Upsetting Relationship, But Maybe He Wasn't Unkind

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I'm hoping some of you can help me as I find it hard to get over an experience I had in a relationship and I would like to know if the man involved might have had Aspergers. The relationship started as many describe this kind of relationship, with him being incredibly persistent as I really wanted to stay on my own with my children. He came across as someone falling very much in love, was very complimentary, even wrote a poem to me which later seemed so out of character, and wanted to be in touch with me all day. He had met me through a voluntary project I was running and mainly contacted me online but wanted to meet face-to-face as soon as possible, which we did and a relationship started. If anything he seemed too attached to me and I thought he must be lonely as he was in touch so much, but he also seemed like such a good and intelligent person we became very close.

He had a caring job, working as a local councillor, very dedicated to working on projects to look after his community. Although I hadn't wanted a relationship he seemed like such a good and caring person that I changed my mind and we became very involved. He told me he had never been married and didn't believe in marriage and was encouraging me to move nearer to where he lived and he would help me to settle there and find work for myself and schools for my children. He would be in touch on and off all day online while I was working (I work from home on the computer). He would never end the day without finding me online to chat for ages and this went on for two and a half years in total.

Then the shock came. I found out that he was already in a relationship and living with somebody. I know a lot of people do this but his way of looking at it was different. He had even taken me to the house early on and introduced me to this woman, explaining that she was someone who had moved in and settled there but it was temporary. His confidence in taking me there early on in our relationship convinced me this was true. We spent the day with her going out and about. He said the house was his and she would be moving out.

As time passed I heard from somebody that he was actually married to this woman. I couldn't believe it and asked him but he denied it week after week. In the end I had to look up the records and found he was married, but still he said he felt he was telling the truth as he doesn't believe in marriage so felt he wasn't married to her. I got out of the relationship of course, already confused by how somebody so seemingly kind, honest and loyal, could have persisted in getting me into a relationship when he already had one.

He continued to want me to see him, and told me his wife was somebody who had had a head injury before he met her and had seemed sociable when they met due to her medication but that she had changed. He said she was on so much medication that he felt he didn't know her real character and that her condition could only get worse. The description made me feel he had ended up caring for her and I felt sorry for him and continued as his friend. It had taken a year to find out he was married and he had ended up working with me on my voluntary project and helping design the website, which he controlled.

What makes me think he could have Aspergers is that he seemed to think everything he was doing was ok. He seemed to switch off all thoughts of his wife when he was with me, and I realised after some time that he wasn't honest about his marriage. In the end he told me his marriage was the best living together relationship he had ever had because it was the only one he had managed without friction. Most of his relationships have been traumatic and he took a long time to bond with his daughter and left home before she was 2 as he thought it was best to leave 'before she got used to him being there'.

He said he was worried about having a relationship with me because he thought I wouldn't accept the sort of relationship his wife did - a relationship he described as 'being happy to ignore each other most of the time.' He also said that his wife wasn't really on all the medication he had said at first, but just anti-depressants and painkillers, and that he didn't mind at all about the head injury and was glad he had married her. I felt totally deceived and terrible with regards to his wife, as I realised it was a real and happy marriage and not the sham he seemed to have described.

He told me he had not had other relationships outside his marriage (he had been married 5 years). But the person who told me he was married had had an affair with him which he broke off when he met me. He had been very close to that woman, but suddenly deleted all his email addresses that she knew, blocked and muted her in order to end communication. Despite what he had done we managed to turn our relationship into a friendship and he said he wanted to be friends for life and as he was working with me by that time it was important to get along together. Instead the day came when he decided to vanish from my life, block and mute me. It felt incredibly upsetting as I don't harass people so there was no need to block my communications. I would have agreed to lose contact if he had just said we should end the friendship. So this behaviour was hard to understand too, and in fact felt as if I was being criticised for having done something wrong.

While I knew him he said he felt he had never loved anybody in his life apart from his daughter and his mother, as love should be never-ending and unconditional and only the love of a parent and child is. He told me that he believes love isn't a good thing as it often makes people tolerate abusive relationships and he feels it's best to choose a partner logically using online dating agencies to be profile matched as it's important for long term success in a relationship to share each other's beliefs. He didn't like me to have ideas that were different to his, and had left a previous girlfriend as she liked a different type of window to him which made him feel they would never have got on long term. He was bothered that I have wooden floors, which he doesn't like, and that I have a dog (which he liked), but he considers himself a cat person and thinks dog people and cat people don't get on - which seemed incredible to me in an intelligent man.

He didn't like speaking on the phone and would only talk to me online. He liked to communicate with previous girlfriends by letter writing. He disliked the theatre strongly although he liked other live performances, but said theatre wasn't realistic. When he decided to stop all contact with me he also deleted the website we had been working on for years for my voluntary project rather than letting me have access to it to update it. The website was needed by a number of people who I help with the project.

He seemed to set a rule when he was breaking off contact with me, first of all sending an email every two weeks, then every month, then every two months and then stopping. If I sent any emails between these times he didn't answer and in the end cut me off completely. The emails were like round robins, just full of his news and his work and mostly the same information was repeated in each email. He told me at one point that he wasn't writing too much because he thought he might bore me.

I'm sorry to go on and maybe you can't help, but his behaviour was so confusing and upsetting and any help I can get to make sense of it one way or the other will let me move on. I usually manage to cope with relationships and breakups, but this has somehow stuck in my mind and upsets me even though it ended nearly three years ago. I don't want him back - now I see he is happy with his wife and had no problem with that relationship (he just seemed able to totally forget her when he wanted other relationships) I certainly couldn't trust him as he would do it to me. But I find myself unable to understand why he persisted in persuading me to have a relationship he knew he wasn't free to have, and why he never seemed able to feel love, guilt, a sense of what the truth was in my view (while he had another view of the truth). He did say from the start he felt he wouldn't hurt me, which should have warned me that he usually hurts people. Then he would keep saying he shouldn't see me in case I got hurt, before I knew he was in another relationship. When I asked if he got hurt by these things he said he didn't - that he didn't get too upset by relationships and didn't know why. He also changed from being almost obsessively attached to me to stopping all compliments, never giving presents (which he never did anyway which was a shock the first Christmas) and telling me I should get involved with another man as he'd be fine about that. He didn't realise how insulting and upsetting it is to be told to get another relationship - especially as I hadn't wanted one in the first place.

He says he 'doesn't do friends', meaning he doesn't have friendships, although he seems to be respected and liked by people at work. He was bullied at school and was keeping a number of animals when I met him - rabbits and cats. He spends most of his free time gardening, doing photography, and doing up his classic car. He also loves narrowboats and liked to take me on boats and trains. He does a lot of damage to one of his fingers which he can't stop biting and picking the skin off, to the extent that it has a very large red swelling, doubling the size of the finger.

Well, it sounds like he has Aspie tendencies, but he seems like more of a con artist, albeit a mechanical one. I don't know too many people with AS who can multitask like that. I have a hard enough time focusing on whatevers in front of me.

Thanks for replying. I know the two possibilities are that either he has Aspergers and I should be able to be a friend to him if he wants that again at some point. He is completely out of touch but I know he actually turns up online using a different screen name so I'm not sure what his motive is. And the other alternative is that he was just incredibly manipulative and deceptive and clever enough to do it well. I've never fallen for that in my life, but usually people don't try to deceive me in this way as there are plenty of people who will willingly have affairs and that would be less complicated.

He wasn't working at the time so he did have plenty of time to multitask. And in his favour I have to add that he did keep trying to change the relationship to a friendship after persuading me to get involved, although I didn't understand why he was trying to change to a friendship for a long time. He couldn't really manage to have a friendship though and did have inappropriate behaviour although we met in public places for a long time. He seemed too attracted. But later he told me sex really meant nothing to him and he thought it was fine for people to have sex outside their marriage, or even for friends to have sex.

So he didn't seem like the usual con man trying for an affair either. He did show many times that he was trying to turn it into a friendship instead. But he had a lack of control I've never seen in other people.

I feel strongly that what you have described is unacceptable, deceitful, manipulative and cruel behaviour towards you, your family, and his wife.

Asperger's or not, that is no excuse to treat you that way, taking your time obsessively and then leaving you exiled from communication. Those behaviours say "control".

I wouldn't want a friend like that, I would only give him the benefit of not returning his calls or emails and moving on with your life. What is the saying, "With friends like this, who needs an enemy?"


I would run far, far from this person and stay safe.

Thank you for these answers which are very helpful. You're quite right that I'm allowing something as an excuse when really it isn't.