NT/AS relationship help

Post Reply New Topic

Hey,

This is the first time I've posted on a site like this, about personal situations- but I would like input. Other sites that I have found scare me with how negative they seem about outcomes of NT and AS couples. I am a woman (28) who (as I have only recently learned) is deemed a "NT". My partner has AS and is 28, and we are engaged. He has never gone to professional treatment, or gotten a professional diagnosis- but he is aware that his brain is wired differently, and that it seems to line up. His siblings have also been officially diagnosed with AS.

He is an excellent boyfriend in a lot of different ways, he is always on time, he cares deeply about me and our dog and cat, he makes dinners and cleans when I ask, he makes big long term goals with me in mind.

I started suspecting things were different when we started dating, long distance (about 3 hrs away). He hates talking on the phone- and a lot of our arguments were about the fact that I needed more than the same texts every day. He would defend himself saying he texts me all day, how is that not enough? Fights would escalate quickly, I wouldn't feel heard, he wouldn't feel heard. There were a lot of hurtful things said. Getting him to apologize for those hurtful things was a hard mountain to climb too, whether that was because he felt righteous or overly guilty I'm not sure.

A huge tell for me was when he accidentally scared me one time by grabbing my shoulders. It wasn't bad, but it was during an argument, and I have past trauma with physical abuse so I got shaken. When I tried to bring up that that scared me, his first reaction was pure anger. He told me that I wasn't allowed to say stuff like that because it would ruin his career. I literally just wanted to make him aware that he had scared me, so we could be on the same page. But it actually started another argument, with him saying that if he ever hurt me he would kill himself, and that I wasn't allowed to say anything like that because I would be ruining his career.

Fast forward to now, we live together- and communication is okay, but doesn't have much depth. He hates talking about feelings, but we have our day to day figured out and our routines. He's said no to therapy, but I've attended therapy to find coping strategies to try to feel emotionally taken care of. The main thing I need help with is de-escalation of arguments. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but he drinks on his nights off- and he drinks usually a good amount. When I do something that makes him mad, or if I bring up a previous situation that was about him hurting my feelings, it seems to spiral out of my control extremely fast and everything I say is taken as a direct attack. He raises his voice, says hurtful things, and I start crying which of course makes him incredibly angry, and then he tries to touch me (in a kind apologetic way) after flailing and screaming and I flinch. That flinching sends him off the rails- he's yelled at me that I think he'll hurt me, hes told me to leave, he's asked for his ring back.

Of course, he apologizes after everything, always with defensiveness added, that he told me to not bring up a situation again, or that I shouldn't have been on my phone during a movie we were watching. But what I really want to know from the AS community is whether there's a right way to de-escalate when it starts spiraling. I've been having pretty gnarly panic attacks- and for my own emotional well-being, and his (he really hates me being so emotional) I'd like to figure out a better strategy. Any and all advice welcome- and please don't just tell me to leave him. I love him and I'm doing this to try to find a way to move forward.

Best,
NT

Hi,
I'm a female with aspergers who has been in a relationship with a male with aspergers, who could quite often fly off the handle spectacularly. I found there wasn't an awful lot I could do about it except for try and pre-empt it and adjust my behaviour. This led to me treading on eggshells, keeping my feelings to myself and I think is probably the main reason I decided to end the relationship.
I guess I didn't figure out a way of escalating, however my bf was different in that he would never, ever apologise and didn't seem to recognise or accept that he ever did anything wrong.
What might help is noticing when he or you are starting to feel wound up, and giving each other some space. I find I am much better at written than verbal communication, so it might be helpful to write those difficult conversations rather than approach them face to face.
Have you ever had a conversation about his responses/anger?

It would be highly desirable if the two of you could see an ASD-aware couples counselor. (A non-ASD-aware couples counselor probably wouldn't be very helpful.)

You say that he has said no to therapy; has he told you what his reasons are? I'm wondering if there might be a way of presenting the idea of couples counseling to him in a way that wouldn't put him on the defensive -- perhaps by emphasizing that there are things you need to learn too, not just him; that this isn't about blaming either you or him but about improving the relationship for both of you?

In the meantime, both you and he might benefit from some tutorials on how to be assertive without being aggressive. The best such tutorial I've found online so far is this one (podcast & transcript).

Also you might want to Google for tutorials on "giving and receiving constructive criticism." Here's an old post of mine containing links to some pages on receiving criticism. Hopefully you can figure out some way to entice your husband into looking at these, without putting him on the defensive -- perhaps by mentioning that you think these tutorials might help both you and him on the job as well as in your relationship with each other?

You mentioned that he "hates talking about feelings." Many (though not all) autistic people have alexithymia -- difficulty identifying and naming one's feelings.

Lots of people these days seem to hate phone conversations, preferring either text or in-person. This is a new trend that seems to begun within just the past 5 to 10 years, as far as I can tell. There have always been some people with a "phone phobia," but not nearly as many as there are now.

Yes there are some very negative websites out there. Here are some more constructive ones:

- 5 Tips for Making Autistic/Neurotypical Marriages Work
- Marriage with Asperger’s Syndrome: 14 Practical Strategies
- What Everybody Ought to Know About Aspergers and Marriage
- Keys To A Successful Asperger’s Marriage

For a critique of some of the more negative sites, see: What’s in a Word: Asperger’s and Hate Groups, or the Cassandras.

Anyhow, if you decide to look for an ASD-aware couples counselor, I would suggest that you let us know what country you live in and what major city you live in or near, so that perhaps someone here might be able to help you find helpful local resources.

One other thing:

This leads me to wonder if there are other issues involved here besides ASD.

Obviously, nothing you say to him is going to "ruin his career" unless you also tell it to his boss, or post it on a public website without protecting your and his identity, or otherwise broadcast it. Are you in the habit of blabbing about your relationship problems to all and sundry? If not, and if he knows you don't do that, then his worry about you "ruining his career" is clearly illogical.

While we autistic folks may be socially impaired, many of us at least pride ourselves on being logical. That's why the above incident suggests, to me, that there is more going on in your relationship besides just his ASD (assuming he has ASD in the first place, which you don't know for sure in the absence of a diagnosis by an ASD specialist). Either you're a blabbermouth (in which case that's something you need to work on, perhaps by being more careful about whom you confide in?) or he has other, co-occurring mental health issues that are causing him to jump to illogical conclusions. Or maybe both.

Indeed it's common for autistic people to have co-occurring mental health issues, especially anxiety and depression. What you've described as his extreme irritability and extreme tendency to take things personally also suggests other co-occurring mental health issues, such as anxiety and/or depression.

Oh all these answers are amazing, and I'm loving all the input! So I should have also specified that I actually worked in autism research at a medical school for about three years along side an MD/PhD in neuroscience that specialized in ASD. I also am a nurse. So though I don't personally have ASD, I have talked to many people that do, and understand it from a neurobiological standpoint. With that being said, what I know from that is it is VERY complex. It is very possible that there are co-diagnosis involved with my fiance. What I've learned over the years with him is that he has trouble taking criticism in general, regardless of how sensitive I am or what the subject is. I always phrase things as "we both would benefit" from therapy, learning how to argue better etc etc. That doesn't seem to effect the defensiveness.

Of course I'm sure there are plenty of faults on my side, and I'm sure I don't handle the arguments as well as I could. But that's what I'm here for!

Thank you again,
C

We have had many many discussions about his anger, mainly after something bad has been said or done. I'd say for the most part it takes about a day for him to analyze the situation in hind-sight. The problem is always he goes "I'm sorry I called you a b***h, but you know I hate when you ask the same question over and over. I counted you asked that question, worded in different ways 5 times, I kept count. five. So I was trying to get you to pay attention by saying something extreme".

So I don't know if I'd call it necessarily an apology per say. More like I'm sorry you had to deal with that, but it was whats best.

I don’t think I would stay in a relationship with someone who called me that.

I have the sense he gets angry when he feels guilty. He doesn't want to be made out to be a bad person, or it makes him feel terrible. It's not on to touch you when he knows you hate it though, especially as you've experienced trauma. I would hate that.

What question(s) do you ask him repeatedly?

So this is a theme in our arguments this "me making him repeat things 5 million times" which for me, is a different reality. So here's a recent scenario:

Two nights previous he got incredibly drunk while we were watching a movie together, which in and of itself I don't have too much issue with, it's just slightly annoying. What I've noticed though is he's more quick to anger when he is. But of course bringing that up is an absolute sure way to start a fight, which I avoid. He also has a strong urge to smoke cigarettes when he drinks, which I don't love, but I make him do it outside because regardless he's going to do it. During the movie I got a grade update from a teacher (I'm in a masters program) so I checked my phone to see what got updated. He told me that that was rude to check my phone during a movie. Now this, this is funny. He is attached to his phone all day, he plays Maple Story on cue at all the times he's suppose to. The night he proposed to me he had to hop on at 9pm to complete the week's challenges. Every movie, show, dinner with family he usually takes it out unless I explicitly ask him not to. I've had issues with it before, but I also know it's part of his "routine" so I now don't mention anything and I make a conscious effort not to take it personally.

So my response to him pointing out I was being rude, was to apologize and say "I just have to check one more thing, then I promise I'll get off" (and here's where I went wrong, but I still don't understand why it was THAT wrong) "I don't see me being on my phone for a few minutes as a problem, I mean you're always on your phone"

BOOM cue the eye rolls every time I speak, the banging his head against his hands, storming out, hitting surfaces and lots of yelling. And I swear from that point on I was all apologies- I know when he sees red in those situations, especially when hes drunk he doesn't hear anything good from me. I'm a villain and he's the victim. That night ended with me asking for space (I was having a panic attack, and needed a minute, because my panic pisses him off, which makes my panic worse). So I went in the other room to do my meditation. 10 minutes later he barged in and started yelling about me being on my phone again. Again, I apologized. That's when he tried to grab me in a nice apologetic way (but his social signals are off, so it seems jerky and like it's in anger) so I flinched. He then stormed out, threw my phone at the wall and said f**k you and f**k this and left the house for 30 min. He came back and passed out.

So for the repeating: He works 24-48 hr shifts, so he left the next morning, and in a text apologized for getting so mad at me being on my phone (do you see how when he apologizes there's a disconnect. I could care less about the phone convo at that point, I was upset at the fact that I don't have a man that takes himself out of the equation when I'm panicking. Everything is all about him all the time). I replied (text of course) that I was more hurt by the other things, to which he asked "what other things?". I listed them out in bullet points, the throwing of the phone, the storming out when I flinched, then yelling when I said I needed time, and not putting himself aside when I was panicking. He then texted "I'm really sorry, I love you". That's about all I usually get, but I'll take it- I know he just doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

When he came home though, I reopened it up. I needed more than what he gave me. This is a man I'm engaged to- that I'm thinking about having kids with. I need to know why it wont happen again. So I said my peace, basically saying the same thing I did before over texts, and he said sorry again. I then went on to talk about how I couldn't sleep the previous nights because it made me uneasy that I couldn't de-escalate the situation by just saying sorry and groveling. That there didn't seem to be any way out. He again said sorry. Then I continued on to say that if we have kids, I don't want those type of conflict resolution strategies to be picked up. I don't want them to feel like that. He then said "I've already answered you 5 times, I'm not talking about this ever again. Shut up."

My response to this, was "Babe, I need to talk about this- I didn't ask you to have the same response, but this is important for me to talk about." To which he said: "I f*****g talked about this already, I told you I was sorry, you know I hate when you keep saying the same thing over and over. I already told you the answer and I'm done. Don't bring it up again."

I wasn't okay with that, I'm versed in conflict resolution- and that's not an okay way to handle anything. Childish in my mind, but I would NEVER say that to him. What I did say was that I understood this was a hard convo, but I needed some steps forward to know those type of things wouldn't happen again. At that point he stormed out, and somewhere in the next convo he called me a b***h in order to somehow shock me out of my "repetition".

Sorry for the monologue, but you guys have had such great insight so far, I wanted to lay the particulars out. Almost every argument, the initial thing that pissed him off is not remotely what I get upset about. It's how he deals with everything afterwards. His anger comes quick and it escalates extremely quickly.

And of course, I never feel fully "heard" in these arguments, because somehow even my problems I'm bringing to him get flipped around to be about him. He retaliates when I say "I felt really sad when you called me a b***h" by saying things like "Well you called me a bad boyfriend so that makes me sad too *in a sarcastic tone*". But this is stuff I talk to my therapist about, not feeling fully heard or understood in the relationship. I also know it's really common for NT and AS relationships after reading all the forums. The argument becomes how do I get the crucial points across, and de-escalate this situation. Usually I give completely up on getting the crucial points across, and go into full blown de-escalate the situation.

Given your involvement in autism research, I would be very interested in your comments on/in these threads:

- What is autism? How the term became too broad to have meanin
- Simon Baron Cohen on heterogeneity and neurodiversity
- "Autism" definition wars thread

Back to the topic of your relationship: Hopefully I'll have other, more useful things to say about it later. I need to run out on some errands now.

EDIT: Quick question: Are you currently in any kind of therapy for your own issues related to trauma recovery and/or panic attacks?

Another question: What are your partner's reasons for rejecting the idea of therapy for himself and/or for the two of you as a couple?

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 30 Aug 2019, 2:23 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I think the way to de-escalate this is to simply walk out whenever he gets angry and just calmly say, "I need space", without judgement. If he keeps getting mad at you, ignore him. If he gets worse, ignore him. Do not talk to him until he apologises sincerely. He will learn better with actions. You have no reason to apologise to him. He will see you talking about it probably as "whining" and just for the sake of it blaming him. I think he will respect you much more if you place boundaries with straight forward, to-the-point conversation. There is no need to explain yourself over and over again.

Mona, I replied to those threads- hopefully it added something! I tried to be as clinical as I could, because I didn't want to offend anyone, especially being an NT, but hopefully it adds some thoughts to discuss!

Smudge: I 100% agree, and I think this is the best tactic I have as of now. Leaving at least would allow him to cool off- we do live in a 500 sq ft apartment, so leaving is really the only option to cool down. I think getting a good ASD therapist that can help, letting him cool down, and creating strong boundaries and rules are probably the smart ways to go. I just wish I didn't have such a panic reaction and could think clearly during these situations- something I'll work on.

Mona:

So I have been to therapy, but have not gone regularly because the therapist didn't see a need to see me more than once a month or so. My recent therapist, a new one has put the need to once every 3 months, which is hard to understand. I like having an unbiased third party, obviously this is stuff I don't talk to my family or friends about since I don't want it skewing their view of him. They also don't know about my trauma. I was officially diagnosed with PTSD years ago from the trauma- but for the most part I've dealt with it emotionally within myself. I know there was nothing I could have done etc. The only times I have issues with it is when I feel unsafe in a new environment, or there's any kind anger that seems out of my control. I definitely like control of a situation. My mom is very emotional and is prone to huge outbursts, and growing up I developed coping strategies to deal with that that de-escalate situations, but also I need to feel in control of emotions that don't seem controllable. When I can't effect people and calm them down is when I panic.

His reason for rejecting therapy is that all the people he knows that go to therapy are basically about to break up or someone cheated. He is always really really worried about image and how things "look". I tried to explain I don't even want to get to that point. By me wanting to do couples therapy, that's a great sign that I want this to work the best that it can, I want to actively and effectively practice conflict resolution etc. I also said basically I think everyone should always be in therapy, just to make sure they are employing healthy coping strategies in life.

About 3 months ago he finally broke down and said that he thinks he has Aspergers. He was reading forums and the symptoms were exactly what he felt like he was dealing with. He also read an article about arguments between AS and NT partners and the progression. It basically was a script of every argument we have. His exact words were "I don't want to be weird" which broke my heart. But I actually felt closer to him in that moment than I have before because it rationalized his actions, I felt like we were finally making progress.

Still, with that- he doesn't want to see anyone. He says he doesn't want anyone to tell him how he's suppose to act or feel. His pet peeve is anyone telling him how he's feeling. He doesn't want anyone that's going to side with me.

Honestly, he has a list of reasons- I let it go for now because I know he's just overwhelmed with the idea that he has Asperger's.

I think he is craving recognition, and needs someone understanding who acknowledges his feelings. As do you. This is tough. I'm trying to think of ways to help you. Let me get back to you.

I have been in a relationship with someone(AS) who has MDD and anxiety. I have seen a lot of irrational behaviour, been affected enough to lock myself away in a room from him. Couples Counselling in no way helped. It takes my removing myself(I am on the spectrum too), sometimes sleeping in a different building I created(very comfortable SheShed), for a few days, when he is “off kilter”. No amount of gentle talk, appeal for calm works. I am a very mild-mannered person. I’ve been very affected by his behaviour and my family/friends all wish me to leave him. So, I believe that psychosis is at play(something he’s experienced initially about 4 years ago). I feel for your situation hugely ... to stay = possible health issues for you ... I found taking a low level of something the only thing that preserves me and keeps me here. There is a limit though, and once that’s crossed, I’m gone.