For Aspies with NTs...

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I hope things worked out okay for you @ASPiXiE. I've been where you are. I sent an email to a guy I was dating to tell him he'd hurt my feelings. It did bother me that he'd hurt me, but the reason he'd hurt me was much more troubling. At any rate, I sent him the email because I needed to know if he was going to be okay with me having a need, with me pushing back in the relationship in any way. I'd completely accommodated him to that point, and I needed to understand if that was the only way a relationship between us would work: with me doing all the compromising. As it turned out, I was right: we couldn't talk about what I needed.

That experience convinced me that open communication is absolutely critical in Aspie/NT relationships - particularly when you have difficult things to discuss. You have to be able to tell your partner what you need, you have to be able to talk about what hurts you, you have to be able to listen to each other. If he has chosen not to listen to you, it's not your fault - he's just not doing his job as a partner.

As it turned out, I had a (rather big) glass of wine (having asked for the strongest on their menu) and we spent a couple of hours debating and half-yelling at eachother but smiling most of the time and making occasional jokes through it too. I think he thought I couldn't see how it was tiring for him to be in that position; I explained that I'd already anticipated how frustrating it'd be for him, which is why I kept telling him to back off a little in those situations - which he'd taken as petulance and stubbornness, but fro my point of view I was saving him the frustration of getting so heavily involved in the inner workings of my mind. Then there were times when I told him exactly what I'd like him to do in each situation, because I've been told in the past that people just don't know what I expect them to do; he saw that as me being demanding of him and not considering what he wants, when really I just thought I'd vocalise my needs and he could give me feedback on that and vocalise his. Oh the frustration

In the end, I told him to just be clear with me - if I'm going into too much detail about something he doesn't feel he needs to know about, he can say so. I know I tend to just talk about anything and everything that's going through my mind so sometimes I just need to be told to shut up and I won't take it personally, lol. If it's something particularly important that I'm really upset about I can then ask if it's okay for me to just rant for a while, or if he'd really rather I don't. Basically I asked him to be blunt, and he seems alright with that - bluntness is what he does best and if I want him to have faith in my ability to do something, I need to actually do it, or at least understand why he finds it hard to believe what I'm saying in those situations. Which was fair enough. It's not so much that I find it hard to see why he doesn't always believe me sometimes, but I just want him to see why I'm saying that stuff anyway. And this is all stuff I probably couldn't have got through to him without being just a little bit tipsy XD

I suppose it all came down to a big ol' mahusive misunderstanding on both sides talk about communication issues... I tried saying that's why I wanted to write it all down (which is something he doesn't like, so I wouldn't do it unless I felt I had to) because I have trouble saying everything in person whereas I can take the time to make sure I've got everything on paper. I think we've devised a protocol for next time... I'm to bring it up in person, or at least give him the letter in person so he can go off and read it and then discuss it there. Sounds good to me; I don't want to always rely on letters anyway if I can help it. I'd like to get better at talking in person. And if it takes using letters and wine for a while then so be it! We then spent the rest of the evening at his (on a whim; had to come home today to study, I wasn't expecting to go to his so I didn't take anything with me) and he kept looking at me with a silly little grin and occasionally pulling me over for a kiss like the demons were well and truly exorcised at the bar. Gawrsh, talk about ups and downs!

I'm glad you and your bf got things worked out - good for you. I hope you two keep the lines of communication open.