ASD partner “not good enough”

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Hi!

Any NTs out there who have been told by others that their ASD partner isn’t good enough for them and that they can do better? It hurts me that other people say that.... how do you deal with it / respond to that?

I'm not NT, but if anybody mistook me for one and tried to tell me that an ASD partner was crap just because they were ASD, I'd reject that. The only such advice that makes sense to me is specific things, it doesn't matter what a person's label is, it's the way they're behaving that matters, and how the person on the receiving end feels about it. And it's also important to look at the recipient, because often they're doing things that are contributing to the problems. Certainly ASD, diagnosed or not, isn't a bar to a healthy relationship, but it doesn't guarantee one either.

Tell them that perhaps they should try and do better in life so they don't feel the need to stick their nose where it doesn't belong. I am not an NT with an ASD partner though I am the ASD partner, but that is the kind of thing I would want to say to someone if they told me my boyfriend wasn't good enough.

My husband has gotten that a lot, from his parents and from women on ASPartners (I made him join out of guilt and self-hate; that lasted like 10 days before he basically said, "I don't want to spend my time around these vipers.").

It makes him really angry. The way he tells it, yeah, there's some stuff I'm lacking as a woman, but I'm the one who stood by him when he was struggling through engineering school and I'm the one that's stood by him through a lot of s**t since.

It makes me feel good to know that loyalty is worth something to him.

Not a partner, but i have this ND friend who I adore and when I admitted to another friend that I had a crush on him she was really horrible to me. She said I was too good for him.

I know he's not quite like everyone else, sometimes he's too blunt and will just tell people what he thinks and it annoys people. He will get interested in a subject and go on and on about it. But I like it. I think he's interesting and I respect him and I love his quirkiness.

Things didn't work out. We had our own communication issues and could never get the relationship moving, but I'm always going to think he's special. I'll always have a soft spot for him and if ever he wanted to try again I'd be there in a shot.

I'm not friends anymore with the person who said he isn't good enough. She was so mean about him it made me see her true colours. She's the one who came out looking bad even though she was trying to run him Down.

I've had an ASD partner tell me that I'm not good enough and that they can do better.

That was many years ago, and I still have not fully recovered from it. I don't believe I ever will. I simply have no way to deal with it.

People who describe others as 'not good enough' have a nasty view of others. Living like that is its own curse. It's a status anxiety life sentence. Don't join her.

You may at some point decide that this relationship won't work, but in that case the reason should be something better than 'not good enough'.

To tell you the truth this is one of the many reasons why I won't enter a relationship until I've got my myriad of issues solved.

those on the spectrum should stick together, someone with and ASD should go for another person with and ASD.

I don't know if anyone ever said something like that about me. But I've heard it about my partners many times. And it's so freaking stupid.
I always get to hear how I'm too cool and smart for that person (I am not cool and smart, I just come off like that somehow). The ones that say this are typically the kind of people who are attracted by cool and smart. (if cool and smart means doing drugs and cheating)
Later, the same people will complain about their chaos relationships, and ask me how in the world mine always turn out so great.
Well, obviously we don't have the same criteria for cool and smart. I don't go for that kind of cool. I go for nice. That's how my relationships are turning out freaking great.


Jeez, I really don't get peoples problems. If the nicest person ever is perceived as too lame for a relationship, people have twisted values.

So I'm getting the impression that this happened to you. I'm going to say definitively that NTs and ASDs will do this because we are only human. I tried asking out an ASD guy, but he turned me down because he politely said he is straight.

I'm not good enough for my wife.

She wants somebody who has visual smarts and is able to fix things.

I'm a klutz, and she lets me know...constantly.

Why can't she go for somebody else?

She needs that lovin' that you provide. You may not know how to fix things, but you know how to fix what she needs fixing (if you know what I mean). That's my theory and I'm standing by it.

Not quite NT but my mother thought none of my ex's were good enough and it turns out they had more going on than I thought. The first one actually had undiagnosed schizophrenia and he didn't see anything wrong with himself and thought he was normal and wouldn't get treatment. He also didn't see anything wrong with what he thought and he had this idea about how things should work and wanted it to work that way and not conform to life standards like getting a job and he thought it was "ret*d" to pay for everything to live. He would have just been a big burden and I would have ended up being his caregiver and schizophrenia is something that gets worse and worse when left untreated. Newsflash, I found his parents divorce court document online and his mother has to help him with daily living and it keeps her from having a functional job because she has to take care of him so she also struggles supporting herself financially.

My second ex had cluster B disorder (BPD) so he acted controlling, had low self esteem, low self image of himself, cared too much what others thought to a point it made him act controlling, he was very narrow minded and judgmental, he cried a lot because anything I said always hurt his feelings and made him cry, he couldn't manage his money and had poor spending habits, he was so negative and critical and he was willfully ignorant and did n;t care about other feelings and he believed in humiliating and making people feel bad. He acted narcissist too. Instead of being so concerned about how he was coming off to others and figuring out how to change to come off better, he tried to control what others thought of him and would get mad at me whenever I would call my parents and stuff because I was making him look like an as*hole and a control freak. I just thought then he was being too worried and paranoid but now I realize he wasn't being paranoid so instead of trying to change his behavior, he had to control me to keep people from thinking that of him. It was all about him and his self image. So you are worried you are coming off as an as*hole or a control freak, play good, now change your behavior and work on yourself, not try to silence your partner and try and cut their parents out of their life and anyone else and then they have no support and no one to go to when they decide to get out.

So no they were not good enough. I thought my mom was being closed minded so I told her to f**k off with her prejudice and her hate on un normal people. Now I know she wanted what was best for me and she wanted me to be with someone who was stable and functional and who can understand me and not cause me great distress and who would destroy me. She knew these two guys were not right for me. It wasn't that she doesn't like people who are not normal. So I told her years later she had been right about my ex's and I thought she was just being closed minded and wanted me to have perfect men, men who were normal and didn't have disabilities and were not different like me. I think other NTs out there want what is best for their NT friend and NT adult child so they think an ASD person would be a burden to them and cause them great distress and end up needing to be cared for.

My husband has a disability and my parents approved him and I was so worried they wouldn't like him because of his disability but surprisingly they liked him.

A salient reminder that this isn't just a NT thing. It seems obvious to me that no criticism is valid without specifics, yet there are still people out there who think it's OK to say "you're not good enough."

It certainly can be hard to deal with. There's nothing like a vague slur of that type to rattle around one's head digging up all the insecurities about self-worth that most of us have.

There will also be NTs out there who won't be good enough.

I'm sorry you are having such a rough time.

You really don't deserve that.

I've spent a lot of time on WP, and I see in you someone who cares for other people a lot and who is very wise.

Being a klutz is a very minor thing compared to that.