Help understanding my Aspie ex's behaviour

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Well, MabelineGP, I guess you got your answer: Asperger's (that may or may not be his case) neither explains nor justifies his behaviors.

By the way, may I ask you a very personal question (no need to answer publicly): was any of your parents addicted to alcohol or drugs? Because you show very strong codependent patterns.

Ok, thanks all. Your advice heard loud and clear and actually very helpful. I have been trying for weeks to be strong enough to tell him it’s enough so I shall channel these responses and do that. Thanks for all your concern.
And no I did not have abusive parents but yes it is clearly a problematically codependent relationship - I do see that too - this is helpful to me breaking it.

Thanks @Teach51 Yes I have lots of support, from an amazing group of friends, who have essentially being saying much the same as all of you. As said earlier in these posts, I guess I have just been seeing only what I wanted to and trying to find an excuse for his treatment of me. It's been a crazy few months and a big learning curve and certainly I am someone who often prioritises others at my own expense. I'll try to find a way to be strong enough to believe in me again instead (rather tough when your self-esteem is on the floor). I am also seeing a counsellor next week so that will help me have some better insight into why I have let him do this to me. Thanks so much. xx

Good on the counselor. Don't bring up his suspected Asperger's to the counselor; bring up your boyfriend's behaviors as they are important on their own merits.

I could be off base here, but I've wondered if you're thinking that your boyfriend's lack of empathy for your feelings as a result of the way he treats you is a characteristic of his suspected autism. If so, I believe you'd be missing the mark on that. His behavior is openly hurtful and sadistic. It's not an autistic trait to willingly inflict pain on someone for the autistic's own pleasure. To me the thought of such a thing is abhorrent.

There's a lot of information on WP about "empathy", the confusion about autistic's seeming lack of it, etc.

Thanks @Magna. In response to your question, I'm not sure really. I totally understand his behaviour in this regard is not anything to do with autism, but I guess I was questioning whether his seeming inability to see or hold onto quite how unfair/hurtful he is being to me, might be related to it. He does express empathy at how I am feeling, but kind of only in the moment, or when he is jealous, but doesn't seem to be able to keep hold of that feeling and relate it to cause-and-effect. He's also strangely unable to understand that the consequence of his treatment of me has an effect on the rest of his social life. He thinks it is not unreasonable that he should be able to stay closely involved in our social circle and that we should be able to continue to work together very closely and that should all be fine. And when I say, but other people are hurt by the way you've treated me too and don't necessarily want to hang out with you at the moment, and it is going to be impossible for me to get over you if you are always around, he seems genuinely to be surprised and very hurt by that - sometimes catastrophically so. So yes I guess I had been thinking maybe that fear of isolation and not quite understanding that his other friendships might be affected by how people have seen me be treated, might be somehow explicable by autism in some way. I think the feedback here is that that is probably not true and that if I have explained all that - which I have - then it's just that he is being very selfish and as people have said, manipulating me so that he doesn't lose everything. I guess at the point when I say, ok, you can't have us both, he will lose most of his social connections and that is scary to him so he is holding on to me as a mechanism to keep that. It's hard, because in all this, it sounds like he is just awful, but there is so much about him that is wonderful and he genuinely does seem to be messed/mixed up in his emotions about it all. Still, I just need to think about prioritising me as everyone has said. Partly I am scared about what happens when I cut him off, because it has been so harrowing when I have tried to pull away before, for both of us. x

You can't save him; he has to do that on his own.

I've tried to save people myself. I've learned over and over that it doesn't work. If anything all I do is enable them.

You can be kind to him, but as others have said, keep things superficial and/or professional. Don't get into deep discussions with him.

I wish you all the best and for you to find true and freeing love with someone who really does value you, because that's what you deserve

Hi all, Just an update and a heartfelt thank you for all your insight. After much further exploration and soul-searching, I did indeed conclude that those of you who suggested he was actually a narcissist masquerading as having autism were right. I read a lot about this and others experiences etc and in the end just fronted it out and asked him, and he said, basically yes, the autism claim was a lie to ensure I continued to be his ally, to feel that he needed to just be better understood and so on, and so that he could continue to treat me how he liked. I also spoke to him about NPD and he unashamedly accepted that this sounded a lot like him - almost proudly (only a narcissist would be proud to do well on a narcissism test right?). Anyway, I am not entirely free yet but I am getting stronger every day (there continues to be some fairly awful abuse, stalking, threats etc - in many ways it is escalating as I retract, which is also to be expected it seems). I wanted to thank you all again for your openness, challenge, kindness and insight. You might just have saved my life by opening my eyes. Huge love. xx

Only completely blocking him on your phone and social media will break the cycle. You need to stop all contact despite the attraction. If he can't manipulate you into responding then he will lose interest. It's not your fault, but the solution is in your hands. Be strong and internalize that you really do deserve better

Thanks @teach51 but sadly that's not an option for me. He works with me every day and there's nothing I can do about that.

Ah yes, I remember that from your initial post.