Having to socialise in a relationship x/

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I’ve been in my first relationship two years now, we’ve lived together most of that time and got engaged a few months ago. He’s an intelligent person with a hypothetical understanding of Aspergers/asd but like everyone else in my life, he’s fallen into the trope of expecting me to just ‘push through it’ when I don’t want to socialise or attend social events. I hate social setting so so much, I can’t begin to explain how challenging I find it. I get terribly anxious and find it hard to function well or think about anything else if I know some social meeting is approaching, so he’s started springing it on me with short notice so I spend less time in dread. It’s considerate in a way but also it’s horrifying in another way.

I try to bargain for compromises, like getting to spend a certain amount of the time out of the room, or on my iPad, or insisting he stays with me and doesn’t leave me alone with the women which I can’t stand. They always assume I’ll want to talk to them and I do not. I find the conversation and anxiety torturous. He just can’t understand it properly. The day leading up to a social setting, I get so stressed and a bit aggressive , I even get stomach aches at times, and he thinks I’m being really unreasonable and over the top about it especially if we have socialised on more than one occasion before with the people in question.

He has a lot of smart, open minded friends who know I have Aspergers and yet he cares what people think and how his partners behavior reflects on him so I always have to be present and wear something nice. I know it seems so childish and ridiculous to the observer but I can’t help how much I hate doing this stuff. He thinks we hardly socialise, it feels overwhelmingly frequent to me. A couple who we’ve had over before came to visit today. I like them well enough as people, but I was so stressed about it, then they cancelled by text and the relief was enormous. After a while they changed their minds and decided to come, I just felt my mood plummet. Then they went out to the beach and I didn’t realise they were coming back, so I again went from relief to dismay. There’s no way I can justify this emotional roller coaster to my partner. I know when they leave he’ll say “that wasn’t so bad was it?” Or something like that. If I don’t agree that it was enjoyable he immediately seems aggravated at how unreasonable and miserable I’m being. His NT logic just wont see the reality of my struggle without judgment.

Days like this, I’m so desperate for escape that I think about living on my own again and how it would go. I love him so much but I feel dread about the future being full of more and more social expectation, especially if we get married. I feel so trapped because in many ways he’s the best thing to ever happen to me, but these misunderstandings make me feel burdensome and alone. I don’t know what to do. He’s read a lot about Aspergers but he still gets mad at me for things I can’t help. I feel so guilty for how much I fantasise about living alone.

You are quite possibly not compatible.

I'm a person who needs to be social. I couldn't have a partner who wasn't.

He won't change. He has a need to be with other people or he will become lonely and depressed.

You won't change because who you are hates being in social situations.

This will always be a problem.

You need another introvert as a partner.

I really feel this on so many levels and I'm sorry for what you're going through. NT's, even introverted NT's, can't comprehend how overwhelming and distracting socialising can be (whether it's the expectation, the event, or the analysis of things that happened and how you 'performed' in that setting). So firstly, you're not alone in that. I understand it thoroughly

It is incredibly draining and repeated, uncontrolled exposure to that sort of thing can lead an autistic person to burn out and experience frequent melt downs. Knowing how to "pace yourself" and being able to pick & choose your social calendar is REALLY important. But I want to go into two considerations here...

1) Next time you're feeling anxious in a social setting, you might find it helpful to run through a series of checks to figure out what is causing you so much stress. Is it the noise? The bright lights and conversation around you? What is overstimulating you?
You can't necessarily prevent it from happening, but identifying it helps you externalise the problem a little more. For me, I shut down when I'm in my doctor/psychiatrist's waiting rooms because there is always noise and conversation going on around me (I can’t block it out as I won’t hear my name being called) and I get gradually worked up over a few minutes. By the time I get to see my doc/psych, I am so anxious that it takes me a minute to breathe & speak clearly - but being able to identify what has upset me helps me compartmentalise and remind myself that the stimulus is gone now, so I can relax and forget the experience more quickly. I'm not sure if this will help you, but it might be worth trying

2) Your partner is being unfair, let's get that straight. But I suspect he has your best interests at heart. It is true that repeated exposure to a stimulus tends to lessen the response you have to that stimulus (also why identifying that stimulus is important). But exposing yourself to these situations should be entirely your choice, and happen on your timeline - not his. He is pushing you because he wants to see you adapt. I do believe it is possible, but I also believe that you need to be very conscious of the process and work up to it in small steps (again, why the above is important) - controlled and limited exposure over time. You also need an escape route and an excuse to not attend an event when you know that it's going to be too much. He should be supporting you in this, and it's upsetting that he isn't, but it's obvious he doesn't understand

So I think you need to make a decision with him. You can either agree to try and ease your way into social settings, and he will have to compromise by giving you time to figure out how to do that (maybe a break for a few months where he goes off and does things without you would help?). You will need to write out your thoughts on this and find a way to communicate your needs to him - I assume part of your problem is not being able to adequately communicate with him at present. Does he understand that you are hypersensitive and likely hypervigilant? How much have you communicated how ASD affects YOU personally? Outside of the stuff that's written online - which is very general and sometimes inaccurate anyway

Or, you can accept that being with him is going to create a perpetual conflict between your current desires and his general nature. If he is going to get angry with you for being who you are, needing more time to yourself, or taking time to figure out how to get the right balance in socialising and alone time, you can't get married. He needs to meet you halfway in understanding...although I think you probably need to meet him halfway also, *IF* you want the relationship to continue. And if you can't, then I would suggest to him that he needs to decide if this is a dealbreaker, because you are not interested in changing and forcing yourself to be something you're not

Honeymeil you have a beautiful way of explaining things. That was much better than my post.

I was so blunt because I've seen this happen with my parents. One wants company and the other won't go out anywhere and they are very unhappy. Been almost 40 years for them and I'm sad that they wasted their lives on the wrong person. They should never have got married.

Thank you. I thought your post was quite succinct and accurate though. All I wrote was my hard-earned experience dealing with the same problem - I haven't given up trying to change because I would like to be able to hold down a full time job one day

I am NT, so I hope this is ok for me to speak on, but I agree with the others. It really is so unfair for him to expect you to do all the compromising on this. And I say "all" because it sounds to me that he reduces his own socializing if you won't go with him, pushing you to feel more obligated to do it more often so he gets his fix. That's... not compromising. That's playing games.

Well... why?

Why can't he go out on his own? Go to their house? Do whatever? There's no reason he has to spend precisely the same amount of time socializing that you do. He can do more than you do if he chooses.

It's also not really something that necessarily needs "fixing." Being introverted is not some sort of bad thing, per se. Clearly you're social enough to date, so it's not as though you've cut yourself off from the world. Perhaps this is unusual, but I think my ASD partner is actually more social than I am! Yet he didn't ask me any questions when I said I needed to just hibernate for a day, in my quiet and alone space. It's the nature of introversion, whether you're NT or not. All the more important to respect, I'm sure, if you're autistic.

Of course, it would be ideal to become as capable of handling things as you feel is important to you, or necessary for your life. But I don't see how pushing you randomly into unpredictable social settings, which you've had no input on, could possibly accomplish that. Controlled exposure is all about a person still finding some degree of agency in an unfamiliar or scary situation so it becomes more manageable, not just shoving them off a cliff. If I was being forced to socialize against my will, and couldn't control how long, how many, or even what I wore, I'd be upset too!

I think you really need to sit down with him and explain that your fundamental social orientation is not something you need to be shoved out of, and treating it like it is, is no different than if you banned him from ever leaving the house. Compromise might be possible, but you need to actually have some sort of a say in that, and he needs to realize you are not responsible for meeting every need he has -- partner or not. Our partners should be here to support us when we need it, but ultimately we are adults and need to be able to care for ourselves too, and to have a mature understanding of the fact that no human being can do everything for us and it's our responsibility to find what we need, not demand that our partner be superhuman. Humans are ultimately communal and therefore our needs are complex -- there's a reason we have so many different types of relationships. It's not like he needs a minder to see his friends, ya know? And at the end of the day, it's a lot harder for our partners to meet the needs they actually can meet when we're running them down by making them be something they're not.

If he needs more social time than your ability to compromise can accommodate -- either for now, or ever -- then he is perfectly capable of going on his own. If he wants you more engaged when you can be, then he needs to actually consider what you need in order to do that.

Thanks guys these posts are really helpful, I find it hard to put my struggles into words especially because he is so intelligent, his arguments often sound very rational compared to my explanations. I will try to find a good way to explain though.

First, ditto what Hurtloam said in her first post, you may not be compatible if he's into lots of socialization and you're not.

Don't roll over just because someone is intelligent, intelligent people can be just as wrong as the next person, and if he's using intelligence to ramrod his opinion onto you then he's not taking your position seriously which is a major sign of disrespect in a relationship.