How difficult is for an Aspie to remain friend with an ex?

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you'd be surprised what "obvious" things could be not obvious.

worth a try.

@ Bee33
I did all that, I told him I still like him as a person and that I miss him as a friend. Nothing. He does not want to see me. There were a few emails exchanged in the last 4 months and in the last one where he told me he can't see me, I told him I suspect he has Asperger and that he should consider talking about it with his next partner. I am pretty sure he knows he has it. I even think he tried to tell me, but at the time I did not understand what he was getting at because all he said was that he was different from other guys and god knows how many times I have heard that sentence from NT men when they are trying to explain to you their actions. We had something and not knowing he has Asperger has made things very complicated and has caused a lot of pain. I feel that I explained to him clearly how much I care about him and how much I would like to still be able to talk to him, but the feelings of shame and imbarassment that he feels right now seem very poweful. As a NT person I know that I have to work through my own negative feelings and try to get to the other side, but I am not sure how an Aspie works through these negative feelings that are probably very familiar to him (I think he may have experienced shame and embarassment in other occasions). Bee33, how do you work through these feelings?

I have never been in the excat situation that you describe. Most of the time, if I treated someone badly and feel ashamed and embarrassed, I avoid them too, but I don't think there has been an occasion in which the other person actually reached out to me and tried to say it's okay. Whenever I've rekindled a friendship after having had a meltdown and yelled at someone, the only way it came back was that after a while it was water under the bridge and neither one of us cared anymore about the bad incident. Perhaps it's too hard for him to talk about his feelings, and it may be more useful to just drop that line of communication and act instead like nothing has happened, and start sending him casual emails that talk about other things, as if you were still friends. That might be easier for him to process. I really don't know, it's just a thought. Maybe someone else can give their input on this?

@ Bee33
I did that when I contacted him at first, I was causal and asked how he is doing and if he ever wanted to get a cup of coffee to let me know. It took him weeks to reply and said OK, but never followed up. I then called him a couple of times he did not answer and never called back. Things became weird when we would meet by chance and he would act very akward with me, while I was trying to remain casual and talk to him. After a series of incidents like that I asked him if we could meet cause maybe we needed to clear things up to move forward to remaining friends. That's when he told me he can't meet. So my approach was the one you suggest but things instead of getting better got weirder and weider, till the last email. I also think that he misinterpreted my reaching out. I think he was afraid I was angry at him or something along those lines and wanted to talk to him about how relationship ended. Whereas I was just missing him and wanted to tell him that whatever he had done was done and that I still appreciated him as a person. It is also possible he is not used to this kind of response from ex girlfriends, he probably expects women to label him as a jerk. While I actually took the time to undestand where his behavior was coming from. I feel that I need to step away and let him be what he needs to be right now. The only way I see us ever be in touch again is if the reaches out after all this boils over, if he is capable of that and if he cares enough to do it, that I don't know.

From personal experience: very

Though my experience was very unusual. After we broke up, my ex just gave me the hardest time ever. He was constantly reminding me that we were just friends and I almost had a right mind to say to him back "no effing duh!" And then he would start to insult, harrass, and tease me alot. He used to tease me a little bit when we were dating but most of it was harmless. After we broke up he became my worse bully and just made my life miserable without any regard to how I was feeling. He became a moderator on a forum I was on and his first act as moderator was to vandalize my profile in a horrid way. And then he just started spitting jokes about my race at me (which I am only 1/2 of).

I didnt care if he did leave me for another girl. I just wished he had allowed me to keep my dignity when he did.

WTF? Thats messed up. So HE dumped YOU then treated you like crap? Good god, get RID OF HIM!

As for the moderator thing, report it to an admin. That is enough on most forums to warrant a de-modding.

No one should remain friends with an "ex".

The whole point of dating is to find the right life partner to marry.

If someone didn't make the grade then there are several billion others in the world.

You only have 24 hours a day. Why waste your time and thoughts on a reject?

I have often wanted to say to people "There are billions of people in the world I have nothing to do with. I want you to be one of them."

so if someone isn't marriage material they aren't friend material either?

keep in mind you are amongst people who do not make friends easily, and they are not disposable. for some, this is horrible advice. as long as it is indeed a friendship and does not interfere with future relationships, i see no reason this should be true for everyone.

Bulls**t. I have no desire to ever get married, but it's still fun having both female friends and girlfriends.

I'm friends with my exes because the reason I went out with them in the first place is because I liked them, so it makes sense to stay in contact. Things can get hard at times, but I've found that my exes have actually been pretty good friends to me.

I live in Melbourne along with five million other people.

How many "friends" can a person handle? I don't know. Perhaps 10 or so.
Really, we don't have all that much free time to spend.

I don't want to live some soap opera life where a tiny group are living in each others pockets and swapping partners every month.

What is that soap opera? "The young and the restless" or something?

Jeez, who is that hunky guy who keeps divorcing and marrying the same two women for the last thirty years?

Get over it. Move on.

I'm still friends with at least most of my ex's and it ain't hard for me to still remain friends, in fact it has actually brought me and ex close from my last relationship I have ever been in.

But it still hurts to have that feeling lingering inside you and a constant reminder, but I've seemed to have gotten over it this time compared to previous ex's.

This is something that happened like 5 or 6 years ago and I can assure you he's a forgotten memory now luckily and the searing pain from those times is for the most part gone.

As for the admin thing, this was a forum for a student group involved in a sketch comedy show at my alma matter. The attitude behind the show is that everyone gets a kick out of insulting other people and unfortunatly because the sketch comedy show itself was privately run (and not associated with the college), all the moderators and student executives had all the power to do whatever the hell they wanted. My ex around that time would eventually become THE executive producer of the show.

So you can see why I've requested to be taken off their alumni list. I dont want to be associated with a group that treated me in such a horridly hypocritical way.

Also a lot of variability depending on the relationship. I just got off the phone with my ex-wife of 7 years, but I am practically allergic to a more recent ex-girlfriend I only dated 1 year.

The ex-GF I'm allergic to doesn't understand why I can't be around her since I can easily be around my ex-wife. There are reasons but it's complicated and painful and she probably wouldn't understand and/or would be upset. Due to the nature of the relationship (and the feelings I still have for this ex-GF, even though I broke up with her) I just can't deal with it. I told her the last time she called (been 2 years since we dated, still getting calls) that the main benefit of breaking up with someone is that you no longer need to explain painful things or fight or even talk to them at all if it hurts. I wonder if you, like my ex, feel hurt and wish to know why friendship isn't an option. If so, your ex may have no idea why!



It seems pretty common for any dumpee to have issues being around the dumper, *regardless* of what led to the dumpage. Rejection is a b***h!



He is suffering and you've mentioned he really seems bad when in contact with you. If he feels that bad does it matter if he has or doesn't have any "reason to feel like that"? I think you would be better with a friend who doesn't feel so bad they can't speak to you. Lots of people have trouble around ex's, with or without logical reasons.



I'd try to deal with the situation as it exists right now and let him go. For reasons you don't understand he he is having a really hard time with this, and I doubt things will change much, especially if he is Aspie and doesn't realize it. If he does come to terms with whatever hurts him, then he can approach you. Otherwise it seems attempts to contact him will just cause him (and therefore you) to feel pain.

Good luck!
Charlie

ALL my romantic relationships eventually "degenerate" into friendships. I figure if someone was good enough to date, then it's a friendship worth keeping. It's not like good friends are a dime a dozen. Sometimes I think I only get romanticallyinvolved with people as a way to become friends in the long run (I know it's usually supposed to happen the other way around!).

To answer the question surely this depends on the ex's and why you ended up splitting from them in the first place?

Surely this is another scenario, where each case should be judged on it's own merits, should it not?

Like, what is it with that???? I am hurting SO badly because someone refuses to be my friend after breaking off a romantic relationship. There was no huge fight or hatefulness involved. I don't get it

~Kate