Inability to Stay In a Relationship--Divided Heart

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Do any of you have a problem being in one relationship, and then always wanting to be in another one?

One of my friends who is AS and heavily into fantasy said that he cannot stay in a relationship because once he is in a relationship, he frequently wants to be in another one. He talks about having a "divided heart".

He even went so far as to describe "wanting to be somewhere else" on his wedding night. (He is since divorced.)

Have any of you had this problem, and what did you do about it?

Is it specifically an AS problem, or is it something else?

No, I do not. I have problems getting into a relationship.

Not a problem with getting into a relationship--a problem staying.

His longest relationship (emotionally anyway) was about 2.5 years, repeatedly. After that, he'd hit a wall, and want to be in another one.


Only sometimes the wall was six months or a year or whatever. After that point, he would think about being with someone else while with the existing person.

Perhaps he's someone who enjoys the "honeymoon period" of a relationship, but can't handle the gradually increasing, prosaic intimacy of a more permanent relationship? I imagine that later part would be harder for someone with AS who has difficulty making close emotional connections to people, but the pattern itself can be true for NTs, too. Just a thought.

I have problems getting into and also staying in relationships. AS can't help.

I don't know what to do about it. Experience perhaps... knowing that the grass might look greener somewhere else, but it really probably ain't.

Hey Willard. I sympathise. I really do. I'd just like to point out that you have a way of talking about your experiences and applying them to others as though they were objective truths. I (believe I) understand your motivations, I just think you should be a little wary of this, because you can set other people up thinking that this will absolutely be their experience too, when it might not be the case.

And what if it turns out that it IS the case? What if their experience turns out to be just like that, and they feel they are the only person who's ever gone through it? What if they end up killing themselves because they think it's only ever happened to them, just a personal defect?


I think I'm smart enough and capable enough to apply what I see in the DSM to the experiences I have lived through and understand what caused them and how.


What's unfortunate is, it's always the people who have spent less time slogging through life on this Earth than I have, who seem to think they have more acquired wisdom, as if their experiences are going to be so much different than mine that my experiences couldn't possibly give them any insight or preparation. Oh, it couldn't possibly happen to them, I'm just a prophet of doom.

Well, if we all suffer from the same social brain dysfunction, it's likely our long term experiences are going to be roughly similar. And how is censoring me from answering a direct question going to help anyone cope with a personal problem? I didn't sugarcoat reality enough to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy? Did my answer negatively impact the questioner in any way? Or did it just sound familiar enough to make you uncomfortable?

Why am I so convinced that my experiences are a foreshadow of what most of the young contributors to Wrong Planet have to look forward to? Because the relationship issues and emotional needs and desires, hopes and expectations they whine and fantasize about online now, are the very same ones I fantasized and whined about when I was their age - in exactly the same words.

Hey man, don't go nuts. Sorry if I piqued you a little. I'm not saying your experience and beliefs and views aren't valid. I'm just suggesting you preface your wisdom with, "This is my experience" rather than, "Yo man, this is exactly how it is". That's really all I'm saying.

You've got a very powerful and persuasive way of writing. I could see myself reading what you wrote as a younger man and thinking, "Whoah. This dude has it exactly right and there's now no point in finding out for myself. I am absolutely going to experience life as a love wasteland punctuated by some false hopes. I might as well give in before I start."

I don't think that would be a good thing. I believe that belief creates reality, at least to a certain extent.

I agree that the potential is there for all of us to arrive at these same conclusions. However, I think it's very unlikely. There's evidence enough just in reading this forum for a while.

Yes, you struck a personal chord with me. It's true. A lot of my personal experience would match yours. I feel you.

And I don't know whether your answer has impacted the poster negatively, but I certainly see the potential. That's why i raised the point.

I absolutely don't believe in sugar coating s**t either. I also don't believe in smearing sugar with s**t.

I have the opposite issue. Whenever I'm in a relationship with someone I really care about, he always eventually decides that it can't work between us for various vague reasons, and the only logical course of action would be to end the relationship. I've had this happen to me twice in the last three years, with two different men. Both said some remarkably similar things, such as, "There's something missing," and, "I just don't think it's going to work, and it wouldn't be fair to lead you on."
I was in it for the long haul both times, the second time in particular, but if the other party isn't on the same page, that doesn't do any good. I just can't seem to make anyone I actually care want to stay with me. My record with someone I actually care about is two years and just under three months. I'm twenty nine years old. Clearly, the problem *is* me, in spite of the fact that neither guy was tactless enough to say so. Apparently, relationships with me come with an expiration dat which I'm never aware of until said date arrives, and that's just the way it is.

He's just an axxhat, outer borough girl.

Personally, I'm becoming a big fan of intentional manipulation. Make 'em a little insecure.

I'm an NT, but entirely too devoted, and I think I get treated badly for it. If you're a female AS, we may have a lot in common in that we're very steady--and men don't want steady. They want slightly psychotic genuinely manipulative, and slightly addled.

Be a little unexplainedly unavailable. Make them work a little.

Moog, how did you find out that " the grass isn't greener"?

My AS hasn't figured out that after awhile, there aren't any more fences to jump.

To those of you who deleted Willard's reply:

it was incredibly articulate and accurate.

Thanks.