Does anyone else have trouble dumping people

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the situation was entirely different. We were in a band together. It was a somewhat abusive relationship. He was older than me. There were a lot of things going on. I rationalized that this was where I needed to be.

For the sake of arguement, he was not really that much into me either...we both sorta felt stuck with each other for various reasons..that lasted 6 years

My situation is the same as yours, minus the details. The basic issue is this. If I was with someone for like a month or two then, yes, it is relatively easy to leave. But if the relationship went on for a year or more, it is a lot harder. After all, various bonds and expectations develop during this time. In my case I am talking about relationships that lasted two years; and your situaiton is the same.

her reasons for entering the relationship are entirely different.

Well if the issue is "why did I start a relationship to begin with", I see your point all too well. In fact I am promising myself that *IF* I were to get out of this one, I will be careful not to get myself in this situation again. But, of course, you can't really trust me that I would stick to my self-promises. After all, I made this same promise to myself in my prior relationship. And, as soon as it was over, I felt lonely, and went right on towards a new one. But, at the same time, this doesn't change the fact that I am sincere each time about this. I just have to be a bit more stable. Hopefully this time I will be, *IF* of course I get out of my current relationship for good.

maybe instead of being sincere to yourself with promises.... try being sincere to your potential girlfriends? perhaps if you think of them first and foremost you can avoid this predicament. and the same sincerity NOW will solve your problem.

Oddly enough, this is one area I excel at. Don't get me wrong, I hate doing it. I've just always been the dumper as opposed to the dumped.

I wish I was cold enough to be a dumper rather than a dumpee. Otherwise I wouldn't be in the situation I am in now and would have had a much happier life.

I raised issue mainly with the motivation for getting into the relationship in the first place. I was very young when I entered into the relationship that lasted 6 years. I was young for my age,...Young for the kind of relationship it was.... easily bossed around and bullied...it was more or less my first relationship.

I have trouble dumping people if I really care for them and it has to do with reasons other than my not caring for them...

In my case it is also the issue of my being "too young". In terms of actual age you won't know that: my first relationship was when I was 23, so I was supposed to be an adult. Right now I am already 31, so I am even more an adult. But the issue is that biologically I am a lot younger than my actual age: it is true both phisiologically and psychologically. So in this sense I probably "am" too young for relationships in some respect. This affects both why I enter into relationship and why it is hard to leave.

As far as entering into relationship, I guess I look for approval. Because of the fact that I am so used to see myself as a child, I always view a relationship in a one-side manner: I get approval from the person I am with, and not the other way around. The person I am with is an "adult" which means they can't be hurt; but I am a "child" so they are in a position of "disapproving" me by not wanting to be with me; so I better make sure that doesn't happen. As far as leaving the relationship, then the issue becomes "if I am a child, I am not allowed to leave unless an 'adult' (aka the person I am with) lets me go", so I don't leave. Or on the other hand, if an "adult" does, in fact "let me go", then again, being a "child" I interpret it as a one-sided disapproval "I" am receiving "from them", so I fight against it; this is similar to the child fighting against an adult who asks them to go to a detention room as a punishment.

I guess the reason I view myself this way might be a combination of few things. First of all, due to Asperger, I "am" like a child in many ways. Also I have received disapproval in many different situations. Thus I was trained to see others as "more compitent" than me and myself as a "victim". The other part of it might be that I am the only child in the family. So because I never had brothers or sisters, I am not too used to an idea of an "equal". Mots of my interactions were with my parents, and I never had friends of my own age in school or other settings. So when all of a sudden I am dating people who are "my age" I can't "trully" view them this way. After all, the fact that I am "dating" them means that they are "important" and the only "important" people are my parents who are much older than me. Hence I automatically view ppl I date as my parents.

It is also not entirely true that I don't care for them; I do. In fact, the fact that I care about them is part of a reason why I have such a hard time breaking up with them myself, I don't want to hurt their feelings. I guess part of the problem is that I am short sighted. I don't want to do anything that would hurt their feelings "tomorrow", hence I don't want to break up. But, at the same time, sometimes I don't think about setting myself up to hurt their feelings "a year from now" which is why i start relationships with ppl I am not truly interested. If I truly didn't care about their feeling I would have had much easier time breaking up. The real issue is not my being self centered but rather my being short sighted, which by the way hurts both sides, not just them.

It's one of the hardest things I've had to do.
Especially when the reason you're dumping them would probably damage their self esteem 10 fold if you told the truth.

It's partly because I don't like backlash and party because I really feel bad for them as I've had my heart broken lots I know what it feels like.

Being dumped is extremely painful. Extremely. Being the dumper leaves me feeling extremely guilty for this reason.

I have successfully managed on most instances to make a transition into friendship. If it were not for ex boyfriends, the number of friends I have would be dramatically reduced. I am in a really weird position. I am in a band with 3 exes and one former stalker.....
I have known them all for several years. I am on good terms with the handful of other exes I have...I am also still friends with the guy I dated for 6 years...our band played a reunion in Dec...but we don't often see each other very often...there is no bad blood between us..

A fear I may have in breaking up with someone is not being able to make the transition to friend...Friends last a lot longer, from my experience...and the dynamics, from my experience, tend to be a lot more realistic...Tho...I may find myself in a bit of a "Smurfette" predicament....

Wow ... Does it mean they were in the same band even BEFORE you dated any of them? I was always assuming that dating friends of your ex is unthought of, since this would most likely ruin the friendship between your ex and their friend you are dating. How did you manage to do it? That is, after you broke up with ex number 1, how did you manage to start dating ex number 2, who is a friend of ex number 1?

yeah yeah I know exactly what you mean. Thats how I have felt in all of my relationships. I always felt like I had to be perfect in order not to be dumped. I pretty much knew that I was going to be dumped or the relationship was going to last but I stuck around anyways. My ex would always want me to stay dressed neatly after we went out. I would want to take my shirt off so I could be comfortable but she wouldn't let me. She would tell me to keep it on. I kinda felt like a lap dog to her. She pretty much implied it all the time that the relationship was only temporary. When talking about her future I was never included. She would talk about how she felt the next step in life was to finish school then get an apartment. But now that I think of it maybe she was including me but didn't to be too personal about it.

I would always talk about our future and how she could be the person that goes to school while I worked and helped with the place we would live in. She was the smarter between us two so I figured she would be the better one to go to school and I could just work. But yeah it didn't work out.

FWIW, some advice from a non-autistic:

"How To Break Up"
http://getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com/ ... ak-up.aspx

Yeah I can relate to what you are saying. I had hords of girls who give me "I don't care" vibes. This is precisely what made me desperate enough to get into relationships with the ones I am not attracted to. But, on the other hand, if I take the "few" girls that ARE willing to start a relationship with me, the tables seem to turn. This time every single plan they make DOES involve me (precisely something you wanted, huh) but it scares the hell out of me since now I feel "trapped". I guess what it boils down to is that NT-s are the ones black or white. Either they don't like me and then I am left completely ignored; or else they like me SO MUCH that I feel completely trapped and don't have air to breath. I am the only one who asks for something "in the middle" and never gets it. So perhaps in some respects NT-s are more black or white than aspies; but of course NT-s won't notice their own problems.