My Aspie Fiance

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Let e know when that happens esspecially if a woman has to choose between and aspie with a mediocre job and an NT who makes 6 figures a year and drives a Ferrari shell pick the later!

So, she doesn't have to break off the engagement necessarily, she can also just postpone the marriage until after completing her studies. Engagement is just a promise to marry someone, it doesn't mean that the marriage date is set. Also, she hasn't told us everything in her original post, she doesn't say whether he's working or has a full-time job and put's in his own effort to paying the bills, for instance.

To the OP, in order to give you advice, we can only go on what you tell us. Your original post gives the impression that you're working two jobs to support him. We need to know whether he's working or not and whether he engages in his gaming activity after work, for instance, and how much time he spends on it.

Last edited by Jono on 02 Dec 2014, 3:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

This is the same post I saw at ASPartners.

I am also in agreement with ditching the guy.

But after hearing other perspectives in a thread where we were bitching about that forum, it is possible he could be misinterpreting you due to taking things literal and if he is anything like my ex boyfriend, trying to rephrase it and being very clear will not work.

I still feel your relationship is doomed and it won't get any better if he isn't intending to change. Or he could be a guy who can't handle a relationship or needs to find someone who doesn't have lot of stress in their life or who likes to be a lone and also needs a lot of alone time and you two could be incompatible. But I wish you luck and hope you can work this out.

Have a thorough fight with him, throw at him what you think of his behaviour. I (Asperger, occasional as*hole) have behaved badly towards my long-term (i.e. > 5 years) girlfriend on multiple occasions, and being called out for it has helped me to understand how that behaviour affected her. I'm serious about this. I feel like people with Asperger's sometimes need stronger-than-usual signals.

After this, give him some time to let it sink in, then see if the situation improves. Don't give up on him yet.

I really think she should break off the engagement, precisely because an engagement is a promise to marry someone. I honestly believe she loves this guy and wants to marry him because she's asking us for advice on how to handle it, i.e. she doesn't want to break up. I think she needs to go back to being a girlfriend rather than committing to a marriage path, which an engagement is, and I think she needs to give herself some options in the relationship. She needs the power, or rather I should say she needs to give herself the power, to walk out IF she thinks that's best. She needs to allow herself to fall in love with someone else IF someone comes along who is a better match. She needs to allow herself time to see if this guy will eventually make some voluntary changes that she CAN live with, or if this is going to be a lifelong pattern.

BTW, this guy reminds me of myself when my wife and I first got married. I had to make some WAY uncomfortable changes, but they were changes I made because the person I was with mattered more to me than the video games I was playing or the musical project I was working on at the moment. She understands now that if I'm at home but seem to be absent it's because I'm intensely inspired to do something, slide the food under the door, and I'll be back in a day or two. It's not all-or-nothing with either of us. She knows she can't change me. She loves me and only expects me to do my best. In return, I try my very best NOT to be a parasite. It's hard not to be, but I do make the effort and pay attention to her and work with her every way I can.

Back to the point…I think her heart is in exactly the right place. She's willing to give herself to someone she loves. That's GREAT. But there's no giving back here. She's showing she's genuinely interested and cares for this guy. All this guy is showing that he cares about having a woman as a part of his collection of "stuff" or things to do whenever he feels like it. She could walk away and he'd probably never notice because he's stuck in a game. If the other person isn't your whole world, your chief obsession, your great mystery and adventure to explore, your reason for doing what you do, you're not ready for marriage. She's killing herself to keep this guy happy. He doesn't seem to care if she's happy or not. If you don't have this effort on both sides, you don't have a relationship. She needs a worm treatment. Love is never enough.

Wonderful, the new forum only seems to allow a short amount of time for us to edit our posts, so I had to delete mine in order rewrite it.

Anyway, the above quote is the part of your post that I disagree with. I'm sure that he loves her and I don't believe that marriage or long term relationships mean that you have to give up who you are or what you enjoy doing. Though in this case, there has to be time set aside for that. Anyway, you've mentioned that you were like this too, so what's so different in this case?

marry me instead, i'm better.

I think that neurodiverse people have a quite different "obsessive" profile than NTs, which also explains a few things in the relationship area.

This is my order of obsessiveness (and also what my brain tends to prioritize):
1. A crush (being in the contact phase). Extremely obsessive and largely uncontrollable
2. Special interests. Somewhat obsessive at times, but not even close to a crush
3. Being in a relationship. Not obsessive at all.

I think this is partly why I need time-alone in a relationship. It's simply because my brain prioritizes special interests over being with a partner I'm attached to, while I find it really hard to motivate myself for special interests when I have a crush on somebody (contact phase). I think this is different for NTs. They probably have very different priorities. Of course, it is possible to engage in special interests with a partner. Especially if you share them. While I'm sure it is possible to temporarily modify this priority order, it cannot be permanently changed, rather you need to continue to work on it all the time if your partner doesn't accept it. That's just as hard as to change personality-traits.

It's not about the short amount of time…it just demands that you rewrite your post if someone posts while you're writing. Just skip down and hit "submit" again and it will work. Annoying, but whatcha gonna do?

Anyway…you've gotten me started, so now you will pay!

I think maybe he THINKS he loves her, but he's not showing it. I think love is something you DO, not something you feel. Affection? Sure. Infatuation? Sure. Attraction? Sure. Love, though, is desire in action. If you don't DO something about how you feel, you don't love that person. If you keep it to yourself, it's not love.

No, you don't give up who you are or what you enjoy doing when it comes to marriage or LTR. That's not what I'm saying. You marry someone because you both want the same things, and you want those things TOGETHER. She wants HIM, not him-playing-a-game. She wants someone to help keep house and at least support her in the home and not just in finances, not someone who doesn't really participate in home life. She wants someone who will contribute to the relationship, not someone who eats all her food when she doesn't have two nickels to rub together and tells her to shut up when she needs to express herself.

In other words, she wants someone that he is not.

My wife and I had a pretty long history before getting married, and getting engaged was something I had to do if I wanted to keep her around--she was getting pretty sick of me. Once we got married, she was constantly annoyed that all I talked about was work. She was annoyed that I spent so much time writing music and not hanging out with her. She was annoyed that I liked to cook but hated to clean up. She was annoyed I stopped cooking after she kicked me out of the kitchen (she pitched a fit about the whole cooking thing, which I enjoyed doing, so I eventually just let her take over all cooking/cleaning responsibilities. Hurt my feelings initially, but I got over it). She was annoyed with me that if I wasn't tired and she wasn't interested that I'd stay up all hours of night playing video games. Since I was a teacher back then, she was annoyed that I was pretty much a bum all summer long (why not? It's one of the few perks teachers are allowed).

Have I enjoyed making changes in my life? No, and I still feel bitter about some changes I was forced to make--I don't have a job-job, I'm down to one part-time and one piano student. It hurts going from grossing $30k to less than $10k, and that's $10k on a really, REALLY good year. I hate changing diapers. I hate not getting to cook as much as I used to. I hate not being able to buy musical instruments and make all the noise I want at home. I hate not being able to play video games whenever I want. Yeah, THAT part of life SUCKS.

But here's the thing: I love my wife more than making music, playing video games, practicing music, getting out of changing diapers/wiping snot, listening to music, washing dishes, teaching piano lessons, getting someone else to detail the family van, playing piano at church, avoiding baking rolls/pizzas/taking out trash on Fridays, looking at musical instruments on eBay, hoping she doesn't have errands for me to run, and music. I steadily cut back on my own music until the job-jobs vaporized right in front of my eyes--so now I have a lot of time during the day to do music. I also take care of our 2yo so we don't have to pay daycare or sitters. I started baking our own bread and pizzas from scratch to cut grocery bills. I wash dishes when she's too stressed and stretched too thin to do anything else. I'll put in a load of laundry to wash or move the morning load to the dryer if I happen to be around the house during the afternoon before she gets off work. I strategically place mouse traps and bait to control vermin, and I clean up the mess after we catch them.

And do or don't do all of that because I love my wife more than all the unpleasantness the world has to offer. It's worth me being out of my element, looking like an idiot, feeling like a failure even AS LONG AS she's ok. She doesn't have to be happy, though if I can do SOMETHING every day to make her feel happy or at least special then I've done my job as husband. If you're going to get married, you must STOP worrying about your own happiness and/or well-being and learn to take care of someone else, no matter what it takes.

I don't mean to sound angry…I'm not. The OP here is caring for someone and going above and beyond the call of duty. The potential husband here is taking everything he can get and bringing a sense of entitlement (because he's an aspie). If you expect a relationship to work long-term, you just cannot behave that way.

That's why I think he at least deserves a chance. But he doesn't deserve a chance as a husband or fiancé. He deserves the same chance any girl would give her boyfriend, which means: We have romantic feelings for each other but we're NOT 100% sure that marriage is the best path for us as a couple. It means we need to be open to seeing other people. Before we got engaged, we were not perfectly, absolutely committed to each other. There were other people in between times that we were together, i.e. when one of us wasn't still in school or we weren't trying to do the LDR thing. We tried fidelity back then, but it just wasn't going to happen. What kept us coming back to each other was a deep, enduring friendship--the finish-each-other's-sentences/sandwiches kind of friendship--that made any idea of not being together a lot more unpleasant than togetherness. Because she's my friend, my BEST friend, I will do whatever it takes to love her--and I mean REAL love that DOES something. I don't expect anything back in return. I just want her to see she has someone close by who cares and actually DOES SOMETHING to help out or make things better.

As far as how either one of us changed, or how things changed… Well… We didn't really change, not for each other. I'm more obsessed with making sure she's ok than I am trying to beat a video game. I'm more obsessed over the status of our relationship than I am finishing the album I've been working on two years now (and am postponing yet ANOTHER year). For me, this relationship IS my special interest above all others. I don't worry about any of that other stuff. Music, work, etc., only facilitates the relationship (financial support, childcare while she works full-time, etc.). My feelings about myself DO NOT MATTER here.

So…what about my own well-being? Well, if she loves me, she'll take care of me, right? If we're in this together, she'll see that my basic needs are met, right? If my work is important to her, she'll see I get the time to do that work, right? If she cares that I finish a song or an album, she'll give me room to work on it, right? I don't worry about my own needs. If she cares about my needs, that's HER job to see to them. Essentially the way our relationship works is: 1) We don't worry about what we can get out of the other person, 2) Our main interests are our COMMON interest as a family unit. How we work TOGETHER. If you don't have that, you don't have a relationship.

How that is relevant here is she's meeting needs without meeting any of her own, at least not sufficiently enough to meet her goals. She's not in the position to worry about someone else right now. She needs to focus on herself so she doesn't HAVE to later when she CAN put a husband and kids (maybe) first in her life. I look at it this way: If I'm weak from hunger and can barely move, I physically cannot make breakfast for someone who hasn't eaten since dinner. I have to take care of myself first so that I'll have the ability to help someone else. The OP lacks the ability. She either has to accept him 100% AS HE IS (he won't change any more than I have), or she'll have to take it on faith that he'll adjust to better suit her as the years wear on. I don't know about you, but I only have faith in Jesus. It's "trust-but-verify" with everyone else. My wife has been the closest human being I could trust--I can trust her more than I trust my own mother. I really don't feel the OP can handle this right now.

It's interesting reading all these different views on the same situation. Although there is a whole range of different opinions here, I find there's something I agree with in just about all of them.

As Jono says, we don't know the whole story. People who are frustrated and emotional do often exaggerate a problem (e.g. perhaps her fiancee does often clean up after himself and do a token amount of housework, and is quite friendly and respectful when not playing his game). It's also easy to overlook positive qualities or not think to write about them - hopefully he has more to offer than infrequent hugs and conversation on his own terms. We also can't be sure how well she's communicating or relating to him. She sounds like an understanding, intelligent and giving person in her post, but then people often do paint themselves in their best light. Or, maybe everything is exactly as the post made it sound - we just don't know.

I'm also going to talk about my relationship experience a little, in the hope that it might be helpful. I was born with AS, and have also developed some horribly addictive and consuming special interests during my relationship, usually to games. However, I felt bad about it when I could see it was in some way harming the relationship, and would try to cut back or stop as a result. I also did not ever think it was okay to spend a large proportion of time playing a game instead of with my partner. At its worst it was a case of my playing for many hours on a day off, then suddenly realising I only have 20 minutes before she gets home and rushing to do some chores and get dinner ready. I have never been able to just walk away and resist the urge to return to the game, but I eventually put an end to the addiction I just described by giving away my character to another player. I also have a deal with myself that I will never own a games console or start an account with a really good game like World of Warcraft. That would be like a contract to throw my life away and become a hermit. It's only mediocre games for me, and these days I am content with only a simple game called HabitRPG, which rewards me for having good habits and getting things done in real life.

I have always made a point of being honest with myself when my behaviour was less than perfect. But it's perhaps easier for an addict to fool themselves into thinking what they are doing is fine, they are entitled to it, anyone who tries to limit them is in the wrong etc.

Regarding non-violent communication, here's a link to the wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_Communication

Here's a good NVC book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Marshall-Rosenberg/dp/1892005034

NVC actually has quite a specific method to it, and does take some effort to get right. An example might be "When you refuse my request to clean the kitchen I feel extremely frustrated and lonely. Having a dirty kitchen makes me feel nauseous, so I will have to clean it myself if you don't, and I am already exhausted from work, and having tidied downstairs for the last hour. Please can you take a break from your game in the next few minutes and sort the kitchen out?"

My wife has never been good at tactful communication, and it's taken her years to learn to communicate well with me. Since I always prioritised the relationship, I believe that her exaggerations, verbal attacks, and fits of irrational anger made things between us much harder (it was lucky that I was quite a good communicator and was also able to explain to her again and again exactly how I needed to be spoken to). However, it was a blessing that she was outspoken and always quick to let me know when something bothered her. Equally important was that she repeated her grievances over and over again, otherwise I might have assumed that the issue was no longer bothering her after a while and I no longer needed to work on it. If a person prioritises the relationship and can muster enough self-discipline to rise to the challenge, then I believe that NVC with frequent repetition should be all that's needed, along with patience while the changes slowly happen.

However as SweetTooth says, sometimes shocking someone can be the only way to get through to them. Starting an argument, setting an ultimatum etc can shake a person up on a deeper emotional level, and give them the energy to make a difficult change. However it is a risky move, and if you overplay that card it can lead to a lot of resentment and/or your partner no longer taking you seriously.

I decided to not play any kind of games a long time ago. I knew it was highly addictive, and I thought of it like a waste of time. My current special interests are not useless (researching neurodiversity and my operating system), and I don't want to end them.



When we got children I decided they came first, and I kept that prioritization throughout. So, yes, in a way I did prioritize the family, but I didn't allow it to consume all of my time.

I agree that probably it's easier to get better advice with more and better information, especially if it's possible someone might be exaggerating.

But if someone IS exaggerating, that presents yet another serious relational problem: someone is badmouthing his or her partner. This is something I find unacceptable in any relationship. I refuse to complain about my wife. I just won't do it. As far as anyone else is concerned, my wife is perfect. I also won't tolerate my wife badmouthing me to her friends, whether I'm there or not. And I won't tolerate my friends badmouthing her or her friends badmouthing me. It's not that I think it's ok to censor someone you're in a relationship with, or that it's ok to bully someone. It's just that if you care about the relationship and the other person, why would you WANT to allow something like that to go on? Why would you hurt someone like that?

My thing is I've been bullied and degraded most of my life, so I'm used to it and it doesn't hurt my feelings anymore. I don't care what other people say about me. The problem is the negativity and the gossip impacts attitudes and spills over into the relationship, and what affects one person in a relationship affects the relationship as a whole, i.e. both people. I don't enjoy this part, but I found I have to insist that my wife not tolerate other people gossiping about me around her because it was a necessary thing to keep the relationship moving forward positively; moreover I had to insist that we keep the negative talk strictly between the two of us. When we do talk about relational issues with outsiders, it's typically in the context of how we work through issues rather than in the context of complaining about someone.

So…tl;dr my point is if she's exaggerating, then she's needlessly trashing her fiancé in front of us. If she's NOT exaggerating, she's got some deep-seated issues in the relationship. We have sufficient enough information to draw THAT conclusion at least.

Hi AngelRho, when I talked about exaggeration I didn't really mean it that way. I just meant that everything is subjective, and when a person is highly stressed and frustrated they don't always weigh things up 100% rationally, that's all.

By the way, I really enjoy reading about your and your wife's relationship - another great example of a healthy neurodiverse relationship, and how you've managed to achieve it.

Thanks!

Yes, everything IS subjective. No, we don't always weigh things up 100% rationally. And nobody is perfect, either. Has my wife vented to others about me? Sure. And for a brief 2-week period I did the same thing without really thinking about what I was doing (peer pressure thing, and I feel stupid about it). Do we have issues? Absolutely. Who doesn't? You figure out how to deal with it together.

But unless there really is a problem, and I mean truly AWFUL almost beyond redemption, I'm not going to invite other people into that part of my life. The OP HAS invited us into that part of her life. Either she is a poor match for him, or the relationship is heading down a dark path. I mean, there's no way to win here. This relationship has no future in the direction it's going without a crushing degree of misery throughout. Her fiancé is going to have to change direction (note I didn't say he has to change who he is or stop doing things he enjoys) and chart a new course for a life that includes her. If he loves her, he's going to have to DO something that shows he loves her.

It's like money… Love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, right? It's useless. Money is only as good as the things you can buy with it. Most of us don't REALLY love money, we love material things and freedom. Money will help with that. It's pretty useless by itself.

Love is pretty dumb if you don't do anything with it. If you care about someone, you want them to be healthy and happy. So you buy flowers, gifts, and send random "eye lurv j00" text messages every now and then. If you make a mess eating popcorn while watching TV, you clean it up. You wash dishes. You at least start laundry. You do anything you can to make his or her burden a little easier. Because you WANT to. Because you WANT that person in your life. If you don't act like you want someone, it's going to be difficult for that person to justify sticking around.

Sorry its taken me so long to reply, I haven't checked back since a few days after I made the post originally, I've been keeping myself busy and have gotten my fiancé to read a book dealing with NT/AS relationships with me that has activities to do together. I've read the book aloud to him as he plays his game, he has told me he can focus on both if he is doing something small in the game and has proved it because as I read the book I will stop and ask him his opinion and he will give it. It has helped me understand him a little bit more, plus I am reading a book by myself about how to cope with a relationship with someone with AS. I'm still doing the 2 jobs, full time college, he is back to work now, he works 4 days a week but it is full time hours. The days that he is off he likes to sleep late and play the game. I don't mind if he does play the game and sleep late, but I would really like it too if when I came home after a long day at work when he is off, that he wouldn't sit at his computer waiting for me to cook him a meal, or complain that cleaning isn't being done when he has the time to help.

I am hoping to find a better way to communicate with him and I'm glad that so many here have different thoughts and with ideas on how to deal with things. I try to generally talk to him when he isn't wrapped up in something big in his game, like he will do dungeon hunts, and those are the times I leave him alone because I know that will just make him irritated. When he is doing things like crafting in the game is when he will hear me and is more open to conversation. He never likes to feel that he is being 'lectured' as he puts it, and I try not to make it like a lecture, for example recently I brought up to him that he should try to watch his wording when he is talking to his daughters of his previous marriage because he tends to use insulting terms and I can see in their faces that it hurt their feelings. I brought this up to him after they had left because I knew he had a chance of getting more upset and I didn't want his daughters to see that. I knew I was getting through to him a bit because when I talk to him I watch his responses and he got quiet and seemed a bit sad hearing he may have hurt them. So I tried to explain to him what feelings other have when he says things so that he had a clear understanding but that was when he said I was lecturing him. I didn't mean it that way and I tried to tell him that is not how I intended it but then he told me to shut up.

Since there was so many responses to my original post I hope I remember everything that seemed to need to be answered. Someone had brought up about me possibly just complaining about him, I always try to talk to him first about problems that I have, but its when I feel I'm not being heard by him that I tried this and the AS Partners forum, to see if I am handling in a good way or maybe there is a better way that I haven't thought of. He has a hard time explaining himself, and a good amount of the time he will wind up talking about something completely different...like the game...which is frustrating because it can be a serious conversation but nothing gets accomplished. He says he wants us both to be involved in decision making but when it comes to something like the budget he focuses on things that is stuff we cant control, like how much money I will make 3 months from now. He is salaried so his never changes, mine is hourly so it does. When we go to the store he will get 'tempted' to buy something and if he REALLY wants it he will ask if he should buy it, but if I say its best that he doesn't sometimes he still does, then he spends the next 2 hours complaining to me that he spent money, sometimes blaming me that I didn't talk him out of it. Last night he chewed me out because I didn't pick up the last pack of chicken at the store before someone else did. He had started talking to me about something else, and he tends to get irritated if I don't give my full attention to him when he talks so I put my focus to him before grabbing the chicken because I didn't see it as urgent because there wasn't someone else there at that moment.

I don't want to just give up on him, because from knowing what I do about him he seems to feel like he has just been abandoned by others, so I try not to do that to him, but as others have said in replies I have to think about my needs sometimes too. I have 2 children of my own too from a previous marriage, and I love them with all my heart, so everything cant revolve around only him. I don't believe he feels that the world should revolve around him, but sometimes his actions seems like he wants it to.

The 2 things that bother me most are him not helping and his reactions to things especially when he tells me to shut up or curses at me. I think deep down he isn't just an a-hole, but I do think he looks at the aspergers almost as a 'get out of jail free' card. That having aspergers is a good enough excuse to act the way he does and that if someone doesn't accept that then its their fault for not being understanding, that he shouldn't have to put forth a big effort to change anything about himself even if it could help him out in the end.

Thankfully he isn't trying to rush into marriage, he proposed but we have not done any planning, so it is giving me a chance to sort through all of this before anything is completely final. Maybe I will talk to him about putting things on hold until things smooth out.

I look forward to more thoughts on this.

I'm not sure you really want our thoughts on this. It's what you think that matters most. Look at what you just told us:

I'm just getting warmed up...

And, look, I'm not quoting anything out of context to make a point here. You need to be aware of what you're saying. The language you're using where I'm quoting you is important.

You go on to mention previous relationships:


The issue I have here, which isn't something you can change NOW, is that unless your spouse died your marriage fell apart due to some unresolvable issue. From what I've seen, divorce is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's suicide for relationships. What concerns me is the possibility that you haven't effectively dealt with the issues that broke up your previous relationship. So what expectation do you have that THIS relationship will be any different? And if he had children from a previous relationship, what happened in his former relationship that he is no longer with the mother of his children? And, btw, I'm posing these questions based on certain assumptions, so I'll apologize in advance if those assumptions are incorrect--that is, that the relationships ended in divorce or that children were born outside of a marriage. If a relationship ended because of a death in the family, then I'm sorry. But if the relationship ended for another reason, it's the other reasons that ended the relationships that absolutely must be dealt with if one is to expect THIS relationship to work out positively.

OK…moving on...







End the engagement NOW. Stop waiting and END IT. You can't do this right now. Maybe you can later. Right now you need the freedom to see someone else if you want to. I'm not saying you WILL see anyone else, but you need to have the latitude to do so. You're not in a good position for fidelity in a relationship, and you seriously need to ask yourself if this is a good relationship for you. Read your own words. It's all there.


*sigh* I don't believe you. I really don't.

Honestly, you seem like a very sweet person. You want to give this guy a chance. You obviously love him. But you are SO UNHAPPY. I'm not known for being an overly sensitive person. But just reading your latest post I'm not sure you really want to hear good news. It's almost like you're asking us permission to get out of this relationship, not advice for how to cope or "deal with it." At the very least dial this thing back. Take it down a few notches. Give yourself the freedom to exit the relationship quietly and explore other possibilities.

Yes, you love this guy. But, y'know? Alcoholics love alcohol. Just because you have love doesn't mean it's a healthy relationship.