complicated relationship problem

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Its a bodily function, not a personality trait. Its like saying I don't like my partner, because, um, she has freckles in the wrong places or something.

If my partner came onto a forum and made a comment like that I would be horrorfied, its almost like hes making fun of her.

It really stood out to me out of everything else in his post.

Hes asked someone to marry him who he now doesn't want to be with, which is fine, and if it really is the case, he should break up with her straight away because if you're really into someone you don't go off them like this.

I've been in his place with men, and they were the wrong men. Foolish to stay with them.

I don't know how things are in New Zealand, but in the USA it is not polite to fart in front of other people. Fewer and fewer people show those kind of manners these days, but in years past people would excuse themselves and leave the room to "pass gas."

So, yes it is a bodily function, but people are quite capable of holding gas in and not expelling it all over their partner if they were so inclined. Whether one chooses to hold it in or expel it freely is indeed a personality trait.

Him mentioning it could be embarrassing for his girlfriend, but if she is so free with her farting she might not even care. Who can say except for her? So, you are essentially projecting your own feelings on the subject onto his girlfriend, and assuming she would share your opinion and reaction to it, which is not necessarily the case.

Additionally, feelings wane, anyone in a long term relationship will tell you this. The love is always there if you really love someone, but it is not always at a constant level. You can say thank you to our brain chemistry for that.

Are there any other feelings you'd like to project or inferences you'd like to make?

Jesus.

I was not aware that people about to be married are not allowed to fart in front of their partner after 8 months of dating, without being considered "rude" or "disgusting" enough for it to be made fun of on a public message board.

If you want to break down possible reasoning behind the comment fine. You could be just as wrong as me on the matter. I am just telling you what I thought when I read what he said about it.

hale bopp, I think you're really, really reading into this than makes logical sense. It's like you have some kind of bad experience or hangup that you're projecting onto this guy.

Go and re-read his post, and you will find that he doesn't actually say he doesn't want to be with her. He says his love for her is fading but that he'd also have negatives feelings if he was to break up with her. This shows he is clearly confused and isn't entirely certain if he wants to stay in the relationship or not.

If he was 100% sure he didn't want to be with her he wouldn't have any negative feelings at all or consider it an incredibly dumb action he'd later regret.

Now quit being a nazi-feminist and stop demonising him, I'm sure you wouldn't have passed such harsh judgement and hasty assumptions if a woman posted an identical thread regarding her bf.

Last edited by Daemonic-Jackal on 11 Jul 2010, 6:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I am not giving a definitive explanation for the comment. I was merely listing options for it. You are the one who said "this is what he meant, so this is what his girlfriend should do," not in that exact wording though. Where as I said "who can say except for her?" in regards to how she would feel about him posting that information on a public message board.

And the "farting" is not the issue, you making inferences, assumptions, and generalizations and drawing conclusions from them is the issue.

Take some time to deliberate on things, don't be so quick to judge, and try to look at multiple points of view besides your own, that is all I'm saying.

look, the point was that one of the "worst" things he could think of was her farting.

if that's the biggest down side... that's nothing! which is the guy's point.

quit giving him so much crap over gas.

something that hasn't been said...

maybe he's subconsciously worried that she won't speak up for herself if he makes her unhappy based off of her relationships with her family. they treat her bad and she still clings to them and she's already clingy to him... so how is he to know where he stands with her?

yeah okay okay. I'm sorry I got offended about the fart comment. Its probably due to issues with my f*cked up self more than anything. I think i'll change my password to something I can't remember so I'm forced to stop posting here.

I sort of gathered that this was an aspergers thing before i ever even spoke to anyone about it. It has happened before but every case is a little different because it takes more or less time for the interest to go. The thing is that in the beginning I didn't even like her; she liked me and how. It took me a while to see past her very odd surface, as she has a touch of aspergers too, and when I did I discovered she is a wonderful person! Eventually I started to love her too. However all the time she loved me way more and was clingy to the point of discussing marriage and kids within the first couple of months. Thing is, I was into her enough that I just took it in stride, at least until my feelings caught up with hers.

About her potentially killing herself, it isn't egotistic: she really is fragile like that. I am the best and only good thing in her life right now. Thing is, things are extremely healthy in the relationship. Things are happy and calm and functional. She is always there for me and I am always there for her. My passion is just sort of meh lately.


I wonder how I could avoid this problem in the future. I am not the sleep-around type and I don't handle change very well so I tend to stay in relationships as long as I can. Though I have been doing a lot of reading and trial and error when it comes to interacting with women (which is possible to do while still being completely loyal to the girl you're with), I still think i would have a ton of difficulty finding the next girl. Also the current girl has so many qualities i will probably never find again, as far as being understanding goes.

The gas thing was an attempt at humor. Honestly, girls who project a facade of super-human cleanliness disturb me more. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care that she farts, and frequently.

Another complication to all of this is that she has only really satisfied me sexually twice out of the many times we've had sex. I usually have to pull out and "self stimulate" afterwords. Thing is, I really do not think that is her fault at all. I'm on Effexor and that numbs things a little. From her point of view, it gives me amazing stamina, not that I need it because she gets off to me being in her right away. She thinks I'm perfect in that department.

But I have to stress that sex isn't the substance of the relationship at all. I tried chasing skirts and ended up with trashy people who broke my heart. I tried going the opposite extreme and going with someone whose personality was all that and her body wasn't. that didn't work either. The current girl is a compromise between the two extremes. I should point out that if I were to post a picture of her, and I won't because that would be wrong on many levels, you guys would probably think she's ugly. I don't. I think she's adorable.

There really is nothing at all wrong with her. My heart is just sort of going numb.

What kind of a man walks out on a relationship when it is at this stage? An unhappy one, yes. Would I be doing a disservice to her by sticking with it when i'm numb? Well I tell you what, she and I can discuss anything and we always do discuss everything, absolutely everything so I'm gonna bite the bullet and talk to her straight about this concern. Thats right, I'm gonna lay it out there. We don't hide things from eachother. We are sincere. I owe it to her.

What i want to know is this: where do I go from here? What do I say to her and how? I mean I have the general idea of the content. Its the technique and what to expect and how to field anything else she might say that I'm concerned about.

You don't have to leave. Everyone is prone to embarrassing themselves on message boards from time to time. I've done so my fair share of times and quit posting on boards that I had previously enjoyed.

Not to be rude or un-supportive of you, but I can't help but wonder why you would propose to her, if this was how you felt?

I can't speak for other people, but personally I don't find that Autism causes me to resent a partner's need for attention and support. Autism might make me feel less able to cope with things in general and less knowledgeable as to what the right thing to do might be, but I certainly don't care any less or experience a waning of love. If I love someone, I can't bear to think of them unhappy, can't bear to think that I caused them to be so, and will do everything I can to support them. I may not find it easy, and I may not be very good at supporting them sometimes, but that I is how I feel. I think what I am trying to say is that, for my part, if I really loved someone, indifference towards them would not be a problem that I would have to make a plan in advance to avoid. But, obviously, I can only speak for myself. I can't imagine loving someone, and then just not caring about them, though. Really loving someone seems an unmistakeable thing (as far as I'm concerned), something that there is never any question about. It is like the sky - it is unimaginable that it just disappears.

I have no clue how you would go about telling her any of this - what is the general content? That you don't want to marry her? That you now love her less? That you don't feel passionate about her any more? For what it's worth, I still don't think you should say anything - I think it's normal to not feel quite as you did at the start of the relationship. You have, after all, been with her for eight months. Whilst you owe it to be her to be sincere, just upsetting her by over-dramatising something normal is quite unfair.

As for what to expect if you do mention this to her, I can only tell you what my reaction would be if a boyfriend said that to me after having hastily proposed to me: I would be hurt, angry, and confused. I would feel hesitant to trust you, and gestures of love and affection would lose their meaning somewhat. I would feel that I had done something wrong, and that it was my fault that you had begun to love me less. Having said that, I am insecure, highly strung and easily upset. Hopefully she isn't.

Nope she's a mess in some ways psychologically.

In hindsight, i'm not sure why I proposed to her and I feel like a jerk about the whole thing. Since I last spoke here, things have gotten a bit more complicated for me emotionally but as far as events go, not much has changed. I spoke to her about feeling more withdrawn and how it happens to a lot of people with aspergers, and how her clinginess makes me uncomfortable and we're working it out but the complication is that my heart is less in it than it was. I love her but i'm not in love with her. Or, I like her and think she is wonderful but i don't think i love her.

About her blaming herself for it, I'm hoping she doesn't get like me when i'm dumped and get angry at the dumper for screwing up her mental health. I don't want her to blame herself either. She probably will though. I suck at expressing sympathy and being supportive. my heart is in the right place but my skills are definitely not. I am the only good thing in her life right now. Ok, maybe she won't kill herself but it would probably destroy all of her progress in life lately if I dumped her now.

I like being around her but feel sick about exploiting her love, if that is what I am doing. I also think that if I did dump her it would be the stupidest thing in history except for the fact that love is completely and utterly blind and when it isn't there, it isn't there. I don't think I've every really been in love now that i think of it.

Thing is sometimes when I htink about it, I think "wait a minute, I do at least like her still. What the hell am I doing? What is wrong with my head?"

I really think humanity's problems would be lessened considerably if we could figure out how to breed by mitosis, and maybe once in 30 days go off somewhere and divide down the middle and then return to daily life the next day. Goddamn everything.


More than just not saying anything, i'd like to stay in bed for a week and think of nothing. This isn't helped by the fact that i have a tempurpedic bed, God's own bed, as Urban Dictionary describes it. I really hate being awake. Things like I started this thread with happen when i am awake.

there's another complication which i just thought of which is that in many life matters we function as a team and work together extremely well, uncommonly so. Gah what a mess!

Is there no repair for this? God I'm trying..
Good luck to you

OPEN RELATIONSHIP "I don't have what it takes to fufill my mate's needs so it's ok for him to go elsewhere and get it"

OK spacephrawg, I have left certain aspects of your post in the quote above, namely the issues she has with her family. This can put stress onto any relationship, no matter how wonderful your girlfriend seems to be. Have you considered that seeing her as distressed as this might make you feel stressed and pained and what affect this might have on you? This can have effects on feelings of love that can be mistaken for it as being diminishing as you are unconciously focused on the stress the situation may be causing you. But then, if it does stress you out or upset you, it is a sign that you do indeed care for her.

Also, is your relationship very samey? Is there perhaps an element of boredom there? Because if there is, it can be remedied by altering things slightly (I will leave that up to you and her as it's not my relationship). This can also be mistaken for dwindling love.

If either of these are the case or part thereof, then you need to see if you can address these to make your relationship work. From your post, I got the feeling that you didn't want to lose her, because if you did, you would have split up with her by now. However, what I will say to you is this: if it is none of the above or there are no other problems and you truly aren't feeling it with her anymore, then maybe you should let her go so she can be with someone who will love her in return.

I will agree with some of the others who have posted here though: do not make a hasty decision on it. Really think about it before you act.