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My girlfriend and I were dating for a year. We're not together anymore but I love her and want her back but sadly my anger and her autism don't get along. I need to know how to fix things and be patient so I can get her back any advice? Please and also I just need to learn how to understand her more and be simple and polite not angry and mean.

I'm no expert, but I would suggest taking steps to deal with your anger issues. Perhaps you could try meditation or seeing a counselor? Maybe taking up a new, relaxing hobby of some kind? Anything to take the edge off (except drugs and alcohol, of course!). Keep in mind that autistic people are very sensitive, so she probably has a very hard time dealing with your emotions. I'm not trying to blame you or anything because we all have our flaws. When you take steps to better yourself, you also better your relationships with other people. Your ex might see that you are trying your best to improve yourself, so she may give you another chance.

However, if you think you have serious anger management problems, I would urge you to seek professional help.

She will always be autistic. You need to ask yourself if you love her autism. Occasional frustration is normal, but you have no legitimate reason to be angry at her quirks; they aren't there to spite you.

If you can't be compatible with her autism, the kindest thing for both of you is to move on.

I'm not the original poster but thank you!! ! I'm an R.N. and I'm running a small class on understanding patients with asperger's/autism and that point you made about the "quirks not being there to spite you" pulls a LOT of weight. Thanks a million for your input. Many health care workers have actually taken the original stance of the original poster when dealing with patients and it's really bad. The more that healthcare workers understand about the individuality of their patients, the better the care will be - better holistically.

So I work in a very professional environment and having been marked down for 'anti-social' behaviour towards peers I make it a point to try and remain sunny and cheerful. One of my colleagues approached me and said he felt we would make a good couple - straight off I put off having this 'coffee' with him because it was couched as wanting to be my friend. I figured you don't ask to be some ones friend you just are nice to them and over time it becomes more and more. But I thought 'hey he might be on the spectrum too and that's what I'd do'.

Long story short he got disclosure about important things like that I'm on the spectrum. Then proceeded to reassure me if wasn't a big deal and convinced me to move forward into a relationship. Fast forward 4.5 months and he's proposing and two weeks later I have my first self harming meltdown in 15 years exit fiancé stage left.

I am just really confused because I was completely open and told him I needed a degree of planning in the absence of a routine but he acted like I was being difficult. He also kept things from me and refused to introduce me to his family - something always 'came up' when we were supposed to go to dinner with his parents. I'm just wondering what or how do I have to communicate so that if I decide I'm brave enough to put myself out there again I won't get so hurt.

Don't worry. You did everything right. The way you approached the whole thing is the way genuinely strong relationships come about. Don't change your approach.

If I had it to do all over again, I'd focus more on dating more women just to make friends, see who's out there, and find a number of women I could be compatible with. Out of my dating pool, I'd see who gravitates more to me and gradually start spending more time with that person (as friends) and just see if a deeper relationship precipitates out of that. The progression from meeting someone, making friends, and becoming romantically involved is a natural one. The more emphasis you put on getting to know people as just friends, the more you're going to weed out the creeps, freaks, and weirdos. And not that I'm not a creep/freak/weirdo myself, but what's crazy for one person isn't a universal thing. But you want to see what person is like when he/she doesn't know anyone is looking. Sooner or later, THAT is what your marriage turns into. The longer you are friends with someone, the easier it is to figure this stuff out. Just my opinion, but I think you let things move a little too fast, but otherwise you are exactly on the right track. Maybe take more time getting to know someone as a friend first, and only date within your circle of close friends, but otherwise don't change a thing.

OK, so you had a moment of crazy. Admittedly there was a time when I somehow ended up dating girls with histories of childhood abuse. I broke it off with a woman because she fell apart on me one night?and it wasn't because she was "broken," but because I was scared that the direction our relationship seemed to be headed was doing her more harm than good, i.e. I recognized that I wasn't good for her and we were better off with some distance. If a guy can't handle your meltdowns, you don't want him in your life, anyway. I've been with other women who did the whole self-harm thing, the nature of the relationship was a lot different, and I stuck around long enough to help them through it?breaking up had nothing to do with self-harm freakouts, but more to do with whether the relationship had any kind of obvious future in it. You have ONE moment and the guy splits? I'd say you dodged a bullet. Good work!

Kept things from you? No meeting the family? RedflagRedflagRedflagRedflagRedflagRedflagRedflagRedflagRedflag?

Yeah?

Like I said, when you do dating the RIGHT way, this is what happens. This is what's SUPPOSED to happen. You have no more/less issues than anyone else, and I seriously mean that. Your pattern of dating/relationships brought the jerk out to the surface and expelled him like an intestinal parasite. When you meet "the one," there won't be any issues like these. That's how you'll know it's right. You might have to "go out for coffee" with a LOT more guys, and it might be two guys every week for a long time before you get one that breaks through. And don't be afraid of meeting more creeps, either?the process naturally brings them to light and won't leave you guessing. You kick those out of your dating pool quickly. Quickly, because the longer you let them hang around, the more difficult it is to get rid of them. And whatever you do, keep doing what you do and don't give up!! !

Thank you for the response. I know it wasn't just the ONE meltdown I had one episode of mutism as well and that freaked me out because the last time I had that was after being assaulted.

But that was I think the precursor to the meltdown - people know something is different about me but most just go with I'm foreign and in my bosses words 'super brainy' so they expect me to just NOT BE DIFFICULT. Hard to explain I'm not being difficult I really need you to give me more info.

At least based on your reply I can feel a little more assured that my deductions were actuate of the events.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

The way you're going to get back with an ex is if you're friendly post-romantic-relationship. If you stay friends long enough and you just can't seem to stay away from each other, you're likely to end up back together.

I once dated a girl with a hot-headed ex-bf with a black belt in karate, and I'd known this guy for a couple of years before she came along. She was a bit naïve and immature at the time, so she was all ok with being "just friends" with this guy the first time she broke up with him. He was all over her even more then than when they were still together, so eventually they got back together. He was abusive to her, though, but she just couldn't see how to get out of it. He flunked out of college and just kinda kept hanging around, and just through fate/coincidence/whatever we started hanging out. She finally worked up the courage to break up with him, but not before he threw a final fit of rage and even threatened to kill me. He also got on the phone with some of our mutual friends and started spewing crap, got all my friends angry with me, even social-engineered his way past security to my dorm room one night. During that time he started getting all friendly again, "met Jesus," the whole works just trying to isolate her and get her away from me.

What is scary is how often this technique works in getting an ex back. I made up my mind I wasn't going to tolerate all this drama, but more importantly I was more afraid for her safety and would rather spend a night in the hospital if it meant ending the cycle of abuse.

I'm not saying you're a crazy-stalker-ex-bf. I'm just saying that there are tricks to getting an ex back, and the intentions behind those tricks are rarely good.

Now, the same young woman and I broke up, got back together a couple of times after that. When we were off-again and tried to set boundaries, our friendship survived and we could never justify completely cutting the other person out of our lives. It was this bond that kept us coming back to each other, and eventually it was just stupid not to get married. But you have to understand this was all over the course of some 6 years, and we've been together now almost 15 years.

If you don't have that mutual bond, you really, REALLY need to move on. Take a little time to heal emotionally, but try to shift your focus elsewhere as quickly as you can.

I know it's been a while since I was back on this post but since then my anger has calmed down very much and we talk everyday. We even watch autism videos on YouTube and my partner and I have so much fun. We are in the process of getting back together but I still need to control my anger a bit more.