suggesting that you wee on his clothes like our cat did - that would be very sinister. But asking him "have you put your clothes in the laundry bin?" every night would IMO not be unreasonable, and it might be that he only needs that reminder regularly for a few days or weeks before he adjusts. Regular reminders really do help - they certainly help me, as long as they are not accusatory, hectoring, patronising, or overly-motherly. Just don't get cross with him, remember the things you love him for - this really is a very minor thing

I am being a bit useless in that I posted my reply before reading this post... (my error, sorry!)

Spontaneous affection is something that is often too sudden and overwhelming, what you have to understand is that what a neurotypical may take as a show of affection, could make someone with AS feel REALLY panicky - and I daresay that is the last thing you want!

My husband and I have come to a great understanding, we've been married for 3 years (as of yesterday, our anniversary is 12th August) but co-habiting for nearly 6, it may not be ideal or seem that spontaneous, and it's probably not at all "normal", but we have got into the habit of saying to one another - "I'd really like a hug right now", or "give me a passionate kiss if you want to", really just spelling it out to each other.

He comes home from work and I'm on the computer, I come home from work (when I'm working) and he's on the computer, it's unusual to get more than a grunt from either of us because our attention is absorbed elsewhere, we get round it by (for example if I get home) going right up to him and saying "HI, I'm home, come and sit and talk to me for 20 minutes to make me feel welcomed home" - it really is THAT basic - spell out what you want, and why you want it. One of us then goes to make a cup of tea or coffee or gets a glass of wine and then we have a time to talk about the day we have had.

Tell him exactly what you want, don't skirt around the issue - whenever you arrive home or whenever he arrives home, you want a certain amount of his time to ask each other questions about the day you've each had - he has a routine, so see if he will work that into his routine. I've done it with my routine, and my husband has done it with his routine. Relationship experts go on about having quality time together, and time to unwind together after work, etc. etc. etc. - well sometimes you just have to work that in as part of your or his routine - with some couples you just need to put it on a regular schedule, write it down on the calendar or diary if necessary!

Remember that HE LOVES YOU! Even if it is difficult for him to show it. Knowing how I feel myself, it can be SO difficult to share any part of my life or my space with someone - if he has let you in then you are welcome there and that can be a very big thing, don't ever forget that

Edit to add: There is no way that you should have to do all the cooking and cleaning after you come home from work, this is the 21st century, not the 1950s. If you both work, these jobs should be shared. If he really can't cook, teach him a couple of simple dishes, write them down so he can always refer to instructions, and have a cooking rota so that he knows when it is his turn to cook. Don't accept any excuses. You're not his mum.