Aspies For Freedom

I've known this amazing guy for almost a year now, and we've been dating for a month or two. He lives about 200 miles from me, so we won't get to see eachother often until I move for college. I always knew he was a little different, but everyone is a little different from everyone else. But I guess I didn't understand because I haven't been around him enough yet.

Over the past couple weeks, we've been fighting constantly. It was almost always over the fact that I never knew what he was feeling and he didn't understand why I would get frustrated when he would say inappropriate things to me and not realise it. And then finally last night he told me he has Asperger's and that he had been afraid to tell me because the other girs he had dated and told panicked and left him.

I'll admit I was a bit confused, so I decided to to some research. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders now that I understand a little better. I decided I wanted to look for some books on it this weekend when I go shopping.

I guess the reason for my post is to ask for advice. I'm new to this, and though I had heard of Asperger's, I didn't know what it was until last night. I recently realised that maybe I love him and that last night and today have been really good for us because we can talk now without getting into an arguement. But does anyone have any advice for an oblivious girlfriend? Any other girlfriends who would like to share their experiences? Any guys with AS who would like to share some words of wisdom?

Really, any help you can give me would be wonderful. I want to hold on to this guy and I'm willing to do what I can.

Hello. I've posted over 200 times now so maybe I'm qualified to welcome you?

This is my point. I have AS and I don't really understand when to say something and how to say it and what I do say and do often comes accross wrong.

I can often appear cold and uncaring. I can also be good company and sociable and then suddenly lose interest and dissappear for a bit.

AS people generally seem to like their personal space both physically and emotionally. You can't generalise AS unfortunately it seems as everyone is different.

Very helpful. Thank you.

And what is even more amusing to me right now is that his name is Michael too.

It frustrates me quite alot that I can have good friends on the PC and not in real life. People post there pictures so I know one or two of the people I'm replying to. If you are prepared to get to know michael and understand him better I really admire you. My wish is someone would do that to me.

This is true for me. I do not react differently to other peoples emotions, except to get annoyed that they are inflicting them on me.

I like talking on-line and PM's. A woman from Wales and I plan to met up soon. Most people seem to be from America which means staying up late.

Thanks Bob, but I think it will be a complete *** up and I'll never see her again! I'm smiling at that thought though!

Hi Yulya, welcome to the board.

I think I'm just looking for any general information or advice anyone is willing to give.

Thank you all. It's nice to have some support.

"No two aspies are alike, so it is quite difficult to supply generalised advice. One thing I do which may annoy people is that I don't act any differently towards a person no matter what emotion they are currently experiencing. This means I may appear quite insensitive if they are sad or not enthusiastic enough if they are excited and so on. I don't mean to be those things its just that I don't know how to react to the emotions in an appropriate way, or whether I have even got the emotion right to begin with, so I think it is best if I don't do anything differently."

This is similiar to me. The 'No two aspies are alike' thing is a questionable statement, as for me and my best friend, who is a year younger than me, who i have known ever since he was born (seriously), are alike in ALMOST every way. You are right that two aspies are never the same, thats true, its just human nature to be different in at least one aspect, but i am almost the same as him.

KrispyG76, your post #11 was brilliant. Thank you.

"And when he finally comes to his own conclusion which was the same one I was trying to explain, we've already been through three hours of argument."

LOL! Yeah, I know that one. And once that point is reached, he feels. "Okay. Everything's fine now," but you're still angry and hurt over the argument?

As a guy with an Aspie boyfriend, my advice is to know EVERYTHING you can about Asperger's (that's why I'm here, and I learn A LOT) -- and whenever you're upset or confused or hurt or angered by something he says, STOP and check what's going on.

-- Ask yourself -- Is this an Aspie thing? Factor out the Aspieness. Don't let a perfectly normal Aspie thing upset you.

-- Am I frustrated because I'm putting an NT interpretation/reaction on a non-NT behavior?

-- Don't assume that when he does something it means the same thing it would mean if an NT did it. That's a hard transition to make, of course -- you've been working on NT assumptions in an NT world all your life.

-- Look at yourself. There ARE things about you that he has to deal with, too. for example, I have Attention Deficit Disorder. Neither Erich nor I are perfect, so any time I find myself thinking "Why can't you be perfect, like me," I have to realize -- duh. I'm not perfect either.

I had an Aspie boyfriend about 10 years ago -- but neither of us knew he was Aspie. In fact, neither of us even knew there was such a thing as Asperger's. I couldn't deal with Dan's "weirdness" and we broke up. By the time I met Erich, I had learned a lot, and we're really happy. I'm fine with a lot of things that totally upset and frustrated me when I was with Dan, because i understand them -- i'm not just reacting out of an NT expectation about everything.

As you mentioned you preferred books, have a look at these:
Gisela Slater-Walker, Chris Slater-Walker: An Asperger Marriage
ISBN: 1843100177
Ashley Stanford: Asperger Syndrome and Long - Term Relationships:
ISBN: 1843107341
They're both at ~19 U$ and I found both of them offered a lot of insight. I'm 36, male, most likely AS and living with/married to my wife since 1992.

"you honestly cant love a guy you've only known for a year and only dated for a month or two, because you don't even KNOW that person."

I don't think people should rush to judgments about who does/doesn't or can/can't love people under various circumstances. You say they don't know each other, but do you know them?

Some people can know and be known very quickly and others are very difficult or resistant to being known at all -- even after a lifetime together. When I look back on people I love (or have loved) I can see that in most cases I loved them (and knew them) after much less than a year -- in a couple of cases, I knew within weeks.

I doesn't mean that person will be the one great love of your lifetime, or even that you will always love them. But I'm suspicious of people who point at others and say "THAT's not love" and "That's not love."

Keep in mind that many "experts" once said that AS people can't actually love others. Other so-called experts say that only heterosexuals or only people of a certain age can authentically experience love. In America's slave-holding era, "experts" said it was okay to break up black families and sell their children and prevent slaves from marrying because "Negroes don't love each other the way we do." Spare us all from the "experts."

What they are really saying is "Only people like me experience love. Everyone else is experiencing something much inferior and they should not call it 'love'."

I think such accounts dispel the notion that people with AS can not love someone.

Hey there, julia!

I'll just start off by introducing myself; I'm an eighteen year old boy who's been diagnosed with asperger's syndrome from the age of twelve, and therefore have had a lot of time reconciling it. I have always been surrounded by people who love me, most notably my mother who has always supported me like not even the mightiest of roman heroes could ever support the roof of their pantheon. (She had worked with Asperger's since a few years after the time of my birth, and she always tried very hard to understand me, something i believe is paramount to any aspie/nt interaction) But i was also always surrounded by people who were totally confused by my personality, who couldn't understand how a nine-year old child could understand english and have such an interest in fantasy books and science fiction movies. To cut a long story short; I believe i know how to handle most emotions the world throw at me, and as such i believe i might be able to give you some advice.

But not only is the fact that i have asperger's related to your situation, i have also been in a relationship myself, one that lasted ten months and one in which we've never stopped loving each other, we've just realized we aren't right for each other. Also, the girl with whom i was together was similar to you in that she had Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, so i believe that at least some of the problems we faced are similar to those you do, and thus our answers should also pertain to your situation.

Err... excuse me for that long block of text about myself, I'll just hope that it helps you understand what I'm saying

When me and my former girlfriend had an argument, i found that the major problem was often that she wasn't listening to what i was saying, she was too caught up in her own emotions to be able to step back, inhale and cool down. Being cool is often necessary for NT's who want to handle communication with Aspies, for you have to constantly remind yourself that the chance of said Aspie implying anything by his words except for their direct literal meaning is minimal, even though you might be ready to fly into a fit of rage over the pure rudeness in the latest comment or such. Attaching emotions to words coming from an Aspie's mouth more often hinders than it helps. I am not saying that this is absolutely true, of course, but it seems to be the case in most situations

Also, another thing that helped alot was when i simply took time to formulate my words. What i would do was that i would just sit down, listen to her speaking, and ask questions. I would ask questions until i believed in understood everything she meant by what she said, and also i wouldn't stop until she knew why she said what she said, i wouldn't stop until she had figured that out, because it was such a valuable piece of information for both of us. I often did this after any arguments. I would ask what she was feeling, why she was feeling it, if she meant what she said by what she said and also if she really thought I was the worst person she had ever met and if she really wanted me to leave her alone and never come back ().

By doing this, by sitting down and being able to ask questions and hear everything explained to me, and by being able to have her answer specific questions, I was able to fully understand where she was coming from and what it was that was hurting her. Using this knowledge, I explained to her what i felt, and why.

Basically, what we had to do was for her to be cool and not attach too much meaning to my words except what they meant, and for me to really take care and be explicit when explaining what i felt and meant.

We never had anything between us that was misunderstood for any long period of time.

Also, another thing, even though Mikael may not be very good at showing that he loves you ( i do not know whether he is or not), that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't or that he doesn't enjoy it when you show him that you do. I also know that some aspies react eversely to being touched, hold, hugged or any being subjected to any number of sensory input, so intimacy may be a bit harder than usual, ask him about it, see if he has any problems with hugging or something of the sort ( If you don't know already).

I can't really give you any good personal advice in those departments though, because my girlfriend never perceived me as being bad at expressing emotions, and i am very cuddly

So, basically, i guess, i've been advertising for Love, Patience and Understanding, it is something that if you bth have it in ample amount, there will be no problems whatsoever that can't be surmounted

I really, really, sincerely and from the bottom of my heart hope that all goes well for you. It is very touching to see the amount of devotion you have in trying your best to understand your boyfriend, and i really do hope that you are justly rewarded, for it is a beautiful thing to be willing to spend so much time and energy to understand someone who is so easily turned aside as a freak as an Aspie is, you're lighting hopes beacon in my heart, as well as in that of Michael, i hope

P.S Oh, and i do apologize for the sheer amount of text, i got carried away a bit, hope there was at least some useful advice in there D.S