NT in love with an Aspie, and I am so hurt right now!

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First off, I am new here, so it might be beneficial for those who haven't met me yet to read my thread over in "Getting To Know You" first. Not going to rehash the same story here.

Anyway, I'm so hurt now that I could just sit and cry. My mom just started talking to me about my Aspie friend from work that I am starting to fall in love with, and she said some very hurtful things about both me and him. She can tel that I really like him, even though I've only talked to her about him a couple of times. She said she's also gone online and done some research about Asperger's, and she feels like I'm lowering my standards just because I don't want to be alone. She said she's read about the social difficulties, the sometimes obsessive compulsive behavior, and other things. She said "It's a brain thing. It will never get better." Duh! She said she's afraid that if I do develop a relationship with him that she's afraid I'm going to be setting myself up for a lot of heartache. Just to hear the things she was saying made me so angry. Yes, I understand she doesn't want me to get hurt, but I feel like she's judging him without even knowing him, and that is so wrong. He's obviously made a lot of progress over the last few years. Since he started his karate classes, he's moved out into his own apartment, is in college, and is now teaching karate classes. He has also said that he feels more at ease with being more social. If that's not progress, I don't know what is. From what I have read, many people with Asperger's go on to live happy, healthy, fairly normal lives. I also don't understand why she never had a problem with it when my sister wanted to set me up with my niece's ex boyfriend's cousin, who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. In fact, she was excited about that, saying she thought it would be good for me and give me someone I could talk to and relate to a little bit. Isn't this the same thing? Maybe she's just saying these things because she's uneducated about what Asperger's is and isn't. I don't know. All I know is she really hurt me.

If you look up stories about being married to an aspie or in a relationship with one such as ASPartners, they're all horrible stories and the men there sound like lazy selfish jerks and sometimes abusive and uncaring. Perhaps she is misinformed because of all these bad stories online that float around on the internet about being in a relationship with one. Sadly people only post the negative and people don't take their time to post positive stories so it makes it look like all aspies are lazy selfish jerks and uncaring and abusive. Who would go online and post positive stories about being in a relationship with an aspie? People generally go online just to rant and take the time to write about how horrible their life is.

Sounds like all of you are putting the cart before the horse. You're not even dating this guy yet...

I'm one of those people in a disastrous marriage to a suspected Aspie. So I would definitely say tread carefully. Don't let love hormones blind you to the potential downsides. On the other hand don't let people who don't even know him distract you from the good sides.

Things I'd warn you about though when/if you start dating him:

1) How does he treat other people that he interacts with? If he treats them in a rude, brusque manner that's likely how he'll begin to treat you when the regular domesticity sets in?
2) How is the sex? If the sex is way off...it may not ever get better. It certainly didn't in my relationship.
3) How does he handle stress? Especially including the stress of family life? If you want kids is it going to be 'too much' for
4) What is his family life like with hisparents? What are they like? If there relationship is awful and their relationship with him is awful that's a big red warning flag. These are going to be his learned behaviours and Aspies MAY (I stress may) have a harder time gaining perspective about bad learned behaviour.

That being said...that's my advice that I'd give to you as you'd embark on any relationship. Aspie, NT, anyone.

Good luck