could it be asperger's?

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Hi all!
I'm sorry for this story, I know that often neurotypical people come here to ask if their bf/gf could be an aspie and I don't want to offend anyone so as a disclaimer let me say that the reason I do it is that I don't want to talk to him about this yet, I don't think he would accept it very well right now. And in fact the only reason I want to know if he could be on the spectrum or not is *only* so that I can understand his behavior better and help him instead of getting mad at him, and absolutely NOT to try to change him or anything. In fact, excactly the opposite!

Ok, so we are both 33 years old. I'm a woman, neurotypical. As for him I never thought he was not NT but maybe because I didn't know anything about AS. However I always thought he was behaving in a "strange" way and in fact the words I would always use is that "his brain is wired differently". So we are together for 3 years now. We have always been in a long distance relationship.

When we met we fell in love immediately. He's a very smart person, super kind and pleasant and also very social. Five days after we met he had to go back to his country and we said we would be in touch. He initiated the contact and it was wonderful, he was expressing his feelings in an amazing way. The first weird thing I noticed is that, even though we would talk throughout the week, he would start disappearing on the weekends. Naturally I thought he wasn't interested in me or maybe that he has a gf. I asked him and he denied it but I wasn't taking him too seriously to be honest, let's say I was trying to understand if he's honest without getting too emotionally attached. We met again after a couple of months and everything was great. I met his family and all his friends, I mean, it's not possible that there would be another gf, he introduced me to everyone! So anyway I started trusting him but he still would disappear from time to time.

A few months later I moved to a city close to his so we saw each other every weekend, and I know now that he loves me and that he cares and he is faithful. A year ago he had to move in another country so we see each other every 1-2 months which has been very hard for me, especially with his communication patterns. Lately he is very very stressed so he might just disappear for 3-4 days and not even reply to my messages. Even when he's not stressed he says he forgets to reply sometimes or that "he had nothing useful to say". I have talked to him about it and he seems to understand at the moment but then he forgets again. I even try to make a rule for him that he has to just acknowledge a message even if he doesn't want to say anything else. He does it for a while and then he goes back to his old ways. This is not to say he never initiates conversation or that he never replies, just that he does that pretty often. His excuses mainly are either that he had nothing to say or he forgot or that he got distracted by something else.

Of course I am not saying he might have AS because of just that. There are other things too, like sometimes I say something to him and he just doesn't say anything back. I feel like I said something stupid but he says he doesn't know what to say so he says nothing. Also very often, even when we have sex, he has this expressionless face so I don't know if he likes sth or not. And he doesn't know that he does that. At first he would give me compliments and tell me "I love you for this .." etc but now he says that he doesn't have to say anything like that again because he has already said it so I should know it's true (yes, like 3 years ago). He very often talks about computers and doesn't let anyone else talk. Even if we have another conversation with people it is not strange for him to hijack it and start his monologue about computers or politics. Mostly computers though. Even sometimes I tell him that I'm not interested in this topic at that moment and that we can talk about it later but he doesn't seem to get it and he goes on. He is also very often in his little cloud, I talk to him and he doesn't listen at all. I might even dance naked in front of him and he won't see me! Finally when we are home just the two of us, very often he just wants to stay silent and watch something and even if I initiate a conversation he rarely engages.

Of course there are many more little details that I cannot write or this post will be huge. I think these are the most important things that make me think he might have AS. I did some research and most of them seem to be traits but I don't know if for example an aspie can be as social as he is. Also, I have no idea if the "disappearing" thing is a trait or not. So I would appreciate any input please.

Again, I'm sorry for this type of post, I hope you understand where I'm coming from. I just didn't know where to ask about this so I can have a bit of a more informed opinion on that - I don't want to make a diagnosis myself obviously and I don't want to mention it to him, I don't think it would be fair to do it with my poor knowledge on the subject. I just want to understand him..

Sorry for the long post....

Aspie here, and I certainly share and recognize some of these behaviours.

Is there any particular detail you'd like my take on?

As for the being social thing, aspies can be very social. What tends to happen is that social interaction over time exhausts us mentally, and we need to be alone for a while. It's not a reflection on you or anyone around you. For me, it usually involves a favourite armchair, a good book and a fine whisky. Others may have their own variants, but the need for alone time tends to be universal.

Hi!! Thanks a lot for your reply!

I don't know if he indeed needs time alone after socializing. He doesn't talk too much about how he feels and in fact I feel that he's more social than me. I know that I certainly do need my alone time maybe even more than him, or this is how i see it (I'm kinda introvert).

I am mainly worried/wondering more about the communication aspect of our relationship. Sometimes he seems to not understand how him disappearing could hurt me. Is this something that is common as well? I mostly care about this aspect because it is the only one that actually creates some kind of problem in our relationship, since we live in different countries. I can deal with the rest pretty easily, I actually like most of it. I just mentioned those to give a more complete image.

>When we met we fell in love immediately. He's a very smart person, super kind and pleasant and also very social. >Five days after we met he had to go back to his country and we said we would be in touch. He initiated the contact >and it was wonderful, he was expressing his feelings in an amazing way.

Aspies typically can't do this sort of social interaction--even for a few days. The best most of us can do is some sort of sales script for business--what you describe is way better than that. And many Aspies can't even do the script to hold a job, which is why they should be on disability, or in jobs that don't need social interaction.

Thank you BTDT! That was very useful to know.

Sometimes Aspies can express their feelings at the begging of the relationship because they feel they are supposed to & want to but some get tired of it real quick & don't feel like they need to sense it has already been said in the begging. They feel they show their feelings with actions rather than words. As for the communication issue. It's pretty common for Aspies to get overwhelmed within a relationship & feel the need to have some space. They also can get distracted by things like their special interests when they are having needed down time. AD(H)D can make it worse which some Aspies do have. As for him being social. Some Aspies have learned to be pretty social but it takes them a lot of effort for them to do it. There are even some Aspies on this forum who are extroverts. I'm sorry I don't really have any advice for you thou.

Thanks a lot for your reply. It's ok you don't have advice, I understand that it is not possible to have a complete view of a person through a post in a forum. I just wanted the opinion of people because myself I never dealt with that and even though I can certainly see on him some aspergers traits, according to the research I've done, I cannot be sure wether some of his personalities traits are indicating that he is not an aspie. For example his ability to express his feelings so well at the beginning, or the social behavior that he has. In fact most of the times he is the one wanting to be with other people all the time compared to me (I certainly need my alone time).

I don't know, is it possible for someone to have prominent aspergers traits but not be an aspie in fact?

There are a variety of mental illnesses that result in cyclical depression that women get diagnosed with instead of Aspergers.

http://wrongplanet.net/search-results/? ... &sa=Submit

ASDs are most easily diagnosed in childhood, when mental illness is rare.