My boyfriend of 6 months might have aspergers?? Advice pls!

Post Reply New Topic

I have been dating a guy for 6 months. We are both 27. I am starting to believe he might have aspergers. He has never had a serious relationship before and I get the feeling that has a hard time being emotionally close to anyone.

He doesn't seem to be able to recognize when I am upset about anything unless I directly state that I am upset, like he doesn't pick up on nonverbal cues. He is very fact oriented doesn't seem to have the ability to understand or interpret emotions.

He has a job that requires him to travel every weekend and our argument for our entire time of dating is that when he is gone, we don't communicate much. He doesn't call me to see how my day has been, etc. He says he hates phones. I am at a point that I feel like I can't continue to date him, although I love him.

From the start I always noticed he was pretty different than most people that I know and it has led me to think that maybe his inability to understand why I need to hear from him while he is out of town might be a symptom of autism. When we argue - which has only ever happened when i get upset for not hearing from him - he cries, but doesn't seem to know how to express himself verbally. He could just be very, very emotionally immature, maybe? His style of communication is like no one I have ever met before.

Once while we were on the phone and I was telling him that I didn't want to date anymore because it hurts my feelings so much that I don't hear from him when he is out of town and his response was "Well i am going to have to get off of the phone because I don't want to be on the phone fighting like this, I would rather go talk to people who are not mad at me."

I want to ask him or someone in his family if he has been diagnosed with autism, but I don't want to offend anyone if he hasn't.

Help!

I am very interested to hear other opinions on this topic?

Speaking on the phone is difficult for many of us; sometimes it's due to an auditory processing disorder which is common among autistics. Why can't you email or text when he's away?

Thank you so much for your response!! !

That might explain why he hates to talk on the phone. Most of our communication occurs by text. He does text, just sometimes he doesn't reply for hours and says he forgets to respond. Sometimes we will be in the middle of a big text discussion and he will just stop replying for a long period of time and come back later (to several angry messages from me asking why he isnt responding) and he will say that he went to eat or something. He doesn't think to tell me he will be back and that he is going to eat for some reason?

I know I hate talking on the phone especially when it's an argument.

Austingirl - I'll send you a personal message (thought I'd write this since I didn't know PMing existed at first. Although you probably know. But it'll be in your inbox in the top righthand corner.)

Thanks so much! Today is my first day using this site, but I can find my inbox and will keep an eye out.

Thanks again!

Ah, this is actually a different problem then. You need to tell him that he must send an "over and out" message when he's finished a text conversation with you. Most of us can understand rules of this type if they are made explicit.

That makes sense. When I hear from him I will mention the over and out thing.

I am kind of at the end of my rope today with the whole situation.

Here is more background:

We get into arguments about communication nearly every week when he is out of town. Our most recent one was 5 days ago. On Wednesday before he left I tried to bring up ideas for talking while he is gone to set up a kind of schedule for us so that I know when I will hear from him and it might help the situation.

He is out of town for work (he is a musician) and has been since Wednesday night. Today is his birthday. I wrapped a gift for him to take with him and open today. I talked to him last night before bed and he said he would call me after his show. He was also going to open his gift last night. I went to sleep but set my alarm to wake up and write on his facebook wall and call him at his exact birthday time. He didn’t answer – which was no big deal because he could have still been playing. I assumed when he finished he would call like he said he would (or at the very least text) so I went back to sleep.

This morning nothing. He didn’t call. He didn’t text. I guess he didn’t open his gift because how would it be possible to open the gift and then forget to call or text? The idea of him being in jail or a hospital is not a worry because he did respond to one of his friends on facebook this morning at 3am.

I sent him this string of texts this morning - hoping to be super clear with him about what I wanted.
Here is the entire string of texts I sent this morning:
Text 1: “Happy birthday!! ! I called you at 12:37 to tell you.”
Text 2: “I am guessing that you forgot to call me after your show and you also didn’t see that I called or did and forgot to call me back?”
Text 3: “And did you not open your gift?”
Text 4: “I figured you would have called or texted when you opened it?”
Text 5: “I sent 5 messages so don’t forget to scroll up and read them all so that you can respond.”

(I sent the last text because in the past he has not responded to text messages and when I ask him why, he says that he forgot to scroll up to read them.)

I have never been in a situation where I felt so frustrated and not understood by another human being. It's a mixture of being really hurt and really frustrated.

My last try with this is to try to get feedback here to see what others think who are more famillier with autism (if he does in fact have it) so that maybe I can understand him better and not just end the relationship.

I really, really appreciate all of the feedback.

Well, it may be an "out of sight, out of mind" thing. But it also may be that he's seeing other women while he's on the road, or that he's "just not that into you".

Maybe it's better saying when you are upset, instead of thinking about the nonverbal cues.

I kind of have a process where I need to gear up for a public event. It takes a lot of emotional energy and emotional skill during the event. And then I need to decompress.

For example, I was manager of a retail store, and we had these god-awful district meetings (where the district manager would just harp on sales goals using new figures). I would take notes to stay alert. And then I would slump. It's like I have an A game and then a C game.

If I'm going to do something like balance my bank account, I sometimes need to have the whole day available. Because it might bring up bad emotions, then I need the time and space to work through some of this. write, read, write, read. Which is a method I use, which works, but which takes time. Then I need time available that evening to maybe see a movie or browse a bookstore.

I'm going to include a link,
that possibly some famous people like Thomas Jefferson and Jane Austen were on the Asperger's / Autism Spectrum. Still may have struggled with their personal relationships. And goes without saying that diagnosing a historical figure backward in time is highly speculative.
http://www.asperger-syndrome.me.uk/people.htm <--speculative

But talent can be its own burden. And takes a lot of time. And most people on the spectrum are probably medium talented and that's perfectly fine. And with hard work and ping-ponging communication with others, can still produce really good art and really good philosophy.

And also a day in which I'm doing my writing, which is my art, I need to have a lot of unaccounted time available.

He's entirely missing the emotional texture of what's going on. He's viewing this as a "normal" argument and obviously it isn't.

He's using the method of walking away from an argument. Which is good general advice. But he's applying it in a clumsy, clunky method.

-----------------------------

I don't make a big deal out of birthdays and Christmas. And a little bit, it sometimes mystifies me that other people do.

One thing that has helped me is the idea of let a medium mistake just be a medium mistake. That is, don't compound it.

Plus, I'm trying to more "right-brain" activities (inherently imprecise!) rather than left-brain and analytic.

Perhaps you need to tone it down or maybe get a hobby to take your mind off your boyfriend when he isn't around?

@arielhawksquill - that is a very good point and something that I have DEFINITELY considered. Over time I just dont feel in my gut that is the case though

@AardvarkGoodSwimmer - He is defnitely INSANELY smart and very, very talented with music and also with photography.

@Whoops - SO true! I do need need to get better at saying when I am upset and not trying to use non-verbals, this relationship has actually really, really helped me to recognize that in myself because I can't communicate with him using non-verbal communication because it just doesnt work.

Why does he have to call you up every day when he's away? Even normal people need space and time apart can be good let alone if you think he might be an aspie.

@tgbnhy - that is a good point, i have never had a relationship before where we didn't talk most if not all days, but things are definitely different with him and we don't talk every day. Last night was just an important one because he said he would call and then he didnt call. And today he doesnt understand at all why I am upset. Maybe he is just not the right guy for me? OR maybe I just need to understand him better? I am hoping I just need to understand him better and that maybe getting on this blog might help me do that if he is an aspie. and the more i learn about it, the move convinced i become that is the case.

Well personally I couldn't be in a relationship where I had to speak to my partner on the phone every day. I dislike speaking to anyone over the phone and it would feel especially cold speaking to a partner. In my dream relationship I'm living in a secluded place in my own house and my partner lives in her house a mile away and we see each other maybe four days a week (We would sleep at each others houses when we wanted to) but we are committed, when on our own we focus on our work and interests and when we meet we share them. I can't say for your partner though just what I would ideally like.

I don't understand why it's so important to have a brief phone conversation when there are no important updates or nothing that can't be said more meaningfully in person, maybe he feels the same way about the phone? Plus if he is actually an aspie (he would just need to be a guy to feel that) you should know being around others is very draining and we need isolation to regenerate and the phone is bad for many/most of us.

Last edited by tgbnhy on 08 Jul 2011, 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.