My boyfriend's vanished and I'm freaking out please help!! !!

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You are all such a great help, I do feel like I understand his disappearance better now. I just dont feel there is much hope and I dont understand how someone can love me so deeply one second and then....not. I will never understand that.

To me, love conquers all. There's nothing we couldn't have resolved together. If he needed space I would have given it. If he needed options we would have found some. I know how we were together, or at least I thought I did. Now I feel like I knew nothing if he can just walk away. Remember we were friends first, I did know him a little and he saw me through a pretty rough breakup. None of me is news to him except the good dating parts.

There's really nothing more for me to say except thank you all for your time, your well wishes and your knowledge. Im more grateful than I can say.

I just have to get tired of crying myself to sleep now.

Thank you all.

I agree with Hale_Bopp. This man obviously cannot assert himself over his family and be his own person. At 25 it really shouldn't matter if he is dating someone older than him.

i think the best thing to do is tell him how you feel.

he is under pressure from his parents to not see you. this is probably because they see the way you effect him and are scared / worried about him. you need to be more direct, and to the point with him since hes an aspie, so he'll get it. if you beat around the bush he'll never get it. if you do things that are out of the norm (like telling him he cant over as much or w/e) it might make him think you are mad at him, and if he doesnt like it if you are mad it prolly scared him. it seems like he wants to be with you, from what you've said anyways. maybe this is not the case.

basically hes probably deciding over his parents and their support or you. obviously its pretty childish for his parents to make him decide like that, but i'd bet anything thats whats happening.

I have no way to reach him. I would love to tell him.

He has made his intentions clear by ignoring you, I think it's time to move on. Pressuring him further will only push him away, he is already being pressured by his parents. If he really wants to be with you, he will come back to you.

Except that he may not have a choice if he's still financially dependent on his parents.

This is where I stand on it, too.

What if he wants to come back to her but is too afraid of his parents to make such a move? I've been in situations before like that. My parents make all the money, they could kick me out of the house without so much as a second thought. I have nowhere else to turn to. If anything, i'd have to guess that what the OP's estranged boyfriend is feeling is outright fear...

I was in the OPs position with my ex girlfriend who was an Aspie as well. Her parents did not want us being alone together because they are hard-core religious conservatives. I tried my best & did everything I could to try & make it work but she did not want to risk going against them for fear of them cutting her off. Relationship became very one-sided as a result of me doing almost all the compromising because I had the least amount of input in the relationship. It's best if the OP accepts it's over & moves on because there is little she can do unless he wants to risk going against his parents.

^^^ What he said. Once an Aspie has gone into "Active Avoidance" mode, trying to pursue him and force him to communicate with you isn't going to work, and it's almost impossible to undo. Going forward, a decent rule for dealing with Aspies is:

* Double the interval between each contact attempt. Wait 1 day, then 2, then 4, then 8, etc.

* Never, ever reference past contact attempts in future ones, hint at concern about non-contact, or imply guilt/responsibility. It's hard enough for Aspies to call people on the phone. Throw the expectation of having to defend himself and justify non-contact into the mix, and he's just not going to call at all.

* Pretend to be Aspie. Send him a text message 6 months from now out of the blue implying that you're going to do something (with or without him) that he's likely to enjoy (don't actually state that you think he'll enjoy it, just leave it unsaid), but wanted to see if he's interested in going too. For example, "Hey, going snowboarding next weekend. Wanna go?"

Just realize if you do this that you might have 6 months of torment bottled up, but he probably hasn't given you a second thought in months. If you aren't prepared to mentally erase that torment and just let it go, don't reach out to him. Just let him go. The nanosecond you try getting him to acknowledge your 6 months of unhappiness, he'll be mentally running for the exit and planning his safe escape route.

The fact is, he's unlikely to ever be able to give you what you want. For Aspies, forced daily interaction isn't rewarding. It's draining, stressful, and debilitating.

A good way to understand Aspies is to pretend we have two "attention slots", and can only sustainably deal with two major things at once (and even then, only one at any instant in time). Career is one thing. A relationship is one thing. Housekeeping in general is one thing. Obsessive interests are one thing. A major life crisis, like a sick/dying parent/friend/pet is one thing. A best friend can be one thing, but normally would be a subset of "social life in general".

If you meet an Aspie while he's unemployed, but lives on his own, then he gets hired for his dream job, your relationship is probably over unless you're willing to put it on hold indefinitely unless you're willing to become de-facto roommates and be his personal assistant/housekeeper (freeing up slot #2, normally allocated to "housekeeping", so he can assign it to "relationship with you" instead).

Likewise, if you're in a relationship with an Aspie who's employed and lives with his parents, then he goes out to buy a house, your relationship is probably over unless you're able to fully integrate yourself into the home-buying process and accept his emotional distance until long after the house is purchased, he's moved in, done the urgent remodeling jobs, and can move "buying a house" out of slot #2.

The good and bad thing is that if you end up in a relationship with an Aspie, and you're willing to be his housekeeper, personal assistant, accountant, money manager, chef, and sex toy... you'll own him for life, because he'll completely and enthusiastically outsource all of those tasks to you if you allow him to, and eventually become incapable of even conceiving the thought of reclaiming them in the future. The catch is, if you aren't willing and enthusiastic about taking them on, your relationship won't work, because the moment those things get piled into slot #2, your relationship will be over unless you're ready to become the family breadwinner, allow him to quit his job, and move those functions back into slot #1.

We aren't selfish, slobs, or lazy. We literally just can't multitask. Our context slots are limited, and the only way you're ever going to occupy one of them is by personally taking on everything that occupied that slot to free it up for a relationship with you. And even then, you have to realize that relationships will always be the first thing that gets jettisoned under stress or crisis. If a parent gets sick, you'll be his assistant/housekeeper/accountant/chef & won't even get to have a relationship to make up for it, because that crisis will be occupying slot #2 instead.

Just to add to what I said, here's the explanation of why his parents hold so much power over his life: they've allowed him to outsource all the tasks related to housekeeping to them, and it sounds like they've effectively taken over the role of "career" by being his money source as well. That means he has two free attention slots, and can easily allocate one to you... but the moment his parents cut off the funds or divest themselves of his housekeeping activities, both slots are going to be overwhelmingly filled up, and you'll be off the radar.

The only way you're ever going to sustain a relationship with him is to take on both of those tasks completely and immediately (or at least reassure him that you're ready & willing to do it)... and know that your position in slot #1 or slot #2 is going to profoundly weaken when/if he gets a job of his own (because then he'll only have one slot left, and you'll be the first to get jettisoned if some future crisis competes for his attention unless you're willing to let him quit and free up slot #1 again).

Put another way, the relationship is unlikely to work the way you want it to. It's not your fault, and it's not his fault. His feelings for you were almost certainly quite genuine, but he'll never be able to sustain a relationship with you unless you're willing and able to take on the role of his parents in perpetuity... and it sounds like you aren't. The fact is, he won't "grow out of it". My dad is the same way. He's utterly and completely dependent upon my mom to run his life and deal with daily administrative/housekeeping tasks. They love each other, but without her, he'd be completely f**ked, and would have to move into an assisted-living home just because he's completely lost his ability to live independently after ~40 years (and I couldn't take on those tasks for him without totally wrecking the delicate balance I've managed to achieve in my own life in the process).

dr01dguy, what a highly interesting read. Thanks for that insight.

I should restate here that he already has a job, and has lived away from the parents before. Plus he gets money from the government. Gets his own food, does his own laundry....The car is his. He was concerned about things like insurance on the car and a roof....but I dont know everything.

Thanks again all.

You were with this guy for one month and all this stuff happened? Wow.

It sounds like the WP community spelled it out for you. He has done a bunk, an emotional shut down and end of story.

No closure for you and that sucks but this scenario happens regularly and often in the NT world too.

Last edited by PaintingDiva on 27 Dec 2011, 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I refer you all to the funny and usually accurate Amy Alkon and this column on older women and younger men:



www.advicegoddess.com


I think my problem with the OP's description is she is placing the blame heavily on the ex lover's parents. For which she is making a lot of assumptions with no verification.

At the end of the day, it still sounds to me like the guy got overwhelmed and quit the relationship.

Not particularly gracefully and that sucks and hurts, no closure, etc. but I am not sure you can lay the blame on entirely on Aspergers or his parents, he is just a guy being a guy and stuff like that happens regularly and often.

He is also in his twenties and young men in their twenties usually spend a lot of time, uh, dating as many women as they can....

In this case im the only girl he can get, to him anyway. When we were friends I heard him complaining endlessly exactly like here on the boards...no women like me etc.

As I said earlier, for whatever reason he didn't choose me. And treating me like this for whatever reason is inexcusable.

Thank you all I think I got it. I was so confused before, I thought something terrible had happened to him, he was so afraid of his mother, but in the end its just him. Getting what he wished for and not being able to handle it. Too virginal to realize how special it was. His loss -- though right now it feels like mine.

You all really helped get me through this. Thank you .

What does "OP" mean??