My boyfriend of six months is like no one I've ever been in a relationship with and he's very difficult to understand at times. I will try to break things down to make it easier to read.
1) His job - He is in specialized industry that he learned very quickly and is absolutely brilliant at. Dropped out of school at age 14. High income earner due to his excelling at his work (it's a creative/technical position of high responsibility). He does his job well and is very committed to it, very punctual with HIS JOB ONLY.
2) Finances - Despite his relatively high income I learned quickly that he has no savings, despite limited expenses (rents a room from someone, no car). He spends a lot of money on friends, takes them on trips, buys groups of friends drinks/shots, tends to overspend on gifts for people (i.e. computers for family that have money), but there were times he was traveling a lot for his job and I am not sure how he managed to spend it all while on the road. He also buys things on whims and often without regards to price. At times though he does act like price matters, it depends on what it's for. If it something he really wants or wants to do, price is not really a concern so much as getting the object/s or experience. I know enjoying your money is part of why we work but this is excessive imo.
3) Friends - He has a lot of friends and is very likeable. He will friend strangers on FB on a near daily basis. He has a lot of female friends, many of them much younger than me (he is 38, I am 40) and pretty. He calls me beautiful often and he thinks I am but still, it is a bit disconcerting at times! He assures me none of them think of him in any way other than a friend. Because I have such strong feelings towards him and so attracted to him, I find this hard to believe, yet when I look for evidence that he is incorrect or lying, I find nothing, so I have to believe this. He also has a lot of male friends who seem to really love him. It seems as though his need for a huge amount of friends might stem from him possibly wanting to appear normal to the world? I don't know if he is an Aspie, I haven't gotten to why I think this yet though. So although he has loads of friends, he at times expresses the viewpoint that people suck, people are stupid, etc. He is very sensitive to any kind of criticism, like if a driver were to flip him off, or if someone were to give him a weird look for whatever reason, justified or not, he gets very offended. He's not aggressive about it but he definitely lets it be known to me, if not the person who offended him. I usually let stuff go but it seems to REALLY bother him. Despite his moodiness, when he's good he is so fun and charming so people are drawn to him, but when he's in one of his moods, he doesn't hide it very well and he can be quite rude and intolerable.
4) Health/hygiene - He doesn't brush his teeth very much, I've given him a toothbrush at my house and most days I go in after he's said he's ready to leave the house, I'll touch the toothbrush and it's dry, lol. I never say anything to him though. I know how sensitive he is and I have never said anything to him about anything like hygiene or such. He rarely combs his hair, but when he showers it looks nice because of how it lays. Other days he hasn't showered and it's just wild and he says "I'm a guy, I don't have to worry about how I look". He has beautiful hair so he lets it get a bit long maybe because he knows it's so nice. I love it, I just find it interesting that he doesn't touch it really. Maybe on our first few dates he did though. He eats a terrible diet and avoids most vegetables. He likes burgers, pizzas, etc. He will eat a lot of other things too but he seems to poke a but of fun at healthy eaters, and when I catch him doing that I explain I am a healthy eater out of necessity because eating like him would leave me in a state of no energy and ill-health. He often tries to say oh, I wasn't talking about you, tries to backpeddle when he realizes he's also talking about me in his rants about healthy eaters. He sometimes talks like we are holier-than-thou or part of some silly trend. Again, he doesn't say any of this to me and seems to forget he might be offending me too when he points these things out in others who eat the same way I do. He drinks quite a bit and there have been times we've gone out somewhere the day after drinking all night and he smells of booze and he can't smell it obviously but I can and I know everyone else can too, my friends and people we might be near, anyone can. He seems oblivious to a lot of these things.
5) Our relationship. He was very shy, IS still shy in a lot of ways. I sort of had to pursue him. He says it was love at first sight. For me it took a little longer but I was so intrigued by how he stared at me every chance he could, smiling in such a cute way. I started feeling like he was a beautiful soul I needed to get to know, plus he obviously thought I was really pretty which was a plus. It took us ages to get together, well the better part of a year anyway, despite obvious attraction towards each other. Our second date we were drinking in a bar after a nice meal and he kissed me. When he drinks he becomes extremely affectionate towards me in public. When we are sober at home together he is affectionate but nearly as much. He never tried to have sex with me so after a few weeks I basically said I had to have him and he seemed eager but well, we had been drinking and things didn't work so well for him. The next morning things worked semi-well, but he kept losing his erection and then we'd stop and then a few minutes later start again then stop, and this kind of became a pattern for us. Morning sex in this fashion. He seems a little inexperienced to be honest but he has two older kids so I know he's been around a little bit at least. He doesn't do foreplay, I think he just feels he's hard and just gets on me and gets right into things, which I honestly don't mind too much but am not used to that really. I am deeply in love with him and in my eyes he is physical perfection despite flaws that of course we all have.
What really surprised me is the level of love and tenderness he gives to me, he looks me in the eyes and says he loves me the whole time. No dirty talk or wanting to get in different positions or asking for oral or anything. Just a really loving act that unfortunately never lasts long. He doesn't climax really. Only one time in our 6 months together has he ever strongly initiated sex and saw it through and was very serious about seeing it through. That one time has always perplexed me. Why that one time and never again in that way? I think he's managed to climax less than a handful of times. He hasn't given me an orgasm because a) he never keeps things going long enough b he never initiates giving me other kinds of pleasure although when drunk he talks about how much he wants to make me come, but talks about it as if it's some future thing he's going to accomplish. Very strange. So one day I just took his hand and made him help me help myself (at this point I was VERY sexually frustrated and still am everyday) and at first he said his hand was tired but I said I wouldn't take long, I was not going to let him get out of it. Once the mission was accomplished, he just held me for awhile in silence, I had to wonder if he's ever even given a woman an orgasm. Very odd because personally I think he's very cute, tall, and charismatic and can be quite the charmer. I say this but he was very shy around me for quite some time while he was obviously very comfortable with his attractive female friends I saw him interacting with. Anyway, the sex thing is all very hard for me to understand and I have tried to talk to him about things but he managed to get out of addressing it, because other things were addressed at the same time so he just addressed those things but not sex. I said I needed more intimacy with him because he wasn't initiating sex with me hardly at all. I've been terrified to initiate with him because I'm afraid if he is not in the mood he won't get hard to even try and then he'll feel bad about himself and i will feel bad. I don't see any evidence of a porn addiction but there is no way for me to know. He doesn't seem like a typical "red blooded" male and I think he likes a natural woman rather than a woman who tries hard with sexy clothes and makeup, I can tell the latter is definitely not his style. He also seems to have a lot of sensitivity down there, he just can't keep an erection. I did give him oral sex once for like an hour before I gave up. He seemed like he enjoyed it but I feel like it might be a focus problem with him? He has a lot of characteristics of ADD as well...
When he drinks he tells me how in love he is with me and wants to grow old with me. At first I thought he was bullshitting me but at this point I think he does really love me deeply but has strange ways of showing it sometimes. He's done some hurtful things to me a few times like stand me up for dates, and then when I got upset he would retreat and not contact me for days, and then when he did he would focus on how I reacted rather than what he did to get that reaction out of me. He totally avoids conflict at all cost. I broke up with him at one point because of him standing me up, and he appeared stoic and not to care at all. Three weeks later I contacted him and started chatting and we ended up getting together one night and it was very loving and passionate (though no successful sex, drinks were involved), we both confessed how much we love each other. The next day we spent all day together and he said some things that showed he expected us to be back together for the long haul (i.e. making plans for things to do later in the year together). At one point we talked about him moving in but suddenly it was like we never had that conversation and he was talking like he had no plans to move out of his current place. He seems to say things and not follow through or even forgets he says them! Sometimes he repeats things to me as well. He also tends to be thinking of a bunch of things at once. He notices little things really well. He is really good at solving puzzles. He is always on his damn phone checking stuff. Even when we are at dinner sometimes! He doesn't seem to know it's rude.
The last thing I want to say is, he will go out of town and seem to forget I exist sometimes. Then when I tell him it makes me feel bad when I don't hear from him all day (but yet he posted stuff on Facebook) he seems a little confused that I am upset and then when he texts me more, you can tell he's doing it as an effort and then that effort fizzles out. When I tell him it feels like his feelings for me are changing because he texts me so little anymore when he is gone, he seems really surprised and says he thought everything was amazing between us. Yet I see him text others all the time. A lot of times he'll seem to want to go out with friends over be with me. I accept this might be a function of him coming to rely on friends for most of his life since he rarely had a girlfriend. HIs longtime friends have told me privately that they've never really seen him serious with anyone or certainly never knew him to tell any woman he loves them. I've made him run away several times because I can be very exhausting, I tend to text a lot seeking resolution to conflicts whereas he shuts down and doesn't know what to say or do ever. He gets very moody at times though, he has been rude to me, critical of my driving, critical of the way I am doing something because it doesn't make perfect logical sense to him, he complains a lot about others to me, to the point that I want to tell him to stop, and normally i can tolerate that sort of thing, but when he is in one of his moods he's like a runaway train. During these moods too, he is not affectionate at all, but if I leave him alone and say I need to go home for x.y, or z reason (I say I'm tired, or have something to do) he will sulk about that and take it personally like I am abandoning him. He also often says "I guess you don't like the me that I am" or something like that. I assure him all the time I love the he that he is. Again, this is when he is in one of his funks. Other times he is a ray of light, a total joy, more fun and youthful vitality and joie de vivre than anyone I've ever met. It's very strange how extreme his moods are but I know bipolar and it's not that he has that.
In summary, he is obviously a very different kind of guy but at the same time presents himself to the world as a very normal, sociable, stable guy. I feel like he gets in these moods because he is totally exhausted and maybe because it is so hard to be him. He withdraws from me frequently but doesn't seem to know he's doing it or that it might be upsetting or confusing for me, he tells me I am his everything but his actions show that his friends remain more important to him than me (or so it appears, to an "NT" (I use that term lightly though, more in a minute), no regards for personal appearance, appears cold and uncaring when we argue or after the break up (won't reply to my texts in general), yet I feel like he really does love me, he takes care of me when I am sick, he would do anything he could in the moment to make me happy (I say in the moment because I feel like he has two time zones- now and not now and I feel like if he is not with me I don't exist), he says he thinks about me all the time but he can go a day or two without texting good morning even when he is out of town, he says rude things to me but doesn't seem to know it's rude, he seems to "buy" friends even though he doesn't have to, he has a great personality, he treats friends in amazing ways, but gets stuck on and preoccupied with any enemies he has, sexually is very different, treats sex as strictly a way to express love not to climax (which I've been trying hard to be ok with since my ex was the total opposite and I always dreamed of deeply loving sexual encounters), and doesn't seem very interested in it, never talks about his past at all, I know very little about him, never asks me about mine, had a hardscrabble life though but is a complete rags to riches story all of his own volition, the skills he developed, his childhood was very unstable and I suspect very lonely from what he's shared, he gets very stressed inside himself, doesn't ever take care of himself in ANY way, has a strange movement he makes with his body at times, sometimes hates when I touch him a certain way, picky eater, gets bored easily, very impulsive with money and things like speeding in his car and getting tickets, is exhausting for a lot of NTs to be around for longer periods of time.
Before I end this I want to say that the strong bond he and I share despite our really awful communication (a) because he avoids all conflict and nothing ever gets resolved and b) I do not understand AS well yet and have yet to learn how to better communicate with him), might be in part because I had AS for the better part of my life (at least I think so), and so he feels familiar to me, and I to him. The big difference between us being that he developed amazing skills and became very professionally (with no schooling or training) and socially successful whereas I never have. As a child I was very shy, had tons of issues with everyone, felt uncomfortable in my own skin, was horribly self conscious (the latter two things I still feel even at age 40, but to a lesser degree), was socially awkard and never managed to make a lot of friends but I have always had a handful of loyal ones. I was a complete disaster in school, my elementary reports show I was absent much of the time, my teachers said I was gifted in writing but daydreamed all day and did not apply myself and was not making any progress socially. This was the reports from k-6, in junior high I managed to fool teachers a bit better as I wanted to fit in with my peers who were getting A's, so I applied myself a little bit and ended up with good grades. I was always unkempt and teased for my appearance until around age 16 when somehow I just seemed to "get a clue" and start overcoming a lot of my lifelong obstacles. I dropped out of school at 15 but got a B.A. and worked some good jobs for awhile before getting married and having kids and being a housewife for many years. That was a disaster. I married a very NT guy and he never got me and was slapping all kinds of labels on me like BPD, Bi-polar and such. I was only living that life because I went from ugly duckling to a very attractive woman in my 20s and I used the only power I ever felt I had to snag a highly normal guy who I thought would show me the life I never had (he had lots of friends and was very fun which was great for shy me with few friends but such a strong desire to have the opposite). So I feel like I might be an Aspie myself, have a hard time with jobs because my attention span is awful and I feel I never belong with a group, I feel like I'm different and it's a monumental effort to make people like me. I struggle with depression and anxiety but always have. But I really want to know if HE is AS because maybe then at least I can learn how to communicate better with him. Obviously I have a totally different communication style and it's not good either. I can say that we really love each other and forgive so much about each other I think NT's wouldn't. Like I would never leave him because our sex life sucks, I just say hey, he uses sex as an expression of his love for me, sex for the sake of feeling physical pleasure is probably overrated anyway. I know a lot of women would never be able to live like this though. I have an amazing man though, imo. What do you all think? I am sorry this is so long, thanks for reading. I am pretty desperate at this point. I don't want me not understanding him and vice versa to turn a really lovely bond into a toxic relationship full of resentment and distance because I didn't learn about AS (if he does indeed have it). Thank you.
24 Mar 2014, 3:48 pm
Really though, I mention this often because it's been the hardest on my self-esteem. Understanding him and AS would help with that. I have only been here a short time and it seems a lot of women are having the same issues I am with our sex lives.
