Relationship Advice - Recently 'Self-Diagnosed'

Post Reply New Topic

I am looking for advice after a recent realization that I am likely on the spectrum. I guess you could say that I would be on the ‘high functioning’ side of the spectrum (whatever that really means). Though I have more or less been able to pass as a relatively ‘normal’ person (especially the older I get), I have always been different from other people and struggle especially with social skills, nonverbal communication, and over-stimulation. My life has always felt disconnected and empty, and I have always been depressed.

What pushed me to this self-diagnosis has been my recent relationship with my girlfriend. Before we were official, we had the most fun, engaging, blissful relationship I have ever seen. As soon as we got serious, she moved in, and a lot of my oddities started to show. She hated that I had a lot of routine activities (and that I was so inflexible about changing them around), that often times it seemed like I didn’t care about her, that I didn’t know what to do when she needed emotional support, and worst of all, that I had no idea that any of this was particularly abnormal. I didn’t know what was going on, and felt like she was crazy and over-emotional. I provide a home for her, cook and clean, and spend a majority of my free time with her, so I had no idea ‘what the problem was’. I blamed her issues with my routines on her being jealous of my friends and family. I blamed our miscommunication on her being stubborn. I blamed my lack of noticing things as her being hyper-critical. I felt like everything would be fine if she could just calm down.

So we fought and screamed, blamed each other for everything, and several times I have even left home to stay with other people because I couldn’t take the constant negativity and criticism. But we truly love each other, and despite many times where both of us wanted out, we stay for the underlying deep connection that we have. In many ways, it’s the first real connection I have ever felt for someone else. Certainly on this level. And to be honest, without her, things wouldn’t be fine. There has always been a deep emptiness in my life, feeling estranged from everyone else, but not really knowing why.

After all of the heartache, I ended up seeing a therapist, and through lots of introspection and research, I really think that I have ASD. I have been flirting with the idea for maybe a few months, but really in the last three weeks something clicked. I have read 3 books, 10 more books worth of articles, blogs, and forum posts. For the first time everything makes sense, but I can’t help but feel worse and hopeless for the knowledge.

I have brought this diagnosis up with my girlfriend, and she agrees that it is likely the case. She is an extremely perceptive person (even for a neurotypical). She says that ever since we got serious she knew that I was different, and that there were many things that I was just not grasping. The things she says fit hand in hand with the experiences I have read from other neurotypical people with spouses and significant others on the spectrum.

Now I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I have (and always had and always will had) a substantial neurological disorder. It has really, unbeknownst to me, been the reason why I failed to connect with people, and transitively has been underlying cause of the horrible emptiness I have always felt. At the same time, I am also trying to work with my girlfriend on identifying my specific issues, and coming up with communication methods and strategies to let us both have what we need out of our relationship.

But she just doesn’t get it. I am trying to explain that I can love and care for her, but there are some things I will just never be able to do. I’m not going to always know how she feels, or how to react when she is upset. I am going to accidentally say things in an insulting way, or miss that the way I phrased something might imply something negative that I don’t mean. I get overwhelmed, and can’t debate an emotional issue for hours, days, and weeks at a time. I need time to myself to decompress. I need some level of routine in my life to feel stable and sane.

In her eyes, I am not taking responsibility for what I need to do to be in a loving relationship. Sher thinks I can do better, and am shirking responsibility in the matter. I feel like I’m killing myself every day to improve in every way, and the stress is really getting to me.

I honestly feel like I can’t keep trying without us changing the way we do things, but I also know that its not fair to put the burden on her to make up for all of my shortcomings. I feel like I just want to die most of the time, and have little motivation to try anymore. What’s the point in torturing myself to make progress, when I am never really going to be able to fix these issues? It feels like the only thing I can do is become more painfully aware of things I have already f****d up after the fact.

Is there a path of compromise? What can I expect in terms of reasonable accommodations? Is my relationship, and the rest of my life as hopeless as it feels? Is dating someone like me dooming my girlfriend to an unsatisfying life? How can I explain my situation to her in a way that helps her understand better? How can I better understand her perspective?

Does anyone have any advice, book suggestions, counseling organizations, or anything else they can suggest?

I typically had one day of week, typically a Saturday or Sunday that would be reserved for an all day outing. Why wait for a vacation to go someplace and do stuff together?

We typically spend every weekend together just us, together for the entire time aside from bathroom breaks. We also cook dinner together twice a week, and usually have a date night as well.

These days, I take one night per week to see some friends (which was a huge fight to establish), and there is usually 1-2 hours after work while we commute home, but the rest of the time is spent together.

A relationship book or two may help her understand what you can and cannot do. There are books that discuss male Aspies in a relationship, which is different from females in a relationship.

Welcome to the forum...

It sounds like your needs may be incompatible.

I'm sorry you're going through this, either way.

Don't be afraid to end a relationship that makes you unhappy more often than not, though .... Especially if you're not legally bound to one another

You asked for feedback. I have a little for you. Just in the last week, one of the support groups I go to, the ASD specialist clinical psychologist who runs it referred the group (since we spent most of the meeting talking about dating) to a couple books. The one I remember and the one my ASD own specialist therapist referred me to this week is called "Decoding Dating" by John Miller (which you can easily find on Amazon). It's specifically written for people on the spectrum about how to deal w/every phase of a relationship from finding someone to dating to getting intimate w/someone to what is a relationship to sex. All of it. I'm not saying it'll solve all your problems, but this might be a decent book to start with.

Also, the clinical psychologist who runs the support group I referred to above has podcast she does, I think twice/month. It's nominally for women on the spectrum, but the bulk of the advice can be used by anyone. It's called "Spectrumly Speaking", hosted by Dr. Katherine Cody and BECCA LORY HECTOR (who's on the spectrum). Google that show and you can find several episodes in the previous eps archive that discuss relationships for people on the spectrum w/NT's or otherwise.

There's more out there, but this is what come to mind. Whatever happens w/this relationship, I hope you find happiness in life and love!

And I almost forgot, the book I'm using in therapy "Living Well on the Spectrum" (which I can't recommend highly enough) by Valerie Gaus has a chapter on love and relationships.

I would argue that most professionally diagnosed adults start off by self-diagnosing. That's a logical initial step on such a journey. However, whether you intended to or not you went from "I'm self diagnosed."-to "I have a substantial neurological disorder." It's important for you to stay in the self-diagnosed realm unless or until you're professionally diagnosed by a qualified person.

Can you try the following that might help some of us understand your relationship struggles better? Could you give some specific bullet points on what your girlfriend wants or doesn't want you to do to make your relationship healthy in her eyes?

I don't know if this is the case, but a list of sorts like:

She would want me to stop seeing my friends completely.
She would want me to eliminate having my solitary time.
She would want us to sit and talk face to face on the couch for most of each evening.

You get the idea.

Can you give a list?

Thank you! I recently read two such books:

What Men with Asperger Syndrome Want to Know About Women, Dating and Relationships by Maxine Aston and Tony Attwood

and its sort of corollary

The Other Half of Asperger Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder): A Guide to Living in an Intimate Relationship with a Partner who is on the Autism Spectrum Second Edition also by by Maxine Aston and Tony Attwood.

Thank you for the reccomendations. I have read a few relationship-centric books, but I'll definitely check out the podcast and Valerie Gaus book as well. I could use something more positive/productive to be frank.

Sorry for the wall of text. I guess I tend to include too much detail because I want to make sure that I am not leaving anything out. Maybe I just can't tell what is and isn't relevent very well? My post is long enough, so I didn't go into more details, but I went through extensive neuropsychological evaluation as a child. Autism was one of the recommendations, but my parents sort of balked at it and we settled on ADHD and OCD. I was able to use this official evaluation for minor accommodations in school, like being able to type out papers instead of writing them. Recently, my therapist (who is a PHD herself and has a ton of experience) suggested that I might be nuerodiverse as well.

So many of the classic, unique symptoms are present in me. Stimming, headbanging, obsessive interests, eye contact issues, taking things literally, fine motor and spatial issues, in addition to not understanding subtleties of social rules and nonverbal communication.

As for our relationship issues, here are some representative examples:

-Routines: I used to workout in the basement of my place for 20-30 minutes 2 days a week. Usually Wednesday and Friday. I also had a martial arts class every Monday night, and a friends board game night every Tuesday. I felt like these were healthy pursuits that helped me maintain physical and mental health. We spent every weekend together and every other week night together aside from the 20-30 minutes I would work out some days. She saw my adherence to this schedule as though I was living a single life, and that I didn't consider her. Especially when I she wants me to do something besides these things at these times, and I express that it would make me feel bad.

-Empathy: Often times, she would tell me something sad that happened to her (especially important things, like that her family had some health issues), or express non-verbally that she needs some extra support. Often times I would acknowledge and give her a hug, but felt like there wasn't much else to do. Other times, it seemed like there was nothing to say. I can't fix health issues, or make her work situation different, etc. She feels like I am cold, and has at times wondered aloud if I am a sociopath. Often times, I would be in the middle of cooking, some chore, or a difficult mental task, and after hearing her out desired to return to finish the task. Especially if it was time sensitive, like I have food on the stove that would burn, or I need to focus on changing lanes on the highway. It feels like sometimes she just expects me to drop everything to address an issue that I have no control over resolving.

-Isolation: She always tells me that she feels like I'm 'doing it alone'. I don't really find talking about issues to be helpful unless it brings about new information or a solution. I don't really feel better after venting; in fact, I usually feel worse because it just reminds and reinforces the negative feelings I have. She wishes that talking about things and knowing I am loved would make me feel substantially better, but for me it only helps a little bit at most. What does help is taking some time to myself to process information. Ideally for me, I would have a bit of time for that every day. I don't even mind if that's while I commute to work, or before she comes home, but she often insists on long phone calls during that time. She resents that she can't be more of a part of that process. I feel like I never get a break.

-Other relationships: One of our biggest problems is how we handle relationships outside of us. She feels like the importance I place on seeing my friends and family regularly as an indication that I have self esteem issues, and that I felt like I needed to extra keep up with and maintain these relationships because I feel like I am unable to replace them. She also feels like this unhealthy fixation on friends doesn't leave enough emotional room for her to have the emotional place she feels she deserves as my significant other. this comes up all of the time. Any time a friend has a birthday, family wants to visit us, there is a family gathering for a holiday, etc. It's always a fight. Sometimes it feels like she doesn't want me to have these relationships at all, but she argues that she is totally fine with wanting these relationships, she just hates the level of importance I give them and feels like I'm emotionally cheating on her with them. She is especially jealous of my mom, and hates that I would text her when we were away on weekend trips, hand hates that my mom would sometimes call me to talk about problems in her life.

Unfortunately, this had caused a LOT of problems, and we have both done really sh***y things because we feel like we are defending ourselves. I have lied to her about things I have done because I didn't want to deal with an argument. She had for a while gotten so fed up and mad at my other relationships that she insisted we just spent time together and turned off our cell phones for months at a time. As a result, most of my friends and family don't like her and feel like she is keeping me from her. She feels like all of these people are unhealthy and don't get it. To be fair, I am seeing a lot of ASD symptoms in my parents (which makes sense if it is genetic), and with some of my friends (which makes sense because like minds tend to bond). I worry that I might be in a weird echo chamber, and that she has a lot of points that are just difficult for me to get due to ASD.

We have worked through a lot, and we use cell phones again. I am taking one night per week to see friends. But everything is still an issue, and there are innumerable soft-subjects. I am really afraid that I have ASD which prompts a lot of these things, and she is misinterpreting them for me not caring about her and being obsessed with other people. I had hoped that talking about it would help her re-evaluate the past more, but it seems like it is turning more into a new set of things for me to fix. I worry that I cannot fix who I am, and that she won't ever understand what to attribute to ASD and what to attribute to me not caring enough about her. She claims she knows that I can do better with a lot of things, and that she is entitled to demand them as my significant other. She often sounds exasperated, as though she has to explain something as fundamental and obvious as 'the sky is blue' to me. I fought it hard for a long time, but now that I am aware of ASD I wonder if she might be mostly right about these things. Is she controlling, or does she love me and suffer from something like Ongoing Traumatic Relationship Syndrome/Cassandra Phenomenon?

I hear a lot of familiar things in your last post OP.... I am curious: do you and your mom get along? Or do your conversations with your mom tend to be stressful?

I used to dislike an ex talking to his mom when he was with me, but she stressed him out so much that he would start yelling at me because he couldn't deal with her.....
I'm not sure if your gf is sensing a similar situation.

Relationships are about compromise. But essentially your girlfriend is saying that she expects you to pull out all the stops in order to behave as "neuro-typically" as possible at all times, without her having to make any accommodations. This places the onus for making the relationship work disproportionately on your shoulders, IMHO. Even if you are able to mimic "typical" behaviour to her satisfaction, it is a huge mental and emotional strain - one that, eventually, is likely to burn you out to the point that you won't be able to keep up the mask anyway, and your autistic traits will surface whether you like it or not.

If she cares about you as much as she says, then she needs to be prepared to share some of this burden with you by meeting you part way. That doesn't mean letting you use your suspected autism as an excuse for doing whatever you want, but that, since you are trying your best to make "accommodations" for her, then she should do likewise for you.

Whether such a compromise is possible with this person, none of us here can say. She might feel that a relationship of this kind wouldn't meet her emotional needs, and there is no shame in that; but if that is the case, then it would be better for both of you that she moves on.

How MUCH time do you spend on texting and talking to your mom?

It sounds to me like you being autistic, if indeed you are, might not be the only source of problems in your relationship.

It sounds to me like your original belief that she was being overly possessive may be correct. A healthy romantic relationship should allow people to maintain relationships with friends and family as well. The desire to maintain one's already-existing support network is healthy -- not unhealthy. NOT maintaining one's already-existing support network is unhealthy Having a committed relationship need not mean, and should not mean, putting all of one's eggs in one basket.

If you haven't done so already, you might want to discuss this issue with your therapist to help you get a reality check on whether she's being overly possessive or not. I would also suggest that you do some reading up on possessiveness in relationships. A few articles to start with offhand:

- 5 Controlling And Manipulative Relationship Signs To Watch Out For, Because Love Isn't Supposed To Feel Restrictive
- 25 ways to tell you're in a controlling relationship
- Unhealthy Relationship Behaviors Series: Jealousy

Unfortunately these articles don't have much to say about the question of how a possessive person can become less possessive, or how you can help that happen. I would suggest that you try to find some reading material on these latter topics, if you can.

In any case you might also want to try to find a relationship counselor who specializes in neurodiverse couples.

Thanks for giving some specifics.

Your GF sounds needy and controlling, but we're only hearing your side.

I think most people would be irritated if they were away with their romantic partner and the partner was texting their mother if the frequency of the texts was high, so I don't fault your GF for that.

This is another case where, right or wrong, good or bad, majority rules. NTs are the majority. Therefore NTs feel that the "ideal", the "healthy" relationship is one that displays characteristics of a typical NT relationship and anyone who doesn't contribute in like manner, in the typical NT way, is flawed, wrong, defective, incapable of being in a relationship or bad and the NT person in the mixed relationship is right, sound, capable of being in a relationship and good.

No one is compatible with everyone. Far from it. NTs with different personalities are often not compatible but no one seems to blame the other NT person as being defective. I find that interesting. Does anyone else find that interesting?

I'm a firm believer that a very stereotypical NT woman (very social, very talkative, etc) and an ND man who requires routine, solitary time and little interest in socializing regularly are not compatible. No person in that kind of mismatch is wrong, bad, at fault, etc; they're very simply incompatible, period.

I've been married nearly 18 years and my wife is NT. The only way it's worked is that she's only marginally social, she values her solitary time to a pretty strong degree and she understands my need for it isn't me being selfish, it's a requirement for me to remain psychologically healthy. She also understands, respects, is supportive of and sympathetic (mostly) to my limitations in regard to sensory hyper-sensitivity and my inability to think and communicate very rapidly in regular sit down communication. She's fine with me not making eye contact at all when I'm speaking and most often closing my eyes when I'm talking to her because she understands I'm watching the images of my thoughts as they formulate and that my speaking is more of a narration of what I see in my mind. I say she's "mostly" sympathetic, because I understand being with me can be a challenge for her at times and I'm grateful for her.

In summary, I could never be with an NT woman who was very social, very talkative, craved regular extensive communication and who was not sympathetic to my needs as an autistic person. Never. Noooooo thank you. Here's the thing that's important for me to note: I also would have no desire to be a partner to such a woman. No judgement on that type of person at all, I just see such a person as being absolutely incompatible for me aka not......my....type at all.

If you need certain things in a relationship and they happen to be different than what your partner needs for herself in a relationship.......why should you be belittled, ridiculed or suspected of even being a sociopath? I think that's very wrong.

Thank you for your input. I think it is hard to come to terms with the fact that a lot (maybe even most?) people can't seem to compromise on this sort of thing. It can be hard not to feel hopeless, but it is really nice to hear positive things around here. I think I need to foster more self love.