Should I let her go? What is love, anyway?

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blueish
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26 Jan 2015, 7:56 am

This is my first post to this forum - hi everyone!

I need to get something off my chest and hopefully get some advice.

I'm currently half a year into a relationship with a person I've known for about 3 years (we used to go to one school). More and more often I find myself asking whether I should keep going with it, is this what being in a relationship is supposed to feel like and if I actually love her at all.

It's long-distance - we study in different cities and only see each other every one and a half, two months. And while I don't like the idea of a relationship that pervades every part of my life (I need a lot of personal space, and right now find it hard to imagine even things like sharing a bedroom), I would like to have someone physically close to me.

Except I'm not really sure who that 'someone' should be. I've always thought of a relationship as an extension of friendship, which is very much not the case with my girlfriend. We have practically no interests in common (and her interest in her hobbies is much less intense than mine), we have different approaches to life etc. Right now, our conversations go mostly like this: 'I love you so much, you know?' "I missed you', 'what are you doing tonight', 'what have you read recently', 'isn't this piece of news funny?', 'I LOVE YOU SO MUCH'. (And she's the one that initiates the I love you ones.)

I was meeting some of my friends recently whom I haven't seen for a couple of months, and as I was sitting with them in a bar I realised I love some of them so so much, in a purely platonical way, and that they're a more important part of my life than my relationship is. I'm looking forward to their Skype calls and emails much more than to those from my gf, and that's really not how it's supposed to work, I think?

Then again, she once said to me 'I'm not your friend, that's not how relatioships work'. How do they work for her, then? It seems to me she just feels those things - a combination of having a crush, being sexually attracted to me etc. Not much of actual substance.

Ah, the sexual attraction! She is a very sexual person, has a high libido, often gets attracted to people on a purely physical basis. I'm not fully asexual - I have some libido and enjoy the physical (but not necessarily sexual) closeness with people I'm generally close to in my life. Which means I sometimes find sex nice, but that's it. And at the lenghth she'd want to have it, it's just boring. And when I experience physical attraction to other people, it's mostly just an aesthetical fascination.

I can't help but feel she's a bit toxic, too - and here's where my ASD comes in. My profile says 'something on the spectrum other than AS', which is not exactly accurate - my ex-therapist, and current doctor I go to for tranquilisers/sleeping pills have said I'm likely on the spectrum, and I do relate to most of the symptoms but have never actually got a diagnosis proper. When I first heard it from that therapist I told my gf about this - because I figured, if I trust her and want her to be an important part of my life, she should now about that sort of things, right? And I wanted to hear what somebody who knows me quite well would have to say about this. She's downplayed the issue, then the usual 'everybody feels like that sometimes' and 'really? hey, grow up love, you must be exaggerating a bit' &c. And later, she'd sometimes say things like 'ah, yes, mild autism' followed by a laughter whenever I said something weird, didn't get a joke etc. Which I'd be completely fine with coming from a person sympathetic towards my condition, I'm hardly that easily offended, but it was a bit hurtful to hear that from someone who doesn't think Asperger's & related syndromes exist in the first place.

Then, she's a bit troubled herself, too: she struggles with some anxiety issues, but sometimes when she mentions it and I try to be understanding and helpful, she gets angry and says that reminding her of it/the issues causing it only makes it worse. Fine, I can understand that. So I try to be just understanding. Same. 'Let's not talk about it' followed by me changing the topic completely, only for her to come back to it after a minute. And I have no idea what to do so as not to be rude and not to anger/hurt her at the same time. I'm just so completely baffled, I want to help her (regardless of whether I love her, I do care about her) but she doesn't look like she wants to be helped.

Back to the common interests thing: I had a lot of issues with my interests pre-Uni. I learned very lately that going on and on about something will usually get me treated a bit condescendingly. But I have learned that, and I think I can balance it now; to the point where I'm not anxious to tell an acquintance from university that yeah, I go to sci-fi etc conventions sometimes, or a friend from a con about some of my work at uni. I'm not ~that weirdo~ anymore, or at least I'm much less of one. But, were some people from my high school suddenly to come back into my life, I'd be pretty anxious, and I rather keep my personal life away from most people (all, really, apart from the actual close friends) I knew before I moved out for uni. And she, well, doesn't. She tells everything to her friends, some of whom attended HS with us. Or to her family. She gossips. She loves to talk about other people's lives, and so I don't tell her much things about mine that I wouldn't tell to them. (We did talk about this, but she's downplayed the issue again, and I felt a bit stupid because, come on, why should it be a big deal for some guy I haven't seen for 20 months to know what I'm doing with my life?)


But I'm afraid I might be misjudging the situation. She's very much in love with me, judging by her behaviour, and come on, what chance do I have of having someone love me like this in any foreseeable future? Which is a disgusting way to feel, and I really could cope fine without being in a relationship as such (for as long as I can have some close friends I trust, which I think I have at the moment). But maybe I should trust her more? Put more effort into making it work? Maybe it's not that she doesn't give me grounds to trust her but that I have a skewed perception of how trust works? I don't trust myself to judge any social/interpersonal situations, and this really isn't an exception.


I rambled a bit. If you've read all of this, thank you; it makes me feel what's happening around me is real and I'm not imagining things and looking for problems where there aren't any.



GreatAlli
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26 Jan 2015, 8:05 am

IMHO, it's time to end it if you can write this way about your SO. Unless this is the result of a day of doubts and you don't feel this way on a regular basis, that is. Just trust your gut.



blueish
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26 Jan 2015, 9:23 am

I have been feeling this way for quite a while now. See, I feel so awful writing about her like this! I care about her, she's a wonderful person and I can't help feeling it's me who's the as*hole. And I'm so scared of hurting her.



ralphd
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26 Jan 2015, 12:56 pm

IMHO it's easy to confuse the attachment that comes from caring/wanting to help someone with love.

For a healthy loving relationship you need to start with trust, honesty, and mutual respect. Some level of attraction required, but strong attraction can blind you from seeing the things that make for a true loving relationship.

Some relationship books will tell you that contempt is the death knell of a relationship. I'd say respect is the opposite of contempt.

And by respect, I mean esteem for someone, something that comes from their values and behavior being compatible with yours.

For example, even if I were strongly attracted to a woman that steals from her employer, I could not love her because stealing is a behavior I have contempt for.


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GiantHockeyFan
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26 Jan 2015, 1:28 pm

blueish wrote:
I have been feeling this way for quite a while now. See, I feel so awful writing about her like this! I care about her, she's a wonderful person and I can't help feeling it's me who's the as*hole. And I'm so scared of hurting her.

I promised I would not post in L&D anymore but I have to say you sound an awful lot like I did before I ended up relationship last year and my last one ended in September. The simple fact is if you read your post as something I or anyone else wrote you would see you already have your answer. I know, it's not easy to walk away but don't waste your time like I did.

If it really was the right relationship, you would not be 'scared' to hurt her by expressing genuine emotion. While I don't have a lot to go on, she sounds frightfully similar to my first ex and IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE! Cut your losses before you are in too deep would be my advice although if I were in your shoes, I probably would have a hard time accepting it.



slenkar
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26 Jan 2015, 1:35 pm

she will try to stop you seeing your friends if this relationship continues.

She seems to be in love with the idea of being in love.

If you dont feel the same now, nothing is going to change that.



nerdygirl
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26 Jan 2015, 1:53 pm

ralphd wrote:
IMHO it's easy to confuse the attachment that comes from caring/wanting to help someone with love.


This is true.

That said, I think she doesn't sound like the right person for you. She sounds like a wonderful person. Letting her go frees her up for someone else. Ending the relationship, IMO, would benefit you, her, and the guy in her future.

The right person for you would respect your interests, your abilities, and your shortcomings. I am not saying that someone who loves you won't tease, but there's a big difference between being teased gently and your concerns being blown off.

Do not keep a relationship going just because you are afraid you won't find another one in the future. The more entrenched you get with a person, the greater the damage that will be done when the relationship falls apart. If you keep this going just because it is "there" your relationship is like a house with no foundation and will eventually fall. How much do you want to put in that house before it comes crashing down?

You have started a new life at Uni. Who knows what is in store for you? You have a chance to start afresh, and you have these other friends you mentioned. Being single for a while may just let you be open to new possibilities that you would otherwise be unable to take advantage of. You have a chance to explore yourself without the criticism.



ProfessorJohn
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26 Jan 2015, 5:13 pm

I was in a relationship with someone for 18 months who was very different from me in terms of attitudes and values. It was my first real relationship, and at the time, it did hurt when it ended, but at the same time, I came to realize that it just wasn't going to work in the long term. We were just too different. Part of that 18 months was doing the long-distance thing, and we were able to get over that. I even left a good job to be with her.

Guess what, I ended up getting same good job back again (it was 800 miles away from where she was) eventually, and met my wife about a year after the final breakup. I can't guarantee that will happen to anyone else, or with you, but had I stayed in that other relationship things wouldn't have turned out as well as they did. I wouldn't have met someone who I truly enjoy being with today.

Following the breakup I did feel lost for a while, I did question whether I made a mistake or not, it did drive me crazy at times, but in hindsight, I now see I did the right thing.

Breakups are probably more difficult for Aspies because we generally don't have much experience in relationships, and as a result probably feel, more than most people, this might have been my last/only chance.



blueish
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27 Jan 2015, 4:25 pm

Thank you. Your impressions seem to be very much in line with mine, especially

slenkar wrote:
She seems to be in love with the idea of being in love.


But, as much as I'm pretty certain this relationship doesn't have a future, I have to figure out a way to end it without hurting her too much. On the one hand, I respect her, and don't want to lie to her; on the other, she's in quite a lot of stress right now (family, landlords, uni, everything at once) and I'm wondering if maybe it would be better for me to wait till holidays. She's so fragile, I don't want to make her life a mess and she seems to be relying on our relationship so much I'm afraid a breakup could have that effect. I'm also pretty sure she won't want to stay in any contact with me after I break with her.

(And I feel I should clarify, we're both female. Not that it matters in this context.)