My aspie boyfriend can't let go of the past....

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First, let me thank you all for giving me the opportunity to seek some advice here!! I'm 21 years old and have been in a relationship with a wonderful 23 year old aspie man for 9 months. We were friends for 2 years before we started dating. We are deeply in love and have even moved in together. Everything is perfect, except for the fact that my boyfriend is extremely disturbed by the thought of me being with other guys before him, especially people he knows. He cries all the time and he says he can't sleep at night because of it. I know it is a common trait of aspies to be hypersensitive, but I fear that this is taking a toll on him. I try to comfort him to the best of my abilities but it just isn't effective. What shoudl I do? are there any solutions besides seeking therapy?

I don't think anything can help this except therapy.
The fact is you can't change your past, so if he can't change his attitude towards it, he needs therapy or you need to break up.

It seems a pretty weird thing to cry about to me but everyone is different I guess. I can sort of see where he's coming from, I mean he may look at you and see another guys face ontop of yours.

I think he is obviously suffering and he should seek help for it.

I have an Aspie husband who also cannot let go of the past. he is mid 40's. his negative feelings towards people he perceives as "doing him wrong" is the same now as what it was 2, 5, 10,or 20 years ago when the incident first happened.
Having lived with my husband for 12 years, I have never been able to find a resolution to his way of thinking. I mean, there are periods when he is not dwelling on the past, but guaranteed he will bring up the issue again and his reactions are also as emotive as they were previously.

The concern I have for you is that if your boyfriend is dwelling on issues now that he wasn't even involved with, what happens when an issue arises that does involve both of you?
For instance if you receive a phone call from a male colleague........ how will he react and will he be able to let it go?
will every argument you ever have be brought up over and over again?

does he have other issues from the past that he can't get over? eg: problem with a friend, work issue, family

my husband is still fixated on arguments we had 5+ years ago. He has amazing recall for scenarios which I can barely remember, let alone even care about now. if I had known 12 years ago what I know now, I don't think i would have stayed with my H. He has major problems with impulse control (aggression towards me) and this inability to let go of the past considerably impacts on his mood.

I realise you love him and will probably not want to end the relationship. But please, watch this situation very carefully and note the warning signs or other behaviour that may impact seriously on you in the future. Your boyfriend is a lot younger than my husband and hopefully with the right help he may be able to change some of his obsessive thinking. Therapy is an absolute must and if I were in your position i would be insisting upon it.

I appreciate your concern. Like your husband, my boyfriend often recalls arguments we've had in the past. He's not aggressive at all, but the impact on his mood is certainly negative, and I hate seeing him so depressed. I want to be with him for the long haul, so therapy is probably the best option. Thank you so much for your advice.

I wonder if this is a predominant Aspie trait? When I first started seeing my boyfriend, (now my fiance,) he could not stop talking about past girlfriends. He also wanted to know how many boyfriends or husbands I had before him. I was deliberately vague, telling him that it didn't matter now. When I got sick and tired of hearing about these females, I tried to get him to understand that it was a problem. One night he discussed them in bed. (Not during sex! ) The next day, I wrote him a letter, telling him how much I loved him and how much I valued the relationship, but this constant discussing of ex-girlfriends was undermining what we had. He didn't understand why it should bother me, and thought that I was jealous. I explained that while I was not experiencing jealousy, I felt that these ghosts from the past were taking up a lot of space in the present. I also told him it was a turn off when he said one of their names while we were lying in bed, and that if he mentioned some other woman's name in my bed again, he could go sleep at home.

We had a serious talk, using the letter I wrote as a guideline. I finally came to understand that he still felt a connection with these woman because he had once been close to them. He also hangs on to a lot of junk in his house. He has a hard time letting go of the past. We finally came to a compromise. We agreed that an occasional reference to an ex was OK, as long as he didn't say her name, which felt too intimate. Like, he could say, "My ex and I once ate at that restaurant."

I agree with others here that therapy is definitely in order. And, be sure to get a therapist that understands and works with Aspies! I hope you are able to work things out.

Ask him what he expects you to do about it. If he can't find a 'solution' (that's reasonable) then he will just have to force himself to block it from his mind. It's tricky but it's possible. It may (or may not!) help if you talked to him a bit about them and reassured him he's 'the best' at whatever it is he's insecure about.

Nobody likes thinking about their other-half's past but you can't go back in time. Either he gets over it or he goes find someone else, but it's unfair for him to hang around and guilt you about things that a. are not really his business since you weren't dating at the time, and b. can't really change..

Has he had a girlfriend or a crush in the past himself? You could explain that you feel exactly the same about your exes as he does about his.

edit; hartzofspace brings up a good point; if you have any memorabilia, hide it, and you may need to talk about keeping in contact with exes.

I think I can relate to that guy OP. He could be having problems accepting it because he is extremely insecure about the relationship & his performance in the bed-room. He might be worried that you thought those guys were better than he is or that you are disappointed with him because you may of had better relationship & sex partners. He may also be worried that you still have feelings for those past guys. I would suggest offering a lot of reassurance

Idina, Nick007 has a very good point.

You need to reassure your BF that he is much better than the other people etc.. and in various ways, not just the bedroom. Tidier, easier to live with, someone you'd rather be with etc...

Spend a little while doing some reassurance and then write a letter to him.

Don't blame him for anything, just tell him that YOU want to forget the past and pretend that it never happened but you can't because he keeps reminding you.

Start off with a week or so of not mentioning any NAMES, them move towards not referring to any incidents.

In fact, you'll need to try to establish this pattern for the rest of your life. (ie: with future incidents). This jealousy and obsession will not be kind to your relationship in the long run, so you need to develop a long-term plan now.

Argentina.... you could probably benefit from the same approach if you're not too far down the track that your husband will still listen to you. Marriage is supposed to be a gift. If you're finding that you hate being married more often than not (it's normal to think that way sometimes), then you need to take steps to make it a more enjoyable and shared experience. If you're married to an aspie, then that means rules - and it means telling it to them straight.

Do you not feel this might be to do with his fears of being cuckolded or dominated by these men while you're in a relationship with him? That they might come back to shag his girlfriend and then show him the photos after whilst laughing at his face?

I'd definitely say there was an insecurity/domination issue there. What does everyone else think?

I can't relate to that at all, either from the perspective of worrying about a partner's past relationships or not wanting to ever hear their names mentioned. I want to hear stories, and tell them without editing out important characters. I don't have jealousy issues, though, and wouldn't date someone who did.

If NT-ish people commonly have this aversion to hearing about past partners, they've never bothered to tell me about it. I don't mention them all the time, though, and never in bed.

I definitely agree with what you've said about the extreme insecurity that he's dealing with. He's never been in a relationship before this one. I reassure him all the time that I've forgotten about my past and want to focus on the present and our future together, but it doesnt seem to do much help. I really like the idea of writing him a letter, maybe it will be more effective and he can read it whenever. Thank you for your help and advice!

Letters work. When I split with my Aspie boyfriend for a while I wrote him a letter every week. It was these letters that helped gain back openness into the relationship.

Letters with trinkets can also be nice, I am an artist so I painted pictures of his favourite things or sketches of him or something he likes and sent a picture along with each letter I wrote. It's a nice way of reassurance that you love him the way he is and doesn't need to compare or change himself or be anything other than who he is.

He will have to restructure how he thinks. It took me almost a decade to "accept" that my future girlfriends will have been tainted by previous partners. I realised that there is nothing they could do, or that I could do about it. All I could do is think about the future rather than dwell on the past, as the future can be moulded and changed, whereas the past can't be.

He can get over it, but only if he works at it. I still find myself struggling and wondering how many partners my girlfriends have had, but I realised that this is only detrimental as it has no bearing on the future.