Dating someone on the spectrum

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Hey Everyone,

My best friend of 3+ years (we met in 2011), and my boyfriend of 1/2 year is a really wonderful guy and also really interesting and smart.

I took a quiz online with about 50 questions (I think it's called the Aspie quiz) and it said that he is on the spectrum. I thought about telling him, but he made it clear that he doesn't want me to ever, ever diagnose him and that he knows himself and what he needs better than other people. I never even got around to mentioning Aspergers. I know better than to do that anyways, because he gets annoyed when I try to talk about what I perceive as his emotions, and one time when I guessed he must be suicidal because he was drunk driving and spoke briefly about the prospect of death, and he was being unusually moody, I told his parents that I was afraid that something was wrong and he flipped out. He still hasn't forgiven me for that.

I love him because a lot of what he says is really different, and unique, and hilarious. He sometimes does things that I never see other people do, but somehow it is normal when it is him. He has always been a good friend to people and he has had success with getting girls, and he has a great scholarship for a prestigious PhD program and he's almost finished with that.

But there are some aspects of his life that don't really make sense to me, for example, he tends to have "break-ups" with girlfriends or guy friends a lot. They accuse him of being insensitive, basically. But I know him way to well to think he's a sociopath - he's not. He follows the law, he has his own code of ethics, and he follows it. I trust him more than I do almost anyone. He always tells the truth. He's really genuine. And once you win his trust, you'll be his friend forever and ever.

He's really struggled with things, though - for example, he says he's afraid to have people meet his parents because they are "weird" in his own words. His dad is unique, almost a more extreme version of him. He was bullied as a kid. He is super self-conscious about how he was when he was younger. He claims he was not "socialized properly." And he can't read my facial expressions, although he can read body language. Sometimes he expresses things in a really mean way and refuses to apologize because he doesn't seem to see how his comment could be anything besides absurd or funny.

He has extremely narrow interests. I have gone to 50 baseball games with him by this time. He has memorized every baseball statistic known to man. It's incredibly difficult for him to take interest in others' lives, except that he takes an absurdist interest, or spouts off his judgments which are always different and unusual.

I know I'll never tell him that I think he's autistic, because it doesn't matter anyways, and there is no way in hell he will ever let anyone tell him what to do.

But I have struggled to understand him, but maybe more importantly, I wish that he struggled less in his interpersonal relationship. He tries so hard, and he's actually pretty good at a lot of basic social activities - initiating, making plans, keeping in touch. But he's always having a falling out with someone or other. (And people use him sometimes, too).

I guess I am just trying to make sense of loving someone who is autistic and probably should have been diagnosed as so as a kid. I feel like a lot of his problems (anxiety, depression, anorexia, and some kind of obsessive behaviors) wouldn't be there if he had an answer to why he's so different. I'm different too, I guess that's why we're friends.

Anyways, he's a genius, he's brillant, and he's clearly high-functioning. I could never be in a LT relationship with him first because he has really high standards that I don't meet, and second, because I need the kind of emotional reassurance that comes from someone who is more neurotypical. He just sometimes misses the cues, and like after sex, or after a serious conversation, that can be really hard. Also, it's hard for me to totally grasp what he's feeling, and sometimes his emotions come out in bursts, so I feel like I'm never making him happy. One time we went on a road trip and he seemed really distant and cold, but later he told me that was the best day of his life.

Again, I care for him and think he's one of God's best creations, but I am constantly in awe of how complex he is and how different he is. I guess he's come up with his own methods of coping with life, and I'm always there to tell him that he's just fine and that he shouldn't listen to the haters who tell him he's insensitive (he's not...he cares deeply about people).

Anyways, I just wanted to post my story to an Aspie website and get some insight from people who are on the spectrum. I guess I just want to understand my friend, and also get understanding of what it's been like trying to understand him.

Perhaps he is not autistic, but BAP, and his dad is autistic. Or maybe they both are.

I'm not autistic but I have a friend and what you wrote echoes in my mind as something I could have written when I first came here.

What exactly are you hoping to be answered? I find that clear questions are helpful, because most people don't have the time or desire to read through a gigantic post when they've done that so many times.

_________________
Unapologetically, Norny.
-chronically drunk

This is from someone who married an Aspie.

Dating is entirely different from marriage. My husband could deal when we were "dating" and not living together. Marriage, there are expectations and it can get ugly really, really fast.

I found the things that drive you crazy while dating, will turn into an absolute nightmare when married. My husband meltdowns and his feeling free to abuse me (like how a little kid is horrible after holding it together all day at school, and is absolutely terible at home), that is not fun.

My two pennies into the pot...

I think husbands with Aspergers get stereotyped a lot by NTs, in negative ways, as if they were all the same, all abusive. My ASD son in law is married to my very NT younger daughter and is a model of partner responsibility and paternal responsibility - I'm sure that is not as uncommon as disaffected parties assert, starting with their own axe to grind and not seeing very much further beyond that axe much of the time (not you, OP).

Okay, I can explain the "insensitive" part very easily in neurotypical terms.

To understand what the world looks like to someone who is on the Spectrum, imagine you are dealing with the world's worst drama queen. She is manipulative and genuinely doesn't realize that she is manipulative. She gets moody sometimes, and when you try to get a straight answer out of her, she says things like, "There you go, pretending you don't know," and yet, after waxing dramatic for a startlingly short while, she will admit that she was being cruel and then be filled with tears and remorse because she feels she had been cruel.

When she wants something from you, she will fix you with these great, big, brown calf-eyes, and when she's mad, she will glare daggers at you. Her eyes seem to be very influential on some people, and somehow, she can always communicate exactly what is on her mind with a mere look. It's like she is telepathically conveying emotion with those eyes. It's not like the "sociopathic stare," which is a sort of scary, predatory look, but it can also be warm, gentle, motherly or kind...but it's a little unsettling, nonetheless.

She is nice and really tries to be a good person, but her personality is overwhelming to the point of being smothering. It's like when she is happy, she is too happy. When she is sad, it's waterfall tears. Somehow, you know she's not putting it on as an act, and you know the emotions are genuine. They just show in an exaggerated, extremely loud way.

You also notice that she has a little bit more interest than most people in competitive sports, not as a player but as a groupie. Oddly, she seems to take as much pleasure in the other team losing as seeing her own team win. When you play board games with her, she can't just play a sober, quiet game, but she gets a little overexcited.

Finally, she never seems to take an in-depth interest in anything. She'll be super-excited over a topic for a day or two, but when you ask her about it three days later, she seems to think you're talking about something that happened "when dinosaurs roamed the Earth." If she hears the same song twice in one day, she's tired of it. Things just get stale for her very quickly. Nothing lasts.

Okay, if you are getting the basic, general idea, imagine that you woke up one morning, and EVERYONE was like this lady. Virtually all of them. That is the world from the perspective of someone with a Spectrum disorder.

Now, this is basically what your boyfriend might occasionally feel around his partners. It's not that he is trying to be insensitive, but he is not equipped to deal with this overwhelming, smothering emotional output. When he gets to feeling smothered, it might actually make him frustrating, and he might actually say something crass just out of frustration...and it might be during a moment when you are genuinely upset.

The thing to keep in mind is that it's not that he isn't sensitive to your emotions, but he isn't very good at sorting out what specifically you are feeling or why. As far as he is concerned, your ability to read emotions might as well be a telepathic mind-reading ability. It's not that he is being a jerk, but he really is that dense.

Does that make sense?

^ I think that's a biiiiiiiiiit misanthropic but generally a good idea - we need to describe our experiences rather than our symptoms.

I think abuse is the wrong word to use. When a small kid melts down at home, after they have tried so hard to keep it to get at school, that isn't abuse, but overwhelmed. My husband is no different from that, but for some reason it is hard to let adults ride out the melt down without judging. A lot of people judge him. I really try not to.

December is a crap month for my husband and he is just doggy paddling. He lost it, and lashed out which since I'm safe, I get the brunt of it. I won't tell him to go f**k himself, and he is being an utter douche bag. I won't dump him as a friend. Right now he feels terrible about the past week. Sensory overloads are a b***h.

I understand all that, but it is really hard to tune out the ranting and screaming.

My point is, when you date, you can take a month off. There is no running away from problems when you are married. That is true for NT relationships. Pick any crap NT behavior, and if you are married, you'll be dealing with it.

My husband has many good qualities that I love. I just wishad the meltdowns weren't so hard on him.

Yes, when NTs moan about ASD spouses as the worst fate in the world, I sometimes want to shout at them - try being married to one of the very many NT alcoholic wife-bashing cheating lying control freaks that other NT women do marry...

How do I edit my original post?

I wanted to clarify a few things:
1, he is really my ex-boyfriend. He was my boyfriend in 2012 but we decided not to date, so we've been friends since then. So he's my friend.

2, all I mean to ask was this: Do you think my friend is on the spectrum?

3, I do not at all advocate being in an abusive relationship. My friend is not abusive. He's only got really upset with me once, and I knew only because he said "Hey, I'm feeling super upset and I don't want to talk to you for a while"...he didn't scream at me or call me names. I also feel safe around him. I see a psychologist and she knows the details and she does NOT think he is abusive.

I have had an abusive relationship before - the guy was Neurotypical. Again, I don't advocate being in an abusive relationship. I would advise you to seek counseling, and hopefully to find a safer living situation. Aspergers does not mean the person is abusive or vice versa.

He might be on the Spectrum. He might not be.

Maybe he's intermediate between Spectrum status and "neurotypical."

What matters is that he's a person.

I'm squarely on the Spectrum. My wife is constantly irritated by me. She doesn't understand the peculiarities of Asperger's too well. I've thought about leaving her many times--to spare her from my extreme moments. I've been exposed as unempathetic by her--and that hurts--makes me want to leave her. Part of that accusation is true (alas!)