abusive or Aspergers?

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Hello,

I posted some time ago about an ex of mine, who is diagnosed AS. He broke up w me a month ago and the breakup caused me severe distress. As time went by, I'm starting to wonder if the behavior I previously accepted in him is abusive or his condition.

1) on our second date he slammed me against his car, forced himself on me, and later same day, attempted to drag me into a public bathroom for sex. I literally had to fight back

2) because I knew he was AS and I was raised by an AS parent, I accepted his behavior as part of the condition. So I dated him AFTER these incidents. And throughout our 1.5 year relationship, he would shame me for initiating sex, make fun of me, and was routinely rude. He was also very controlling, getting me to agree to an open relationship so HE could have more sexual experience (I'm eight years older than him and was his first in every way)

3) when I tried to break up w him, he'd cry and tell me he loved me. But it was HE who ultimately broke up with me.

Long story short, I am NEVER dating someone like that again.

Can anyone help me make sense of his behavior?

WAS his behavior abusive OR just AS?

Btw, I had an AS bf before this one who tried to kill me three times. I accepted THAT one also. Bfs I had before those two were not AS.

Scary s**t...
I think this is related to issues other than ASD.

Abuse abuse abuse. So sorry you had to go through that.

The other two boyfriends you had, were they also abusive?

No..His violent behavior had no clear association with Aspergers.

bfs I had before these two were neither AS nor abusive, though no walk in the park either

the first incident you describe is rape. consider prosecution.

Abuse, rape and more emotional abuse. In my opinion. I'm a little unclear on how AS/ASD he could be if he was that good at manipulation; typically those sorts of guys may appear AS but in reality they are sociopaths who can read people exceedingly well but are also exceedingly selfish. And yes, they can even fool therapists & assessors. The only way I can see him being AS & not sociopath (or similar diagnosis) would be if you were AS yourself &/or had exceedingly low self esteem and high levels of trust. And if that was the case, don't you dare think that it was your fault - those qualities only make you a nice person who can be easier to abuse or be manipulated. What he did an how he treated you was wrong. It was unethical and immoral. Even assuming he is truly AS/ASD, that's no excuse to cause harm by being so selfish.

Are you asking is it typical for people with AS to be manipulative and commit borderline criminal behaviour, the answer is no. In fact I don't think it's typical at all for people with AS to be manipulative. In fact quite the opposite. It's like suggesting that because some Catholic priests have been found sexually abusing young boys, it is typical for Catholic priests to be sexually abusive people.

His behavior is not a result of ASD.

I'm not AS but definitely have a high level of trust.

Think about the traits/qualities/actions that are similar between your exes, what caused you to gravitate towards them, and ultimately, why you decided to stay in the relationships for as long as you did. Recognize those red flags if you can before you commit to a relationship.

It makes no more sense to attribute his characteristic of abusive behaviour to being on the spectrum than to attribute it to his hair colour, height or eye colour. The various hallmark characteristics of being on the spectrum are widely publicised these days, and sociopathic/violent behaviour of men toward women (or vice versa) is not amongst those characteristics. It's a simplistic and erroneous idea without any evidential backing whatsoever in any of the credible research.

However you are not the first ex-partner to make that assumption, and it seems to me that this may reflect the still widespread public ignorance that buys into deliberately stigmatising propaganda which smears people on the spectrum as all dangerously disordered. This unfounded accusation, which is unfortunately promoted by certain self-serving charities who spread negative propaganda in order to manipulate public perception, create fear and thereby increase the flow of donations to themselves, causes needless pain to many people here.

If you truly want to develop your knowledge about the general characteristics that people on the spectrum tend to share, then have a look at Professor Tony Attwood's The Complete Guide to Aspergers, which is an excellent introductory resource, written by a man with very extensive professional experience who specialises in this field.

BTW, you comment "WAS his behavior abusive OR just AS?" is a slander and psychologically abusive of the autistic membership here. Please reflect on that. I can accept that you may not have been aware at the time of writing it as to how intrinsically and falsely insulting it is to most people here.

In this thread that you have created OP, you say "I am not AS" and yet in your profile you have "Diagnosed Aspergers". These two statements are incompatible, so I have some doubt about exactly what your intentions are in joining WP.

I'm surprised my profile says diagnosed. I must have chosen the wrong tab. Also, there are many many articles discussing overlap between AS and Narcissism.

also, I accepted one of my ex's behavior, the one who tried to kill me, because his psychiatrist told me it's his condition.