AS Female/ NT Male--Please help me

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Hello everyone,
I have been with my fiance for 3-3.5 years. I took to him almost immediately, he's quiet, he's not into "partying", and he's quite intelligent. Now I am going to digress, please forgive me for this...

My AS diagnosis is fairly new, although I was diagnosed autistic at 4 because I was a "weird kid". There's more to it than that, but I am going to save you from having to read the usual story. They ended up deciding I was just a smart "weird kid" after they did the IQ test, so I didn't have another official diagnosis until this year.

Throughout high school I was labeled as this or that because I seemed "disconnected" and "aloof", although I'm sure they didn't use the word "aloof". A couple of years ago I was diagnosed as having BPD because I was tired of not being able to relate, tired of not knowing what everyone else was doing and why, and finally: I was tired of not being able to tell what someone was feeling and why. Any facial expression that is not smiling is, in my mind, angry. Due to my past history with my Mother always being angry at me, I learned to just assume I had done something. So I had a complete and utter epic meltdown, they diagnosed me as BPD with general anxiety and alexithymia. I was with my fiance at the time, so this is not new to him.

One thing I ask of him is that when he gets upset at me, at someone/something else, at anything, he just tells me what's going on when I ask. His main answer? Nothing. It's always nothing, but it's something. This leads to my becoming panicked and anxious, then frustrated, melting down, and then he freaks out. Many a fight has gone just like this.

Another thing I ask is that, when I have just spent 9+ hours on campus (which is everyday), he allows me a couple of hours by myself. This hurts him. I don't MEAN to hurt him, I don't WANT to hurt him, but I just need to reboot the system. This has only been since we have started living together (1.5 years). I have told him why many times, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

His father is on a mission to "fix" me, because he's a psychologist who worked with autistic kids in the 1970's. He says that he "gets me" and that he "understands why I withdraw from the rest of the family". This has been the cause of much anxiety for me, thus I no longer visit them.

Finally, as I learned to trust my fiance, I started revealing bits and pieces of my brain. I'm weird, I embrace it, but not all people do. I learned THAT in middle school. He's a smart guy, otherwise I wouldn't be with him, but he doesn't think so. I think that I am worsening this. Let me explain, for one I have a much stronger vocabulary than he does. If he doesn't know a word, he tells me and I explain. I never sensed that this was an issue with him. Then he realizes that I know a lot about a variety of subjects, which he seemed to enjoy. Well, with my AS diagnosis I had to take the WAIS-III and my IQ is very high. I've known this since I was 5, but have been careful about who I told. It makes me feel a bit weird. Ever since, he's been acting...stupid. For instance, he's substituted the word "like" into his sentences, which is incredibly annoying and causes his points to become lost. He is very depressed, describes himself as being unintelligent, and spends his days doing internet "IQ tests", which are fun to a degree, but he's taking them very seriously.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make him understand me. A few nights ago (and last night) I completely lost it because I am exhausted from school, from stress, from work, from people, and from having to repeat these thing to him. I need time to be alone and I need him to explain his feelings to me. He treats these 2 requests as something new, yet they are not new. I have been battling him over this at least since he moved in with me.

I don't know what to do about his Dad. His mom seems to have accepted it and we get along fine. His dad, on the other hand, spent Easter Sunday insulting me. I didn't say anything, as I am horrible with confrontation, but I was horribly depressed for a week. He seems to see only the perceived negatives of being on the spectrum (these negatives are the generic ones that they flash on the news all the time, "Stuck in my own mind" kind of things). I tried to explain all the positives, but he acted as if I was a child talking about some imaginary land.

Finally, I don't know what to do about my fiance and how he's been acting since the IQ score came back. I keep trying to explain that having a high IQ has benefits, but there are lots of things I can't do, for instance: remember to push the 'hold' button when placing someone on hold, tie my shoes, do my hair, read facial expressions, make friends, run without looking like a drunken and very disabled giraffe. A high IQ is not going to help in basic situations I may find myself in. A high IQ is not going to make me remember to feed myself. I've never tried to make him feel bad about, nor have I bragged about it...I'm very self-conscious when it comes to telling people about it. In fact, I think three people out of 6.5 billion know what it is. I don't know what to do or how to make him feel better, other than reinforcing that he IS smart, which I do everyday.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I've reached the point of desperation.

It might help if you said hi and gave him a hug, or something like that, when you get home before taking a break from everything. That would make it seem less like the first thing going through your head on getting home is something like "oh, no, not him."

You could also try thanking him for giving you some space when he does.



Don't tell him that intelligence isn't everything. That is logically correct, but not emotionally helpful. Compliment him on being smart. Tell him about how his being smart attracts you to him.

Also, try not to show off your intelligence quite as much. You don't need to play dumb, but you also don't have to correct him every time he's wrong about something. Sometimes it won't hurt to let him figure something out for himself, even if you already know the answer.

There are some very primal emotions involved with the male taking care of the female. I think this is where males valuing their own intelligence comes in -- if they're smart, then they can take better care of their woman because they will know what to do.

With the problem with his Dad -- he needs to set his Dad straight that this is not going to work out. Ask him to take his Dad aside and let him know that this is making you uncomfortable and miserable. Sounds like Dad and jr. might have some of the same issues with feeling threatened by smart women.