Essential Love & Dating Advice (By and For WP Members)

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Hey I dont know if anyone is gonna answer but on the off chance, I need help. I fell in love with a man on the autism spectrum and I just want to make it work because I really do love him its just he frustrates me so much and I feel so alone sometimes. I dont know how to communicate what I need anymore because i'm learning that his brain doesn't work like mine. He forgets so much and he lectures me all the time. He gets so much more focused on his stuff than whats going on with me. I feel like really hard stuff could be happening in my life and he wouldnt notice even if I mentioned it tons of times. it makes me feel so small and unimportant. im willing to compromise and I know i'm really ignorant I just dont know how to handle this at all. I know he doesnt do these things to hurt me and i know he loves me and it hurts him when i bring these things up because he cant help it and he says hes trying but how can u try at something like that? you cant force your brain to be something that its not, right? i dont want to hurt him by making him think hes not enough for me or i dont love him for him idk. feel free to be brutally honest with me if u feel the need i just really need answers please

Hey, take your time.

As a man I find it odious for a man to be lecturing a woman. It's unbecoming conduct. Some people, I'm sorry to say, use autism as an excuse for rudeness. Others never learned how to handle themselves in society.

I wish you blessings but don't rush things.

Why do you want to be with someone who thinks it's ok to lecture constsntly you and who makes you feel small and unimportant? Do you want to be treated as an equal or as a child who needs lecturing?

Does their love leave you feeling good most of the time or just really good infrequently?

Why do you want to spend the rest of your life feeling small and insignificant because of the actions of one human?

What if you found someone who was supportive and who treated you as an equal and who respected your views?

This situation is not your fault.

It's usually only women who come on here looking for advice on how to get their jerk boyfriend to treat them with more kindness and respect.

But you can't change anyone.

Very rarely do we get posts from autistic males trying to find out how to communicate with their girlfriends and meet them half way and make them happy. Think about that.

Thank you hurtloam--glad you're back. This post is why.

Be interested in people for who they are and not what they can potentially give you.

Very rarely are any of us so appreciated in the first place.

I'm in the same boat: even as I explore my own possible AS, my emotional reactions to my partner's autistic traits have been so similar! Alone, small, unloved- check. My partner is awesome to me in so many ways (makes me breakfast, problem-solves my dreams, makes sweet adventures). But sometimes I haven't been able to feel that because of other things which left me feeling sh***y (like being sharply criticized or having what's going on in my life not register as important; sometimes my partner gets antsy when we're walking together and just leaves me behind). Explaining how I feel in these scenarios doesn't seem to work. My partner either expresses that talking about emotions is just confusing or else apologizes for being a sh***y partner, but in a way that's just so hopeless and sad. Either way, there's not a sense that anything gets understood or changed. And something else I need, emotional reassurance, doesn't happen from these conversations. Realizing that my partner is probably on the spectrum was such a helpful revelation. I realized that many of my implicit assumptions about what certain actions of his mean were totally off-base. He doesn't want me to feel alone, small or unloved at all! It's been super tough, and there have been times I've thought I might have to leave. But right now, I'm in.

And I've been figuring out how to focus on the types of things my partner does do when I need reassurance. For example, this happened by accident: I was feeling raw after some criticism from my partner and stuck, because I wasn't sure how to get over feeling so raw without hearing the 'I love you' that would never come, and then I realized I didn't know where my keys were. I had to ask him to look, and this being totally in his wheelhouse, he looked promptly and thoroughly, and I actually felt the kind of reassurance I needed. Because being available for logistical support is one of the ways he loves me and which I love! And I have felt more and more reassured as my partner has continued to stick with me and be lovely.

There are lots of books on relationships with people on the spectrum, and some of them are quite helpful- though they are almost universally obnoxiously hetero-normative and about NT women dating AS men. One that I liked was The Asperger's Couples Workbook, by Maxine Aston. Obviously we can choose to do these relationships or choose not to. But if we choose them, there is a bit of a process in figuring them out. I hope that ultimately that process will be rewarding, in that whatever implicit things I was expecting in relationship will be made explicit and my ability to communicate about them and get what I need will only increase.

And here I had come on originally looking for advice

Yes, Wrongplanet and forums give me a temporary dopamine boost, but they make me feel worse overall.. I felt better before I discovered Wrongplanet ten years ago. Before that, I was on radio control model forums, and that was kind of a nice distraction to help me deal with college and career worry stress..

Some men with autism can get a woman! But if you lack the personality qualities which are... not being stand offish and negative and being somewhat companionable, open and believing in yourself and the woman.. women are willing to date losers if they strike the right chords personality wise.. I am what is called a volcell? where women were interested in me initially based on my looks, but I drove them away with my personality within a day..

If you can find a way to stop watching porn, that will help attract women to you and also change your desire towards women.. I have been emotionally dependent and interested in porn since I was like 10 years old.. and now in my mid thirties I still have not given it up.. but if you can believe in yourself enough to quit watching porn, it will change your brain into something that is better for interacting with a woman.