WHAT tanks your relationships?

Post Reply New Topic

Their unwillingness to compromise on certain things.

I strongly suspect that it could be any number of issues, but perhaps at the heart of it all is a failure on BOT parties sides to adapt and make allowances.

The relationships that do work, both people need to be able to compromise

e.g My AS husband HATES with a passion our local shopping mall.. all the people .. the backgorund noise.. the visual distractions, combined with being jostled around if it's busy are often just too much for him to cope with. Add that to two small children who are not always on their best behaviour and it can make for a very challenging outing.

However..... our kids love to go there, especially our child with ASD, he has the opposite reaction to the background noise etc.. he loves it and finds it comforting. He is the kind of kid that likes music on FULL volume and will listen to the TV when it is on no channel at all and producing white noise.
So over the years my hubby has persisted with going in small doses ( if he is not having a bad day ) and now finds he can tolerate it for long enough for us to run errands and for the kids to have a Noodle lunch there ( one of the few places my little one will eat out at ). He starts to hum if he finds the noise gets too much.
The mall used to send him into a full blown panic attack.. and he could feel himself getting more and more agitated.. flapping and moving on the spot.. humming .. and finally just having to leave.

Intially I had to make the adaptation for him .. either going to different places that were not so stressful .. or making the trips super short , getting the noodles to go, or just meeting him elsewhere. Quite frankly it used to make me upset, I felt restricted in what I could/could not do. But I did recognise that for him it was very difficult.
Over time now we can both go and it is now ok for both of us .. because we have both learned to compromise on the issue.
Navigating relationships is interesting .. and working out how compromises can be made and things can be kept interesting is part of the challenge.

It is not about what is going wrong .. but how you can both make things RIGHT, problem solving .. not focusing just on the problems and then leaving it at that. If a relationship is worth having , it is worth making an effort for.

A lack of understanding and communication.

Communication, and trust.


M.

Well, my first girlfriend (when I think back 35 years ago) was probably an Aspie, too. We met because she sent me a note through a mutual friend. Not that strange in 8th grade - but we rarely talked to each other in the year we went together. Instead, we wrote letters (several each week) & met to go walking, usually ending up in a park where we would hold hands (for hours) & eventually kiss. Neither of our families knew about us & she suddenly stopped seeing me not long after we started 10th grade (broke up with me in a letter.)

So that relationship tanked because neither one of us knew how to interact with people.

With my second girlfriend, our relationship tanked because we were just completely incompatible. She was an actress & very outgoing. I didn't know I had AS, but I knew I had different thought processes, a different way of dealing with emotions & REAL issues with social situations. She would take me to parties & not understand why I would completely shut down. Plus, she seemed completely unable to accept that I might feel things differently from everybody else. But the thing that put the nail in the coffin (so to speak), was that I was perfectly content to hold her & kiss her (we were both 17 at the time) & she was dismayed that I hadn't even tried to get to second base - and there I was, waiting for her to make the first move! So, she just informed me that she was going to start seeing another guy (who was gay - even though she swears to this day that she didn't know) and that was that.

My third girlfriend (don't worry, this doesn't go on much longer) and I had a really good relationship the entire time we were together (about a year.) She knew I was different, but totally accepted it. If she hadn't been two and a half years younger than me (I was eighteen), we probably would have stayed together. But to her credit, she realized that she needed time to figure out who she was, instead of being identified in terms of her older boyfriend (especially since I DIDN'T know who I was.)

I don't count that as a "tank" - just bad timing.

My last girlfriend (for about 2 1/2 years in college) I think might have wanted me to just straighten myself out. We talked about my social difficulties & she seemed to be of the opinion that I should "snap out of it." She sort of had a life in addition to our relationship. I kept asking her to maybe take me into her social circle a bit and help me learn to interact - but that is something she was absolutely unwilling to do. So I started obsessing about her other life & got pretty jealous - that was the beginning of my first major meltdown. What a turnoff! I can't blame her for not wanting to be around me.

Tanked because of my poor social skills & inability to control my emotions.

I can't stress enough that these girls were all very sweet, good people (especially GF #3, with whom I've recently reconnected - and we're becoming friends again.) None of us had any idea about the autism spectrum - let alone AS. They were just as confused as me.

Now I'm starting to think about the possibility of me in another relationship (after 27 years.) I've got a handle on the basic social skills (I can even survive at a party - for about an hour) - so my big goal is to learn to *gradually* open up emotionally to another person.

Without a doubt, my difficulty in moderating my emotions has been the greatest impediment to forming close relationships.

My boyfriends broke up with me because I didn't express my feelings, like a girl ought to. :*( It's been very hard for me to deal with. Other than that, I thought those relationships were great, but then, suddenly what they perceive as lack of emotion makes for a good point to break up with me. It's really starting to kill me inside.

Does any relationship that ends (other than in death of one or both persons) fall into category of "failure" ? These may have been "successful" for many years, but eventually did end. I don't attribute causation for such conclusions to my particular personality or dx profile-plenty of "NT" folks have relationships that don't last "forever", either.

My 8+ yr. LTR (with ex-husband) ended because he decided that he did want kids-and I did not change my mind, he knew I never wanted them, so he left me for someone else.
My 4+ yr. LTR (with ex-fiancee) ended because he thought he could deal with me, but after awhile he was unfulfilled: he's outgoing, athletic, social person & I am not-so he left me for another woman (one more similar to him and his interests).
Now trying to figure out what (who) might be next relationship, nothing yet on the horizon...

Belfast that is a really positive way to view things.. good on you!