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I have a boyfriend with Asperger's. I adore him totally and utterly. I am well aware that we will never ever have a neurotypical 'romance' but I do have issues. I am not sure whether he actually cares or not. I am not able to differentiate between asperger's personality and plain indifference. Any advice on the matter would be appreciated as I don't want to have my soul broken by a womaniser >:} I do love him but not sure if he cares or not. (He has no idea I worry about this as he panics alot and I didn't want to scare him).

I don't know about his personality and I really have no authority on this subject but all I can say is you're just going to have to be very patient with him.

How does he respond to displays of affection? Don't be to demanding of him, and know that it takes a tremendous effort on his part as well as yours.

I wish you nothing but the best.

1) He will probably not let you know how he feels on his own. Since AS prevents many nonverbal cues you would interpret subconsciously, don't expect any indications on that level either.

2) Tell him, upfront, how you feel. Part of what would cause him to panic would be his being unsure how you feel. If you explain it verbally, he will be more able to understand and respond to that.

3) Don't put any pressure on him more than is necessary. Just the fact that he is in such a situation will probably make him more nervous than normal, so try to make him feel as at ease as possible...

4) (this extends from #3) Don't expect him to respond right away. Allow him some time to reflect on what you've told him. Repeat for whatever major change in a relationship you do.

5) Don't take anything too fast, or he may become overwhelmed.

As the resident Dating adviser.

He cares, but for him this may be his first relationship (and as such I'm going to guess that it is), you're going to have to go through things slowly and let things go for a while, til you get to understand him better. I don't know how long you two have been dating so telling us that might be helpful as such that I can give you more better advice.

(I'm 20 in college, soon to be a junior, writing lit major with emphasis in mostly Brit and Modern lit. host of the DJ Ninja Dating Hour, gone through 3 relationships, 1 of which I still am friends with, another one of which I'm on speaking terms again with, one who hates me....but thats her issue{oh and I'm a male})

I'm not sure where your boyfriend is on the spectrum so that's going to be hard to give advice for, but if it's what I've seen on here about most males, is that they're most likely not sure how to respond to this new setup in their lives and as such the "Asperger's and Plain indifference" is hard to see, I can assure you that if you talk things out with him that you might be able to understand.

I hope this helps, any more questions, feel free to ask.

He's right. Your boyfriend is not being indifferent. It's far more likely that he's simply not sure how to respond to the new life situation. He's most likely never had a girlfriend before, and now that he does, he doesn't know how to go about it! There are no instruction manuals out there on how to have a relationship. So no wonder he's confused. He probably doesn't know what do to in a real-life relationship.

My advice for you is to just be patient with him. Instead of expecting him to show affection with words or "little things", watch out for bigger things, the ones that aspies are more likely to be aware of. Does he come through for you when you need help? Does he check up on you when you're not feeling well? Does he wish you happy birthday? Those things are good signs that he genuinely cares about you and wants to be in relationship with you.

hmm. Interesting replies. Much appreciated advice so thanks to all >:} perhaps it may have been easier if I pointed out that it is not his first relationship but he never actually cared before so he's a bit bleurgh about the whole feelings thing and also i have ADD so we're having slight clashes lol. I cannot tell him how I feel because he'll become stressed ... however I did show him these replies and he has been very positive. Anywho ... any aspie/add relationship advice now we've narrowed it down lol ??

okay. welcome. ironically, I'm very anti-romantic.......even though I host a dating advice radio show, I think relationships are crap, probably because in the long run, they pan out to nothing and everyone on both sides is left hurt, at least with most of my friends who I've seen in them. I don't mind being in them, though I don't actively seek them, and if i had my way, would never date, but unfortunately the Lord has a sense of humor far greater then mine.....sorry....rambling. again.


If he's never cared before, then that's a difficult situation, seeing as (and no offense to any Aspies here reading this) most Aspies want to be in a relationship. I've never met anyone (besides myself and maybe two or three other friends of mine) who is blah about relationships, might be that they didn't go so well before and he may just not want to extend his heart out til he feels that he's not going to go down in a sweltering shower of bullets(and excuse the random references, I'm a writing lit major, I'm a tad bit.......weird) metaphorically and romantically speaking......in other words the pressure getting to much and him or you acting out wrongly towards each other that would cause the relationship at such point to be strained and break up.

Swan. question, this makes sense to me slightly, but I want it clarified before I add anything, why cannot you tell him how you feel because he'll become stressed? Are you worried that he will think he's not meeting your expectations or such if you tell him how you feel?

Gamester. I don't want to tell him how I feel until I have clarified once and for all what does and does not constitute indifference and what does and does not constitute aspie behavior. Now that I have a slightly better understanding I think I may delicately approach the subject. I want to be careful when I say it though because he always ends up blaming himself and is convinced I will resent him eventually because of the way he is, bless him.
I much appreciate all of your comments by the way even if you do become sightly unhinged and tend to digress at times >:} Best of luck with the uni .. erm thingy mabob.

HRH Swan.

Here is my nickle... say what you mean and be honest, completely.

This is something he can understand. If you try to hide something, or expect him to pick up a meaning outside of the words you say you will have a problem.

How this problem appears is probably different for all of us but for me, I do what I'm good at... find patterns... so I'll start analyzing everything that I've done with that person and everything they've said to try and figure out what is going on... this is not a good thing as I have no real baseline to create a good probability with so I'll go off the beaten track and come up with something off the wall that makes sense to me but probably no one else. Where if you had been honest and didn't try to hide anything none of this would have happened. Sure, stress and uncertainty would have resulted but to a much lesser degree.

Aspies are generally not completly oblivious to signs, we just don't have a context to interpret them so quite often will either ignore them or make the wrong interpretation.

My husband is especially prone to panic attacks when he feels he does not have enough information. He senses that there is more than he's being told, imagines the worst, and then his imagination runs away with his good sense. He's the AS half of our partnership, by the way. I've found that he's a LOT more comfortable when I tell him in concrete terms exactly what's on my mind, exactly how I feel, exactly what I want, etc. If I want him to remember my birthday, I tell him the payday before it, "Sweetheart, my birthday is next _____, and I want ______ for my gift." He has his reminder. He knows what will please me. He has time to fit it into his routine (which is very important to him). Neither of us remember our anniversary. We rely on my mother for that one, and then we go out to dinner to laugh over having forgotten it -- again.

Your boyfriend may need for you to give him the same concrete slices of information that my husband needs. You have needs, too. Remember, a relationship involves two people, and both have to be cared for. Yes, you want to cushion him from the panic attacks. Be careful of cushioning him so much that you begin to cause them by withholding information he needs, and be careful of enabling him by cushioning him from the world. He's been dealing with the world all this time. Mothering him seems nice now, but it's a bad habit to get into -- for both of you.

A relationship with someone who is AS is challenging, but it can also be fun, adventurous, and a wonderful experience. My husband is intelligent, creative, and extrememly funny. When he's feeling social, we have wonderful times. When he's not, I've learned to let him have his space and find my own social outlets. It works. Hang in there. You two may well find your own way to make it work great.

This gives me so much hope for my relationship with my boyfriend with AS. It's a recent discovery on his part (I've known for about 2 years in my heart...) and it has allowed us to talk so much more openly about our communication breakdowns and fights and misunderstandings within the relationship.

3 years and we've been dealing with AS on his part, an abusive childhood which brought on trust & emotional issues on my part. And I've only been in therapy for 6 months!

He told me the reason we stayed together is that I never let him go, even when he wanted to break up over stupid reasons. I just loved and accepted him no matter what happened and he did. I don't know exactly why this made the difference, but acceptance seems to be something that a lot of people I see post on here crave in a relationship.

Anyway...I'm rambling, but I also want to reiterate the lack of emotional language in an aspie's vocabulary. They have trouble identifying emotions, let alone putting them into words and for a romantic relationship it's even more confusing.

Patience is the key - not only from you, but from him. As posted above, you have needs as well and he should try to meet them when he can. Having AS is not an excuse to not hold up your end of the relationship, it just means that you have to work around how they CAN hold up their end and how they communicate and show that to you.

Me and my boyfriend both have CAPD. I can't tell you how hard it is to have a verbal exchange if we're in separate rooms. We just learned to deal with it and now instead of getting pissy and yelling meanly at each other, one of us will just come to the other.

P.S. - For our 3 year anniversary in August, I'm asking for a heartfelt letter as my present. I don't want anything else except maybe snuggles. And I know that writing it will be one of the hardest things he's ever done and I appreciate it more than he realizes.

*blink* I think you need to write a book; you hit on a lot of really critical points in my mind, some especially relevant to me. That really sums up some of the simple things that leave me in an unintelligible snit. Your advice is sound, and I'm glad to hear that you have found such a strong balance in your relationship.

To OP: In my opinion, it will never be 'neurotypical' as you describe it... it will be different, in the way a relationship is with anyone who sees the world differently. There are some things that just do come natural, and those vary from person to person on the spectrum (and beyond). It is more a matter, in my mind, of finding things that you can appreciate and recognize... where compromises are found between you and clearly communicated... there are wonderful things that can arise, I believe.


M.