Anyone get fatigued by relationships?

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I expect you'll get a lot of posts from Aspies who also get this, though in my case I don't think I experience it quite that way. I've hardly ever felt anxious or tired by a romantic encounter, particularly at the start of a relationship. I guess it's possible that the thrill of the encounter has masked the energy drain somehow......yet even when the relationship is established, as long as things have otherwise been going well, there's been no problem. On the other hand, practically all my experience in these matters comes from the days before I suspected I may have AS, so I guess it's possible that I unwittingly rationalised my behaviour somehow.......certainly I'd always thought that my unwillingness to share anything much with my first wife was grounded in my resentment about the way she'd treated me when the relationship was young.



I'm not sure what you mean by "her status." I quickly found that there were some people and places I couldn't cope with when going out with a girlfriend - discos, noisy parties, crowded bars, claustrophobic or judgemental relatives - but I quickly learned what I couldn't handle and simply presented myself from the start as having certain things I just wasn't going to do, and steered clear of any girl who seemed to be into those things. As long as I'm not taken out of my depth like that, I positively enjoy I was dumbfounded when a relatively new girlfriend asked me very cautiously if I'd think her silly for wanting to be taken for walks in the park......I love doing things like that, just idly strolling round, taking in the beauty of it all, and I wouldn't ever want to stop.



Well, I'm wary of accepting gifts/favours from anybody, for fear of them wanting to call those favours in at a bad time. Frankly most of the women I've known have practically forced me to accept that they cook for me, though I've never once expected or asked for that. I don't find it easy to rise to the occasion in quite the way they seem to expect, and have often felt rather embarrassed at the sexist gender role that such behaviour implies, and can feel rather guilty about it, as I don't relate well to the standard male role in a relationship, and I have been known to be wary of some kind of expectations of me arising from accepting the meal or the housework that they've also tended to foist onto me without asking. I'd hate to think that any woman might begin to see me as having a duty to be the main breadwinner or to become all tough and decisive. I've done quite a lot of wood-chopping, lightbulb-changing, and other vaguely technical "male" jobs for them, and I don't resent the work I've put in, but I much prefer it when the lady in question can handle a screwdriver herself and doesn't come over like a stereotypical, helpless little doormat.

When I was a teenager I was quite obsessed with sex, but I changed a lot after a few years. I don't like the way most women expect the man to always make the first move, and the way they're so often completely indirect about it when they want sex......I wouldn't want to initiate sex aggressively myself and I'd dislike it even more if a woman was aggressive about sex with me (though that really hasn't happened much at all). And women often seem to take it very badly if they indicate that they want sex and the man doesn't comply. Sometimes I've been given the impression that some women think it's fine to say no to the man but not the other way round, and I really don't like that. Sure, when I was a lot younger I could get quite angry if the woman I wanted wasn't willing at the time I was, but I grew out of it, and I tend to expect women to be equally mature.

As for how often I want or accept sex, well I'm 56 years old and wouldn't take kindly to being treated like a teenager, though I still enjoy sex. But as for the other aspects of couple behaviour I've mentioned, the relationship has to feel right before I'm interested......if there are any serious unresolved conflicts, I readily go off sex, which I've always felt might be quite wise, as sex tends to cement the pair-bonding thing, which seems crazy if there are significant problems, in the same way as it's crazy and irresponsible to have children in order to repair a bad marriage. All sex can do is to draw me closer to a person I may need to break away from, which would just increase the pain. But when things are OK between me and a partner, the sex life is good too.




Well, don't forget that you're anonymous here for as long as you wish to be. Me, I'm happy to wear my heart on my sleeve round here and give my pathological honesty a good airing. It's for you to judge whether I'm all that different from you or not - and if we are very different, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're the one who's deviating from the Aspie norm, whatever that is. Quite likely I'm atypical in these matters, or maybe I just don't know myself very well and haven't given a very good account of my feelings in these matters. To see yourself as an ass who needs to get his act together is surely not the way forward.....anybody proposing solutions to your problems is going to have to do a lot better than that. Your feelings are part of you and they can't just be dismissed like that, they need to be respecfully addressed if you're going to be able to move on.

I did that too, a couple of times, but it was way back in the past. Both times it just got too complicated, so I went back to monogamy.

Not true...

It might be rare..but it happens. One of the aspies that I know IRL is a Poly single dad raising kids who are on the spectrum...

um...

There have been occasional threads on the subject on WP....I wasn't meaning to steer the thread in that direction...I am just a tad fixated on it..so I always bring it up. It is my first poly relationship.

I think that part of the reason we are able to pull it off is because we are on the spectrum.
It makes things less complicated in the long run for us...so far..anyway.
I fill a void for my friend who has a very difficult time dealing with females....and it is no longer necessary for my main partner to cheat.

Last edited by poopylungstuffing on 06 Aug 2009, 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Meursault, Well sir I've not had a great many relationships to speak of though yet, I can fully understand the toll a relationship or friendship can take on either a AS person and NT individual alike..Personally, in the last time I had been aligned with someone there tended to be a great amount of conflict arising from not always being able to pick up on my partner's non-verbal cues however, I did my utmost best to deal with such issues over that period of time being 4rys.. I'll admit that over the last couple of years now I've sometimes thought about calling it quits when it comes to trying to create & maintain friendships & relationships but, I fully understand that being isolated or alone is not good for anyone's health however, dealing with the constant difficulties makes it extremely hard for me to keep pushing forward if this makes any logic. Though, don't let my own words deter you one bit for, I, myself have had ups & downs yet, realistically all people with AS most likely have or will over time so, I maintain a sense of optimism & hope..

I've been married almost 20 years and do not find our relationship draining. Exasperating sometimes, but not draining. However, I once took a 2 week class with 40 people and quickly got tired of seeing the same people over and over. I had no idea that I had an ASD: I was just a little odd and given to faux pas. I think the difference is selection: my wife and I selected each other. She accepted a lot of things that other women would not. At the class, I was with 40 strangers with different interests and values. To top it off, the instructors wanted us to bond. I don't do bonding, neither do many NTs.