Communication?

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Hello fellow aspies, I've got a huge problem.

My fiancee informed me over the weekend that she's leaving. She says it's because I stopped communicating after losing my son two years ago.

It's not that I stopped talking entirely, per session. It's that I sank into a deep depression and only recently started turning around. While depressed I withdrew completely into myself and stopped processing the things people said to me, stopped giving more than one word replies, and stopped initiating conversations myself. I can see now how that's a relationship killer.

As far as my relationship goes the last year or so, I was so afraid I'd lose her too by saying the wrong thing (something I've done all my life) that I stopped opening up to her entirely. Not a good strategy for keeping a relationship, I know. The knowledge that everything I say seems to come out wrong coupled with depression and insecurity was crippling.

Last night as she was telling me it's over, I finally opened up. If she was leaving anyway, there was nothing to fear, right? After a long intensely emotional conversation she told me she had no idea I'd felt that way and agreed to keep working on our relationship while living separately.

Now I've got an opportunity and a problem. I agreed to a 50/50 relationship, meeting her halfway, each of us putting in 100%.

I'll start making romantic gestures again. I'll start taking her on dates again. I'll start bringing conversations again.

Romantic gestures and dates I think I can figure out. There's an endless wealth of material on that in literature and the internet.

Conversation is doing to be a problem. I still have a hard time thinking of things to talk about. When we're talking I have a hard time figuring out what's the next thing to say. When I do think of things to say, it seems like half the time they come out completely wrong / only make sense to me, or they turn out to be exactly the wrong thing to say in any given moment. I also forget that asking questions is a valid conversation component in the moment.

So here are my questions...

How do you know what to talk about? In our early years it was easy for me because I'd perfected a script that seemed to play well in dating. By the time I lost my son, I'd completely exhausted my repertoire and switched to talking about whatever she brought up. She didn't notice until she stopped supplying conversation topics over the last weekend and we ended up in awkward silence.

How do you know the appropriate response to what other people say?

How do you show people you're listening? And how do you commit what they say to memory? I have a hard time differentiating between important and unimportant things people say and tend to forget things people say shortly after the conversation if my brain doesn't catch that it's important.

Is there a way to learn to recognize social cues?

Do you have any tips for learning to remember components of conversations, like asking follow up questions, and when they'd be appropriate?

I feel like some sort of savant at the moment, brilliant in my interest areas, hopeless in the basics of human interaction.

Please help?

I know it can sound unhelpful but you might need to run to the therapist at this point, and not just for the relationship stuff, but for the reasons that caused you to arrive at the present situation. You need to address and deal with what caused you to become depressed and isolated, don't try to cover it up with increased communication.

I'm in that boat as well, to some degree.

I agree ^^^^

Death of a child is really hard to deal with, you could use a therapist help to process,grieve, heal, and begin living again.....

Also, if your relationship with your fiance is on the rocks, in danger of being lost, a therapist could help with this as well....

These are some pretty big serious things you are going through, and a decent therapist should be trained to help with these things....

I wish you all the best!

You might find the following tutorial helpful: How To Be Assertive Without Being Aggressive (podcast & transcript, Personal Excellence).

You might also find some of these tutorials on active listening helpful.


That's great!


What are her hobbies, if any? What topics or activities is she interested in?


What kinds of things does she normally like to talk about?


IMO you should tell her about this difficulty of yours, if you have not done so already, and let her know that you need her to tell you when something is really important that she needs you to remember.


Have you discussed with her your difficulty recognizing social cues?

You might just need to tell her that you need her to be assertive with you because you have trouble picking up on subtle hints.

Perhaps the two of you could go through the above-mentioned assertiveness tutorial together, with the aim of both of you using it as a guide to improve how you talk to each other.


What are your interest areas? And which ones of your interest areas, if any, does she share?