What is love? / How do I know if my Asperger's man loves me?

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I've been dating the most amazing AS guy for the last few months and the relationship progressed from instantly becoming best friends and spending all day, every day with each other to about a month later officially dating. We share the same obsessions and we work together and spend most of our free time together and it's gotten to the point where I know I'm a better person for being with him and I can't imagine my life without him. I love him, but I don't know how exactly to explain to him what that means.

We had a talk last night about love and I tried to explain to him what it means when I know that I love him, but I have a hard time putting it into words. Himself, having only had one semi-serious relationship before and not having touched a girl for two years previous to meeting me, finds the concept of love somewhat foreign and mysterious and is trying to decide if he loves me, but he doesn't know enough about love to know whether he loves me or not.

I told him that I don't want him to feel pressured by the fact that I said I loved him, and that I know I won't ever come before his obsessions and I don't want him to think that I ever should-- he was concerned that if he really loves me, does that mean that he has to love me more than science, but I told him that's not how love works-- at least not to me.

These are the ways I know that he at least cares:
1) He told me up front that he cares about me.
2) He is comfortable with me-- so much, in fact, that he rarely needs that time alone to "recharge" that he did before. We try and take alone time every day to emotionally recharge and get things done separately, but now we want to spend most nights together whereas before he wanted more time to be alone.
3) He always looks out for me. He defended me once to our lab director, who was mistreating me, and it was to the detriment of his relationship with him, but he said he didn't mind because he wouldn't want to see me treated like that anyway. He also insisted that I stay with him for a week after a stalker tried to get into my apartment because he didn't want anything bad to happen to me. A week is a long time to spend with someone when you value time alone.
4) He is always himself around me and doesn't have to suppress the urge to talk about his interests or shorten his long speeches about his obsessions when he is talking with me.
5) He is physically affectionate with me and he lets me touch him without having to warn him about it.
6) He takes care of me. He isn't afraid to be around me and comfort me when I tell him I am upset. And he always reminds me to eat the right things so that I don't pass out from hypoglycemia. He even got me food when I passed out once.
7) He lost his virginity to me and I feel very flattered that he wanted to share that experience with me.

There are other things I can think of but I don't think I need to write too long of a list or nobody will read it. I know that he cares about me a lot but that's not the same thing as love and I am really afraid that he might never fall in love with me and that would break my heart because I love him more than I've loved anyone and I'm really afraid of losing him because he is uncertain and the uncertainty stresses him out, or because the idea scares him.

I think it would really help if I found some other ways to define love to him to help make this more simple to him. Can some people here tell me what they think about love?

Oh, and I don't know if this makes a difference, but I'm not really sure if I have Asperger's or not. I think I probably do, and my parents were absolutely certain of it when I was a kid. I don't know for sure but I don't think I am writing from quite an NT perspective.

I hope someone here might be able to help... thanks

I felt I needed to say "thank you," for a lot of reasons, but mainly for showing me how someone on the other side of this situation feels. I can tell you two are deeply in love.

But what I feel is most important is that, without a doubt, this man LOVES you. Whether he says it often or at all, you'd have to be a part of his very atomic structure to be able to have what you two do at this point. That's probably not helpful in the way you would like, I don't know honestly, but take it from someone who is very much like what your companion sounds like that you're everything to him, and it's the basic silliness of our condition that confuses our loved ones so.

From what I understood here, is that you're trying to accurately gauge what your individual love is, and what that amounts to from his eyes, correct? If you're the tangeable, the chemical concept of love in this relationship, then it is quite possible that he is the abstraction, the deep-seeded and hidden love. This is no less of a passion, it is just out of site slightly. I can't tell you, without doubt, that you're under his skin, and now a very crucial and important part of his being.

Love is not an integer; it is a variable. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but when entered into the equation makes more of the answer apparent.

Love is not absolute; it grows, it changes, it adapts. Sometimes, it dies.

Love, as a concept, is not exclusive. Monogamy is not love - he is free to love his work, his pets, his interests.

It is an additive in its true form, not a corrosive. It may be easier for him to say that he is growing to love you than to offer it in absolute terms.

Love does not replace what already exists; like a vine, it intertwines and binds with the friendship and understanding that is already there.

From what I read, he has already expressed a love for you. What exactly that entails is unclear, but it is something to consider.

There is no 'proof' for love; strangely, like religion, it requires faith and decision.


M.

Hey there;

Writing as AS husband of NT wife whose relationship has deep similarities to what you describe, yeah, if he's like me, he loves you. Deeply.

Hey.....just got a note from my husband saying I should read this one and consider replying to it......you sound like you are on the right track to me. Our circumstances where so like yours that it is scary almost I had been married before but he hadn't and was having a lot of trouble expressing himself to others but I knew I was in love with him......not sure how but just did We'd known each other for several years as we lived across from each other in some government subsidies apartments. He didn't like us at first but as his favorite line goes "be careful who you don't like, you might wind up married to them!!"

Because of his bipolar as well as his AS he currently has to live in his own place but we have agreed that we love each other and want to stay married to each other. We both know that it is something we will both have to work hard at and at this point we both want it to work out.

Not sure how you have been showing him or telling him you love him but with us I just keep trying things as they are shown to me. For instance we both love trains and one day I was in a store that had an awesome train shaped cookie cutter.....I bought it putting back something I had picked up for myself ......but it was worth it!!

Just keep trying, believe me it can work!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsCXZczTQXo[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbnjEiW5T3s[/youtube]

At some point, all relationships loose the "feeling", the primal release of hormones that causes the sensations we call infatuation or lust. While "infatuated" or "in lust", a person can be poor a decision maker as if intoxicated or on drugs.

What proves love over time is actions. It sounds to me like he very much loves you. I don't know that he will ever be able to calculate the emotion. But most NT/Domestic Humans have no clue how to seperate such thing iether.

Something else I thought of this morning was a saying that was told to me from a pastor friend....."True Love is seeking God's best for the subject loved." If not into religion I suppose it could be said this was ..... Seeking what's best for the subject loved.

I find that if I always consider is this the best I can do for my husband at this time then I am showing him as much love and respect that i can.