Something that is being talked about with most AS groups I have been on is relationships. 1: can people with Aspergers have a relationship and 2: Could it be between someone who has AS and someone is NT. This is always something that has made me think. I have always been in a relationship I am 30 now, I had my first girlfriend at 15, between then and now I have probably gone about 3 years without a girlfriend. My life has always changed dramatically every time I have moved into a relationship. Because being with them means making compromises and doing things that they were able to make me do. I wouldn’t have gone to Uni, I wouldn’t have been diagnosed and wouldn’t now have a job and be living in my own place without having someone else. I have always been with people that were NT looking back at all of them there is no doubt that any of them were AS. I have read that when someone with AS gets with someone else that has it, the social interaction and lack of stress and general mood is a good thing. I kind of get that its a good thing as far as stresses and an easy life can be. For me though you need that person who will push you and make you do things you would never make yourself to do. My current relationship is a good example of that. Before her I was single and had been single for three years in those three years, I became more and more of a recluse. Before that my previous relationship was with someone who pushed for me to get help and then supported me through the diagnosis. Anyway back to the three years of being singlr part from going to work and therapy I didn’t go out. I food shopped online or in the closest shop, not getting on a bus through fear of public transport. I just stayed indoors watching films and playing on game consoles. If i knew about any situation that was coming up say a birthday, or a wedding etc. I would get my excuses in early I didn’t even go back to my home town to see family because of the stress involved. Going on a tangent this behaviour to me is why being in a pure AS relationship could be a problem as both sides of the relationship would want to insulate themselves from the world to an unhealty level. Obviously this is speculation and I can only talk about mysef, seeing as all AS people are different there is no way of knowing how it would work, as I understand it that female Aspies are different to male counterparts. Makes me wonder about Homosexual AS relationships. As males have different traits to females, so theoretically gay Aspies would have more Asperger symmetry then those who are in a hetrosexual relationship.
Aaaaaaaaany way, the current relationship I am in has changed so much about my lifestyle. What I am like now is different to what I was like then is so different. I can weigh my new job which is going well, my ability to do massive things like hang out with people in a place that isn’t just the place of work. I visit my family more tha I ever did. I can shop and be away from my house for longer periods of time, even days at time. I am more comfortable with my Aspergers and can wear bear hug vests in public and buy sensory items that I wouldn’t even think about using. She has always been supportive and gets when I am having a meltdown it’s not on my own. Yeah the intimacy is an issue, I am not good with physical contact. I don’t get “the urges” NT folk get and things like holding hands and laying about on the sofa are things that I don’t understand and aren’t things that I feel the need to do. I get that my other half likes these things and needs these things. I try and do them but it doesn’t come natural, I have to almost leave post-it note reminders to do these things. I explained to my girlfriend before he became my girlfriend what she was getting herself into but I don’t think she understood what she was getting herself into and I didn’t explain what I am. It’s been well over two years now and she is still with me and there have been some hard situations. The physical stuff is the main problem, I try and be emotionally there but I can be unfeeling and hideous at times. Once again a AS/AS relationship probably doesn’t have these issues, I imagine they can go years not touching each other at all. Which I could, in the three years I was single I never once craved physical contact. So for me a NT/AS relationship works for me.
On the other side of it though. Every relationship I have had has ended because of me. My coldness, my disconnection, my lack of emotion etc. Some of the core things that make me AS are the reasons my relationships have ended. My current relationship is the first where I have had a diagnosis so it’s different as there is disclosure. My girlfriend knows that some of the things I do aren’t malicious or mean they are just things that I can’t help. She has joined groups for NT women who are with AS partners. All of them tell her to not marry an Aspie, to save herself now while she is young, that they wish they had never been involved with a burger. Some even mention the genetic issue that as an Aspie I can pass my burger genes onto a child. So I can only write this blog from my point of view and not from the countless others who are in a NT/AS relationship. It works for me as it pushes me to do things that I have been told as an AS that I shouldn’t be able to do. There are many burgers out there who don’t believe in being with anyone at all and don’t do relationships. Those who are diagnosed early probably won’t look for relationships. There is a good chance that because I was an AS raised as an NT I got into relationships because I thought it was the thing to do. Either way it works for me. There isn’t a definitive answer I guess and maybe the NT/AS relationships like NT/NT are all down to just finding the right person and making it work.
Aaaaaaaaany way, the current relationship I am in has changed so much about my lifestyle. What I am like now is different to what I was like then is so different. I can weigh my new job which is going well, my ability to do massive things like hang out with people in a place that isn’t just the place of work. I visit my family more tha I ever did. I can shop and be away from my house for longer periods of time, even days at time. I am more comfortable with my Aspergers and can wear bear hug vests in public and buy sensory items that I wouldn’t even think about using. She has always been supportive and gets when I am having a meltdown it’s not on my own. Yeah the intimacy is an issue, I am not good with physical contact. I don’t get “the urges” NT folk get and things like holding hands and laying about on the sofa are things that I don’t understand and aren’t things that I feel the need to do. I get that my other half likes these things and needs these things. I try and do them but it doesn’t come natural, I have to almost leave post-it note reminders to do these things. I explained to my girlfriend before he became my girlfriend what she was getting herself into but I don’t think she understood what she was getting herself into and I didn’t explain what I am. It’s been well over two years now and she is still with me and there have been some hard situations. The physical stuff is the main problem, I try and be emotionally there but I can be unfeeling and hideous at times. Once again a AS/AS relationship probably doesn’t have these issues, I imagine they can go years not touching each other at all. Which I could, in the three years I was single I never once craved physical contact. So for me a NT/AS relationship works for me.
On the other side of it though. Every relationship I have had has ended because of me. My coldness, my disconnection, my lack of emotion etc. Some of the core things that make me AS are the reasons my relationships have ended. My current relationship is the first where I have had a diagnosis so it’s different as there is disclosure. My girlfriend knows that some of the things I do aren’t malicious or mean they are just things that I can’t help. She has joined groups for NT women who are with AS partners. All of them tell her to not marry an Aspie, to save herself now while she is young, that they wish they had never been involved with a burger. Some even mention the genetic issue that as an Aspie I can pass my burger genes onto a child. So I can only write this blog from my point of view and not from the countless others who are in a NT/AS relationship. It works for me as it pushes me to do things that I have been told as an AS that I shouldn’t be able to do. There are many burgers out there who don’t believe in being with anyone at all and don’t do relationships. Those who are diagnosed early probably won’t look for relationships. There is a good chance that because I was an AS raised as an NT I got into relationships because I thought it was the thing to do. Either way it works for me. There isn’t a definitive answer I guess and maybe the NT/AS relationships like NT/NT are all down to just finding the right person and making it work.
