Question for married or happily partnered aspie women

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So, I know a lot of aspies (us girls especially) have been known to do the "masking" thing where we cover up our aspie-ness with excessive personality and well, by just constantly "performing" for others when we're expected to be sociable.

That was articulated poorly, but I'm pretty sure y'all know what I'm referring to when I say a performance. Just, y'know, acting so that others will like you - but it's exhausting. If you have no idea what I mean, just let me know but I'm too sleepy right now to try and put this more clearly in this post.

Anyway, I was wondering... When you are with your significant other, whether he or she is NT or not, do you still feel like you are putting on a show?

I'd just love to meet someone that I don't need to 'act' for and I don't know if that is an unreasonable thing to look for. Also, I know that I automatically put up my 'performer' front when I meet someone new so I have to ask, if you do feel more relaxed around them than you do around others, how did you let yourself let it get that way? I mean, bah... words. I mean, like, how did you allow this relationship to become deeper and different from the others you have had in your life?

Thanks.

Also, I meant "paired" not "partnered" in the title - not sure if partnered is even a word. Sorry, I dunno what I'm doing anymore... I'm going to bed after this post here.

Anyway, I know this thread is a little reminiscent of some cliche robot going, "What. Is. Love. ?" and I suppose my situation isn't too far removed from that silly scenario, but I'm just trying to understand what I should be expecting from the relationships in my life. I don't want to be too picky and be disappointed when no relationship measures up to my (possibly lofty/unreasonable) expectations. So I'd really appreciate if y'all could share your experiences.
Thanks again.

I am fortunate enough to not have to hide anything about myself when I'm with him.

Why?...When we met, something just "clicked," like we recognized something in each other that was familiar. He thinks he might have AS (isn't sure) but it's more than that. He's told me that I am one of the very few people he feels completely comfortable with (one of the others being his twin brother). I feel the same way about him.

Maybe it's that we don't judge each other, but we're still honest. Okay, he REALLY wanted me to dress better and wouldn't give up until I did--not necessarily a bad thing (especially since he bought me some clothes ).

Maybe it's that we have a lot of TV shows in common (we bonded over STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION).

Why are we so comfortable with each other? Kind of hard to describe.

I might be over-romanticizing things here, but I think that sometimes you do just "know" when you meet "the right one."

Wanting to find someone you don't have to put on an act for is not unreasonable at all. IMO, if you have to be that way with the one you're supposed to be closest with, there is something wrong.

I hope you find your "right one" and have a happy relationship with him.

Interesting question!

I definitely identify with the almost automatic, but always exhausting, performance thing. And yet I escaped it with the man I live with.

I've been living with the french papa of my now 11 year old AS/PDD son for 12 years now, and had a similar experience meeting him as conundrum describes, although he was absolutely and totally and utterly not the sort of guy I usually found in the least bit interesting or "attractive". I tended to fall for "intellectual" guys before that, loners and weirdos and "alternative" types of more or less my own age, whereas this guy was an almost incredibly "normal"/ordinary seeming guy, ten years older than me, a tech sales person travelling around in his big air-conditioned car visiting clients in the south of France, ( I was homeless, jobless, penniless, and hitching between organic farms at the time ), and yet when I stepped into his car I felt "safe", in a way that I definitely hadn't ever felt hitching and not even really with anyone in a social situation, ever.

I felt so safe that when he said he had to see a client en-route and dropped me off to sightsee in a beautiful old town near Toulouse I not only left my rucksack, ( all my worldly possessions at that point, apart from those in storage in the UK anyway ), in his car, but didn't take a note of his car number or name or mobile phone, and went happily off to look at the old town centre. Luckily my instinct had been right, and he turned up at the meeting place, and then invited me for a coffee at a cafe terrace, which turned into a meal at a restaurant, and a night in a hotel, and great sex, the best I'd ever had, ( and which continued so for the next 10 months ), and ended up in my going to live with him, getting pregnant, and staying with him, despite plans to go on to Spain in the Spring.

We don't have sex anymore, haven't for the last eight and half years, ( and with my encouragement he has recently started seeing another woman, who's married to a very old guy who isn't up to having sex anymore, because he loves sex and misses it, and I thought it was a shame for him to condemn himself to life without it simply because he doesn't want to leave me ), but we have over the years, of fighting, rowing, yelling, irritability, etc aswell as good times, developed a very good "working" relationship, and I have come to respect and "value" him. We are so different, but he loves my directness and honesty and non-deviousness and I have learned to appreciate his non-judgemental attitude to people, which used to annoy me, but is in fact why he can put up with me, me with all my judgements.

Right from the start I was more able to be my non-performing self with him because of that non-judgemental thing. It has definitely not been easy learning to share my living space, and I would never have said that he was the love of my life, but I can actually live with him. And I am very very fond of him. All the guys, and couple of women, that I had fallen in love with before then intimidated me in some way, however apparently equal we were. I was always seeing myself as either above or below them in things, and wounded by the slightest suspicion of a negative judgement from them. I think that my son's papa is precious to me for his non-judgemental attitude.

I express my "intellectual" etc sides elsewhere. For a few years I hoped to be able to express it with him, but he really isn't interested. He loves sport, and cars, and chat shows on TV, and cycling, and bla-bla'ing with almost anyone. And yet some of our most fundamental habits and tastes in life are very similar, no "chi-chi", ( as the french say, meaning we don't like pretention and frills and fuss ), we can shop together, and go on holiday together, though we have to sleep in separate rooms, ( as at home ), me with my son in hotels, etc, because he snores badly. He doesn't blather at home, he doesn't mind the mess, dust, and the minimalist style meals. And he says that he has never felt as comfortable and free to be himself, including when angry, ( ditto for me ), with anyone else ever, ( incl his first wife with whom he had three daughters, but had already left when I met him ).

It's very weird, to find myself living with someone so different fom me, but mysteriously it works. People "like me" are too judgemental, too dogmatic, too tense/anxious, for me to live with, and people "like me" find me too x, y, and z, aswell.

Meeting him felt like a random event, "light"/"weightless", without a future, without implications, stunningly "easy", and yet I ended up having my only child with him, and staying 12 years in France.
.

i don't have to act for my husband, but he sometimes has really high expectations for my behaviour around other people. sometimes i can "act", and sometimes it falls apart if i am too overwhelmed. i went to a chinese restaurant with my husband and his family a couple of weeks ago, and i embarrassed his dad because i kept touching the walls (they had cork and textured wallpapers in the various rooms).

i can be completely my own self around him, but sometimes he is disappointed if i can't be 'normal' around other people.

No, i don't have to act at all.
He accepts all my crazy.
He loves me for the crazy, not just despite it.

How encouraging. It is a nice thought. I never really believed such a thing was possible, but I realized recently that at some point I apparently and unwittingly became convinced otherwise. It was quite a surprise to discover.

It makes me think of the show Monk (I'm in a quote-y kind of mood):
"Do you have your hopes up?"
"Of course, that's what hopes are for!"

i don't hide anything. him asking me to go do the dishes is a common joke between us, he knows for a fact giving me orders drive me nuts and he wouldn't do that. i can even tell him "i don't love you anymore and it's over"during a fight, he will never take me seriously. if i don't love him anymore one day, all i have to do is pack up and leave and i'm pretty sure he will just accept that, though. but so far i've always loved him back
he says he couldn't stand his former girlfriends before, because he could never figure what they were thinking, and he didn't care about their emotional drama. i have some emotional drama i think....but mostly he finds it based on actual stuff, rather than out of the blue stuff. i suspect he's on the spectrum though, so maybe that's why we get along so well . if i want to annoy him, i can go all smoochy woochy on him , calling him sweetheart and saying yes darling every time he speaks, that drives him up the wall lol....( he calls it "gross"hahhah) , i have fun with this anyway an as/as relationship can work, i know this much, now about as/nt, i've tried it before and i always left the guys first. too sticky, too into me, too touchy feely, too girly, not my type.
just my 2 cents

My husband is aspie too so we get along just fine.

Never was good at the whole acting normal thing. But I did just click with my husband. We both seemed to be able to understand each other right from the start. Now he knows me better than I know myself sometimes. He is an Aspie as well, so perhaps that has something to do with it.

You should be able to be who you are. If you have to act for the other person, then they don't accept you for who you really are.

I've tried to act and be what a better half supposed to be but I failed after some time. The mask falls sooner or later, and things started to get messy in my past relationships. I haven't accepted that I seem to be an Aspie, I end up thinking that I am not the type of person to be with someone, either b/c I'm way too aloof, or no one will ever be able to handle me. However, I wasn't too sad about that fact, I moved on by myself and was not looking for anyone but friends. All my past gf's have found me, not the other way round. My current gf is an exception, I contacted her first, she luckily replied... Hell knows what was going on with me that day. As far as the acting part goes, I tried to imitate my ex and her new gf. Some parts were fun, but some were just not me and I ended up in shutting myself down. That has caused some major downs within my relationship. However, I decided to change the plan, I told my gf about me. So now we both are learning to handle each other slowly.

No, I don't have to dissimulate or hide my quirks from my husband - that's the whole point. By now we've got to know and accept each other as we are. He's the one who taught me to be less demanding with myself, especially when it comes to the way I act around others.