Asperger Syndrome Support Group
Asperger syndrome - also referred to as Asperger's syndrome, Asperger's, Aspergers or just AS - is one of five neurobiological pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and is characterized by deficiencies in social and communication skills, normal to above normal intelligence, and standard language development.
Hello Friends,
This really is less about Asperger's and more about a specific situation of mine. I don't know if anyone can help me. I want to express a patience and understanding for my boyfriend with AS, but I do not want to let that explain away his patterns and behaviors.
He is very egocentric as most with Asperger's are. By that, I don't mean selfish; he just has difficulty thinking beyond his own situation. He doesn't understand that coming to my apartment at 3 am, sleeping for 3 hours, and then leaving for work...then saying "I probably won't come over tomorrow because it's a waste of my gas." It feels as though he is willing to spend gas on a trip to my apartment to sleep there for 3 hours and drive to work, but views coming over to spend time together as a "waste" of gas.
I just wrote him an email about how it made me feel. I immediately regretted it because I don't want to misunderstand me, but sometimes it's easier to email than to talk because he shuts down sometimes when he sense a negative conversation brewing.
I know this seems petty and small, but it is not just this situation. This is an example of what has been going on for a while.
He also quit his professional job and moved back in with his parents. We were planning our wedding and because of this job situation and now living with his parents again, it's been knocked off the board completely. He never once said sorry. It's not because he's not, but he just doesn't think about my feelings.
He promised to look for jobs and apply to places as his full time job, but he hasn't. He is a musician and has done barely anything but practice for these bands that have no promise of a long term future, or income. It's "fun". I'm tired of waiting. I have waited 4 years. I really want this to work, but what do I do?
I don't want to give him an ultimatum, but nothing else has worked. Does he just not think I'm serious? Does he not care about our relationship even though he says emphatically that he does? Is he lazy? I love him and I want this to work, and I sincerely believe he does too, but what is my next step? I don't understand! Someone help! :(
This really is less about Asperger's and more about a specific situation of mine. I don't know if anyone can help me. I want to express a patience and understanding for my boyfriend with AS, but I do not want to let that explain away his patterns and behaviors.
He is very egocentric as most with Asperger's are. By that, I don't mean selfish; he just has difficulty thinking beyond his own situation. He doesn't understand that coming to my apartment at 3 am, sleeping for 3 hours, and then leaving for work...then saying "I probably won't come over tomorrow because it's a waste of my gas." It feels as though he is willing to spend gas on a trip to my apartment to sleep there for 3 hours and drive to work, but views coming over to spend time together as a "waste" of gas.
I just wrote him an email about how it made me feel. I immediately regretted it because I don't want to misunderstand me, but sometimes it's easier to email than to talk because he shuts down sometimes when he sense a negative conversation brewing.
I know this seems petty and small, but it is not just this situation. This is an example of what has been going on for a while.
He also quit his professional job and moved back in with his parents. We were planning our wedding and because of this job situation and now living with his parents again, it's been knocked off the board completely. He never once said sorry. It's not because he's not, but he just doesn't think about my feelings.
He promised to look for jobs and apply to places as his full time job, but he hasn't. He is a musician and has done barely anything but practice for these bands that have no promise of a long term future, or income. It's "fun". I'm tired of waiting. I have waited 4 years. I really want this to work, but what do I do?
I don't want to give him an ultimatum, but nothing else has worked. Does he just not think I'm serious? Does he not care about our relationship even though he says emphatically that he does? Is he lazy? I love him and I want this to work, and I sincerely believe he does too, but what is my next step? I don't understand! Someone help! :(
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I find myself going places in the car and not wanting to get out of the car. I come back home and I don't want to get out of the car. I think it's the only time I spend reflecting. Chronic tiredness from Long Covid plus the immunosupressing meds for my Crohn's is slowing me down but everything just seems a massive effort. I am dealing with the paperwork following my father's death but it's not...
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Wow, it's the middle of the week already!Today is our 11 year anniversary, so we're going out to a nice dinner. I'm losing a lot of sleep these days, hence a wonky schedule and uncomfortable feelings. But I know it will pass, eventually.I hope all of you have a peaceful day, and may good things come your way!
I think you deserve better and if before the marriage he is behaving like this then you may be in for a world of pain.
It's really irrelevent why if he is doing this, whether he is lazy, whether he just doesn't care for anyone else or if it is the Asperger's. If there isn't much hope of change as in Asperger's does not change and neither can personality defects change really - why condemn yourself to more of this?
As an aspie woman who's in a similar situation to your boyfriend, I think I have a guess at what might be going on with him (obviously I can't be sure because I am not in his head):
He quit his full time job, which means he probably felt overwhelmed by some combination of workload, responsibility, social dynamics, and sensory bombardment, and that the job wasn't interesting or meaningful enough to keep doing in spite of the stress. I don't know if he quit because he knew his parents were willing to support him & he just didn't feel like putting up with unpleasant stuff, or if he was so desperately miserable there that he would have quit even if it meant being homeless. Either is possible, and the line between them can get pretty fuzzy.
In any case, unemployment tends to make people feel depressed and worthless and powerless, even if they quit on their own. If he does want to find a new job, he probably feels despairing about ever getting one, and he may be afraid that even if he can get someone to hire him, the new job will be just as bad as the old one. He might need disability accommodations but not realize that consciously--I know my first impulse when I have trouble with something at work is to hate myself for being defective and feel like I should just be able to ignore it, and my second impulse is to try and hide it from anyone else because they might fire me if they think I'm weird and "picky."
Job searches and job interviews are all about social skills and social networks and knowing how to make a good first impression. We autistics are notoriously bad at these things, and we know it. I think it's pretty safe to say that even thinking about doing job search stuff makes your bf feel panicked and helpless. So it's not surprising that he retreats into something that he knows how to do and that makes him feel competent--playing music. It's not admirable, but I totally understand it.
About his treatment of you in particular: his "waste of gas" comment was hurtful and way out of line. I don't know if he realized it was hurtful, but in any case you are perfectly justified in bringing it up as a problem. The thing I tell "normal" people who want to know what to do when aspies do something hurtful or obnoxious is this: Don't assume that we knew it was offensive or hurtful, but don't let us off the hook for it either. If you explain in a reasonably non-blaming way that we said something that hurt you, and we still keep saying it, we're probably just being assholes in the same way that neurotypicals can be assholes. At that point, feel free to do whatever it is you normally do when someone's being an asshole.
So anyway--it looks like he's not treating you all that well or making any special effort to communicate with you & support you. He may actually care deeply about you but be unable to show it (either because he doesn't know how or because he's too preoccupied with his own problems), or he may be attached to you but view you mainly as a resource rather than a person with your own needs. Either way he has that training that boys and men get, the training that says that men are the real people, the regular people, and that women are these weird specialized "other" people whose main job is to take care of men and support them emotionally. It takes conscious, long term effort on a man's part to notice this training and work on countering it.
So for whatever reasons, he is not giving you what you need to stay in this relationship long-term. It's really hard to talk about it, but I think you have to if you want to stay with him. I think you won't know whether it's possible to work things out until you've explained the situation to him in terms he can understand. How he reacts to that will probably give you some clues.
First you need to figure out two things: what you need to be stable & healthy & not resentful in a relationship, and what you're willing to sacrifice. Do you feel like you have to get married within a certain time frame? Do you want kids by a certain time? Are you prepared to be the main breadwinner if he keeps having trouble with employment? Stuff like that.
Then you have to explain to him--in a non-blaming way--that you need these things and you're not getting them and you don't know how to make the relationship work without them. Focus on what you need, not his bad behavior or motives. He might feel attacked and throw a fit no matter what you do, but if it's going to work out he has to eventually start addressing it with you, even if the way he addresses it is to say, "Aaaaah, this is freaking me out, I don't know how to talk to you about it." That's at least a start, and a couples therapist might be able to help.
So you do need to make an ultimatum--he has to talk to you and be willing to work with you.
If you've been trying for weeks and he just refuses to address it, it might be time to decide that it's not worth it to be with him anymore. No matter how much you love somebody, no matter how deserving they are, there's not really any point in staying with them if it's going to make your life substantially worse. You don't have any obligation, legal or moral, to stay with him. You're not his mom and he's not your husband of 25 years who supported you through grad school and then got paralyzed by a drunk driver or something.
If he does seem willing to discuss it with you, explain what you need and ask him to explain what he needs (it might take a while for him to figure that out). Then together you try to figure out ways to get both of your needs met. Some things you can trade off on (I'll make your lunches if you do the dishes) and some you might need to recruit outside help for (like maybe some therapy or job coaching for him if he's feeling too overwhelmed to deal). He might need some advance warning that there's going to be a discussion at x time--it's much harder to talk constructively if you feel ambushed.
You have to avoid accusations and blaming as much as possible, because they're just going to distract from the job you're doing. If/when he accuses or blames you, try to sidestep it and focus on what's productive. It might help to do this with a couples therapist or mediator--they're trained to keep the discussion productive and on track.
Anyway, in talking about this, you can hopefully figure out if there is a decent chance to make your relationship work.