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Charlette
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10 Jan 2012, 8:48 pm

I have an LDR with an aspie man (we have not broached him as an aspie, but he has to be and I'm a neurotypical). We only communicate, in between visits, by email (he hates the phone). He has certain special interests that we talk about, but he's always been willing to talk a bit about things I like to talk about... sometimes and to an extent. Lately, he will have none of my topics. Either ignoring them or calling them trivial. He is down to one topic now, pretty much exclusively. It is a topic I am interested in, but I have many other interests and don't like that I am not treated equally in what I like to talk about.

I have invested a lot in this relationship and would like it to continue. But if we stick to just one topic I am going to lose interest here.

Any thoughts on how I try to fix this problem? I don't want to lose him. My other dilemma is that it was about this time last year that he went MIA for a few months. No explanation given when we began talking again. I don't know if it is a seasonal thing with him or not.

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.



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10 Jan 2012, 10:21 pm

How does he respond to you pointing out the unfairness? I mean he does understand that a relationship is a two-way thing right?

I don't know. What is the nature of his interest? And what are your interests? I can try to think of a way to link them somehow maybe.

Also what qualities in him attracted him to you? I mean in what ways DO you connect? And has this been a lifelong interest of his or is his main interest capable of changing?

As for the MIA thing, on the one hand when someone feels like being totally free once in a while, which seems pretty common for Aspies, to be truly free they might avoid "checking in" with people because that's not really freedom, it's a... sabbatical. In his mind the deadline of returning to where he "should be" might have loomed if he'd alerted you that he was going to take a break, or (just postulating) he wouldn't have even known how to approach it without hurting your feelings and starting a stressful argument about the future of your relationship, etc. And all he might have known was that he had the strong need to be by himself for awhile to process stuff in his own way and take however long it takes, regain a sense of perspective maybe, cause a relationship encompasses a life-altering change and to preserve the sense of a continuous life/self/identity it might be necessary for him to go back to being "single" from time to time the way he was (obviously) as a kid. Not that he doesn't care for you, nothing to do with that, but as a matter of self-preservation. If that made no sense let me know.



Charlette
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10 Jan 2012, 11:10 pm

To be honest, I haven't pointed out the unfairness at all. I've been so scared this whole year that he will go MIA, Whenever I've pointed out something he didn't answer, I let it go or I say something once and just drop it if he still doesn't respond. I've tried to be totally agreeable - which has been aggravating because I'm usually quite assertive. So that is the first thing is to know how to bring up the unfairness without him getting upset. It really bothers him when he knows I'm mad. He doesn't know what to do. He kind of retreats. But I need to do this this time. His interest is hard to relate to other things. It has been his thing for many years, among other things. But like I said- he rarely talks about the other interests anymore. Besides his interest, I like movies, music, writing, reading - a whole bunch of things.

What attracted me to him? Many things - he is very sweet, sincere, and smart. Just some kind of chemistry I felt right away.

Your explanation of the MIA time makes a lot of sense. I think it was what you are saying. He also stopped being a part of FB at the same time as he stopped talking to me. And at the time we were regularly on the phone. I knew he didn't like it - just didn't know how much he hated it until he started talking to me again.

Gee - I've said so much. If he is on this site - he will know it's him. :(



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10 Jan 2012, 11:28 pm

Sorry, let me know if you want me to delete my posts if you end up deleting yours for privacy. Well, I'm no relationship expert but you're a person too and deserve to get to talk about your interests in a relationship without being afraid your signif. other's going to run away without warning... that must be a very precarious feeling, I mean he is a very important person to you. I guess I would pretty much say what you've said here, that you want to be able to broach the topic of equal time spent on interests and have it received with consideration for your feelings, without fear that you're going to get walked out on. Just my uneducated view... one thing I will say is that I thought I was pretty good at understanding what people want without them saying it but sometimes it surprises me that I need it put as explicitly as possible I guess because I don't "work" the same way as most other people in some things and therefore can't imagine how they might think and operate without them telling it to me.