Opening lines of communication with Aspie boyfriend?

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I am an NT woman, and my boyfriend is an aspie. We've been together almost a year and I love him with all my heart, but I can't lie, sometimes that man drives me crazy.

He almost always refuses to communicate. We never discuss our problems unless I force him to talk about it with me and thats never pretty. You cannot force this man to do anything he doesn't want to do. Sometimes I feel like i'm dealing with a child. a 20 year old child.

Hes very introverted and requires a lot of time alone, even though I am someone who wants to be doing something with him all the time, I accepted this and respect his space. I try to do everything right to be the best and most understanding girlfriend I can, but it's so hard when you can't communicate.

Anytime he is upset with me, he won't tell me why. He just gets mad and ignores me, even if we're in the same house. Which we normally are, we live together. For example we had big issue today (Thanksgiving) that totally could've been avoided! He was up all night long playing videogames (which i hate, but don't say anything about because I understand the need for a hobby and time to yourself), when he finally came to bed around 8 am he pulled the covers off of my naked body and put his cold feet on my back. (Why he does things like this I do not know. He would've literally ended my life if i touched him with cold feet, much less attacked). I don't remember anything but turning over half awake and yelling at him for doing that, the last thing i remember is him laughing and me going back to sleep. Fast forward like 10 minutes he now has the TV on so i'm more awake, I turn over to try and cuddle and he's just ignoring me. Literally ignoring me. I have major anxiety, so this was just an anxiety attack waiting to happen for me unfortunately, but I tried to stay calm. I scooted close to him and started to scratch his back like he loves and he shoved me off and said he was mad at me because I was being mean to him. Geninuely confused I asked him what I did and he told me it didn't matter and to go to sleep. At this point my anxiety is acting up a lot and i'm sobbing because I just woke up and I was confused and it was like 8:30 am, just a whole whirlwind of emotion was going on with me. Eventually I managed to wrangle it out of him, he was mad at me because when he put his feet on my back I apparently turned over and hit him in my sleep. I don't remember this at all so I told him I was sorry, and he was like "You were just freaking out! You never act like that!" I didn't know what to say so I just kept apologizing, and sobbing honestly. I asked him if he forgave me and he told me no.

I didn't know what else to do at this point so I turned over and sobbed into my pillow some, eventually he wakes up and flat out screams at me for crying which made me cry harder. Then eventually he told me I could hold him, then he pushed me off, then he held me (repeat) and it was so confusing. I tried to go to sleep and hope things would be better when he woke up.

I woke up around 11am to go to my parents house for thanksgiving. He was supossed to go with me, but right now he won't even speak to me. I try to cuddle and apologize a little bit more, but he's not having it. Eventually he tells me he forgives me and kind of holds me mostly to shut me up it felt like, but it was something. Then out of nowhere he sighs really loud, opens his eyes, looks at me and says "When are you gonna go??" and my heart sank so fast. I got up and got ready to leave and I asked him for a kiss and he gave me one and said he loved me, and then went back to sleep as i left. Later on while I was showering at my parents house and he texts me and asks me to sleep there tonight, okay whatever. He needs his space he loves his space, I normally spend a night or so a week at my parents anyways by my own choice and i'm sure he likes that night to have the room and bed to himself, but he's never said anything like that before. I don't want to start a fight so I just respond "okay" and ask if he's coming to dinner. He literally did not text me back, and then just didn't show up.
I texted him later to tell him how much this hurt me, that I was excited for him to come and how embarrassed I was to have to make up some elaborate excuse to please my family. He doens't respond. I text him again a couple of hours later because he opened my snapchat but didn't respond to me and he says "sorry forgot" ignoring everything I told him about how I feel. Later on he texts me and says he loves me, but right now I don't even want to respond my heart is hurting so bad. I'm so angry right now. Like i'm thinking about how i'm gonna act when I get home tomorrow and I can't keep any thoughts straight because he's really truly hurt me this time.

This was just a recent example about how things blow up but it's happened before. If he just would've talked to me about it I would've apologized and explained that I don't even remember what happened and that I was sorry because I love and would never hurt him. But no. Because we cannot ever talk about things, and i'm getting tired of it. I'm literally filled with so much anxiety over going home tomorrow.

Anytime he gets mad at me, he bottles it up until it blows up later, maybe even days later. Or he handles it like a literal child. He will ignore me in the same room as him for hours rather than just have a grown up conversation. I am an emotional person, I feel empathy very strongly in all aspects of my life, this makes me hypersensitive. And I know people with Asperger's really struggle with empathy, so I try to have enough for the both of us. I always just try and brush stuff off but I really truly don't feel like asking my adult boyfriend to have an adult conversation with me when theres an issue is asking a lot, or asking something thats unreasonable. But this is hard, this is exhausting. I'm carrying my emotional weight and his too, which normally just comes out in the form of grumpiness and a bad attitude with no explanation and then maybe if i'm lucky an apology later.

Now don't get me wrong, despite this he's the greatest man I know. I love him with all my heart and he completes me. We have so much fun together, and he tries for me. Sometimes he tries so hard to be there for me and to understand the way i'm feeling and my anxiety that it makes me want to cry tears of joy. But most of the time situations end up like what I described above. And no one likes sleeping on their moms couch on thanksgiving.

So i guess what I'm asking is how do i remedy this? Like its clear to anyone that there is a problem here, and I don't want to break up with him but I can 't keep kidding myself if this continues I just will probably simply fall out of love. One can only take so much. But I want to try to work with him. I want him to know that I'm here for him and I love him, but he's got to work with me too even if it's hard. Or at least try to.

I don't even know what to say to him without shutting him down. Confronting him is so scary, because I NEVER and i mean NEVER know how he's gonna take it. I mean like to be honest I'm so hurt right now I'd like to scream, yell and give an ultimatum, but I know that won't get me anywhere, except gravely worsening the situation. So if any of you lovely people have some advice, harsh truths or encouraging words I'd really appreciate it.

I am sorry, I don't want to sound harsh, but from what you've said you guys just don't sound very compatible with each other and he sounds like he has more growing up to do before he even tries to be in a relationship. I can see this situation from both sides. Yes it is true, aspies benefit from their alone time, but when in a relationship there should be a mature way of handling it. I admit in the past I've come off as an as*hole and done similar things. I can now look back at it all and realize that was very wrong of me, it took years for me to mature enough to get to that point. Not to make excuses but I didn't even know what aspergers was at that time. Getting properly diagnosed and learning about it and being able to see similar traits in others, like the one you just shared with us, made me realize many things over the years. I know it is difficult as there really isn't that much support out there for adult aspies, so if he really wants to change then he needs to put in the work to do so. Putting up with these things is just going to enable him to continue acting in such a way. Most people will not change until they are absolutely forced to. I am not saying everything he is doing is wrong and can be changed, but there are specific bad habits in which he can change to make the relationship more positive, such as communicating with you properly and basically just acting as if he wants to be in a relationship. I can't say for sure as there are always two sides to every conflict but from my experience it is almost as if he has taken you for granted and now you are just part of his daily routine. This can happen in any relationship, if the person is an aspie or not, it can seem a lot worse when an aspie is involved as we tend to be very rigid with our routines. As for the other side which I'll now get to... I use to always be blinded as to when a relationship just wasn't working out and I would always try to force it to work instead of ending it which just prolonged my heart from healing and caused more damage. I am not saying you can or can't change him. I don't want to encourage you to think you can change someone though. Don't blame yourself if you try but don't succeed. It is up to that other person. Part of me feels real bad for him since I've been there before, but we all need to take some personal responsibility in the way we act, aspie or not, especially when it effects others. Many times people settle in their relationships/friendships, not saying he's settling on you or you're settling on him, it is almost always a two way street. Both of you might have gotten in to this not knowing exactly what you were going to get or not knowing what it is that you want in a partner, we always think we do, but dating is a forever changing experience of growing. I've been guilty of it in the past, as I'm sure a lot of others have been too, if they will admit it or not. Its a sad thing to realize when you become so invested in someone. We all end up putting up with flaws which we normally would not if we had only known in advance. "Love" blinds us all. You have to ask yourself "is this really love?". I thought I loved a lot of women in my life, looking back at it now with clear tear-free eyes, I can say I loved them for being a part of my life and helping me grow as a person, but I was not in love with them and I wouldn't want to be with them again. When two people are in love, you shouldn't have to try to change them, they should want to better themselves for you and themselves.

That is hard to say without personally knowing him. Maybe you could tell us a little more about his personality and his functionality to give us a better understanding of him. Like I said before though, the signs seem to point to him being a very immature aspie that still has a lot of growing up to do. I remember a time when I was that way when I was always under a lot of stress but he seems to be in a rather comfortable situation with a very understanding woman that is trying to work with him. Is there anything going on in his life besides the relationship and his condition that might be causing him to be stressed out? I suppose an aspies entire life can just be one big stressful situation though to some degree. A lot of people just don't want to talk when they are stressed out so they find something to do to distract them from it, guessing that is where the video games come in. Do you ever try playing with him? There is almost no good way to tell someone they might need to seek some professional help. I'm sure you know that asking someone to see a therapist when they show no interest in wanting to go is usually a waste of time. If they decide to go it will be just because the other person wanted them to go and they will sit there not really knowing what to talk about or not wanting to talk and nothing gets solved, they might not even be comfortable doing so. If you strongly feel that some sort of professional help is needed, maybe something like couples therapy would be a better option. That way he is slightly less likely to feel as if it is all on him, and you can work together to come up with solutions to try to make the relationship work. Make sure it is about the relationship and not him. Everyone has issues from their past, so I'm sure you can come up with ways to work on some relationship issues you might have to make sure he doesn't feel like it is all on him. If you want to go that route make sure the therapist is not clueless about aspergers, many act like they understand it, most don't, they've got to make a living somehow. In all honesty the only ones that can really understand aspergers are aspies. Everyone else is only trying to understand it. So just find the best one that you can. As for communicating... He is only going to get better at it by doing it more. I know it sucks but you can't really force him to, he'll most likely feel like he is being nagged or something. Does he have any other interests besides video games? Does he play games with others online and does he speak to them? Just wondering. All I use to do was talk to people online about video games, not the best way to get better at communicating unless that is all you plan to ever talk about. Doing so can cause even more issues with communication but that is a whole different topic so I won't go there lol. I personally found a great love for writing as I have much to say but very few people to speak with that would understand me or even want to hear it. It has been a great outlet and has helped improve my communication skills. I still struggle a lot of times when speaking to strangers one on one, I consider most of my acquaintances to be strangers, else they would be friends. I can effectively communicate very well with certain personality types even if I have just met the person, yet I find most people, even the ones I've known for years, very difficult to speak with because our personalities are not compatible. Sorry, I'm just throwing some ideas out there. Anyways. When communicating with an aspie it is probably best to be as direct and honest as possible. The less they have to mis-read the better. Be as detailed as possible. Write out what you want to say in advance if you need to so that you know everything being said is going to be very clear, re-read it multiple times and make sure it won't upset him. Give him time to process it all. Many times we won't know what to say right away. If expected to come up with something right away we might say something stupid that we'll look back on later and realize we didn't mean to sound that way. If he wants to think while playing his video games, let him, as long as he is processing it, it is a good thing, if he is just sitting there mindlessly playing, then that is where the problem is. I think there was more that I wanted to say, but way too drained, gotta go rest.

It sounds like he wants the relationship all on his terms & doesn't want to put in any effort into trying to make the relationship work with you. I don't think there is much you can do to get through to him on your own sense he doesn't want to communicate with you. You could push him to see a relationship counselor preferably one that has experience with Aspergers but I don't think there is much else you can do except ask yourself if you can live with this the rest of your lives & leave him if you cant.