Do relatives of your SO's have issues with you?

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And if so, why?

I'm curious as to whether the following, or something similar, is common for an Aspie-dating-an-NT scenario.

For the record, I am a female NT and my significant other is a male Aspie (or at any rate, neurologically quirky - he's very mild and has failed to be recognized as Aspie-ish by at least one psychological professional, albeit not one who specializes in AS specifically).

I went on a week's vacation with my big sis, her BF, and my Aspie. (At this stage he is more or less a boyfriend, but at least at this stage we prefer only mild expressions of affection like hugging and sitting close sometimes at most. Both of us seem about equally matched in terms of our preferences for relational expression. I tend to find overly "relationshipy" stuff to be overstimulating if not simply not my style. Henceforth I shall refer to him as A.) A was just kind of bluntly and seemingly not that emotionally expressing dissatisfaction along the way, including wanting to do different things from what we had planned or finding something to maybe not live up to some kind of expectation. My older sister got very upset, feeling that he was impossible to please. I didn't make a big deal about her being upset at first, or connect it strongly to A. She did her best to give the kind of nonverbal hints that she gives to me, expressed some of her annoyance with A toward the end (but I still didn't realize how deeply upset by all of this she was), all the while not wanting to make a direct confrontation for fear of hurting A's feelings and making him feel powerless and hopeless as he tends to do when confronted with a subtle social problem. Toward the end everything kind of blew up, and we had the big talk. We were all able to work things out well enough to get through the end of the vacation.

I thought all of this was in the past, until recently I heard that my older sister is worried that A would be too controlling for me, possibly complaining or insisting me into doing things that I really didn't want to do. She expressed some of this to me directly, but didn't make it sound like, "I don't like him and I don't think he's right for you;" more like, "Just be careful to defend yourself if need be; otherwise it's fine for him to be a part of your life." But when my little sis retold the story of my big sis's issues, she made it sound a bit worse than my big sis made it sound - more like she doesn't like him, though not that she doesn't want me to see him, per se.

My big sis, who can be somewhat of a "mother hen," appears to think that because I don't argue much with A, I may be letting him control me and doing things that I don't want to do. In fact, I often have weak preferences for what I want to do, and certainly don't mind him making suggestions, nor am I unwilling to speak up if I don't like one of his suggestions or if there's something I *really* want to do. And when it comes to the things that really matter to me - like the right not to engage in alcohol, sexual activity, or the continuation of expressions of affection that are uncomfortable to me - I am not shy about speaking up. I do not fear rejection from A for being myself, asserting my boundaries, or talking about things that might be taboo. That's one of the things I like about him. I feel that my relationship with him is the best I could have hoped for.

Do the relatives of other Aspies' significant others often worry about the Aspie being too controlling/rigid or otherwise not right for their partner? Or is this purely a matter of my big sis being too much of a mother hen?

HUH?

(response to a deleted post)

You might be right about passive manipulation, logitech. We all joke about how picky my big sis can be about things, how she wants things her way. Heck, my whole family can be like that, and they all complain and joke about each other being like that.

While I don't think that she is going to push me into dumping him - she at least says she respects that it's my choice whether to have him in my life, and I don't see her as likely to do something to deliberately sabotage things - she probably really doesn't like him and really doesn't think he's right for me.

She always says that she doesn't like most of my little sister's boyfriends because they don't treat my little sister right. It seems to be anohter case of the same thing, where she thinks that he doesn't treat me right.

But I know what's right for me, and I know he treats me right. So I'm going to relate to him as I see fit at any given time, and that's that. I don't care that she thinks he might be too controlling of me, because I know he's not. Someone who tried to get me to have sex, drink alcohol, or stop talking to other people would be controlling, and he doesn't do any of that, where I suspect most men out there would try to get me to at least have sex if not drink alcohol. (Well, he did ask me to drink champagne on New Years, but I refused, and he respected my refusal. Good enough.) And I trust that my big sis will respect my wishes, even if she doesn't agree with my perspective.