I said one thing, he understood another thing. Me NT he AS. I need some light here...

[Persephone_]

I'll try to make a resume of what happened, and I d like to hear some thoughts. Thank you.

So, hard aspects of my relationship: we live in distant countries, we dont talk in our native languages. So, what I will say happened on texting.

Background, we know each other in person. I know he is an Aspie, and at firts, that scared me. BUT, we found a way to get along and it was working. He is very special for me. And I feel I am special for him too.

The problem was... After some events that got me upset, I talked to him that I was feeling insecure, and in second place, that I could not build a relation alone, if he was still willing for that... Perhaps that wasn't the better approach, but, is done.

He didn't understood in that way. He attacked me saying nothing was enough. That his Aspie condition would never let him have a relation (that I never mentioned, and was never a problem for me).

I felt the misunderstood, and asked for sorry.... many times...but just got worse...

He just took what I wrote and make the worse interpretation... even if I say that is not what I spoke....

This is going on for more than a week. I wait for a few days, and then text again, trying to end this huge stupid fight.... I really don't want to cause a meltdown... but nothing seems to calm him down ..... I will stop talking to him.... see if time can make him see that I had no intentions to hurt him so much ..... I'm really sad I could not make him understand..

I know I sounded like a little girl, but thats exactly how I am feeling now...

Is there a way to deal with this?

And again, thank you...

 

[Maelstrom]

maybe say what the fight is about so we know what to say?
My sympathies to you I hope it works out?
Perhaps you are talking feelings and he is talking facts?

 

[Persephone_]

Maelstorm,
Thats the point... Even for me is not clear, cause I asked for a confirmation about his feelings, and he seems to felt like he disaponted me, saying nothing he gives was enough, and that he was condemned to live alone... is not clear for me what happened. Perhaps some echo from his past.
He doesnt sound to be talking about facts... he got really ofended, and even me asking sorry, didnt helped...

 

[Maelstrom]

Perhaps as a aspie he has failed to please others so many times he feels he has no hope of pleasing you?...he is giving up too easily?
You could look for a way to encourage him to keep trying....I am not a expert on such things does anyone else wish to help?

 

[Persephone_]

Maelstrom,
Thank you. That can be a possibility...

 

[Maelstrom]

Maelstrom,
Thank you. That can be a possibility...

You are welcome best wishes and good luck sorting it Persephone Mael

 

[Mia]

Give him some time, to think this out. Making no demands on how he feels about you. Then explain and clarify, often in relationships with Aspies there are misunderstandings with words, phrases, things said that are misinterpreted wrongly. He might think a certain phrase or word has only one particular meaning for him. When there may be several meanings and interpretations of those thoughts. That he is unaware of.

 

[Suzanne]

My husband is the NT and we mostly do not understand each other and it does cause a lot of blows between us, but it is usually me who realises that we are not on the same level.

You see, what he thought was: she wants me to be her support system and that panicked him, because he probably has a hard enough time to be his own support system.

When my husband shouts that all he wants is my sympathy or empathy or understanding, I can feel myself getting overwhelmed and want to turn away and just be on my own, but thankfully, I also have a spiritual conscious on me, because I am a christian and so, I appreciate that I am not being very fair to him, because he does give me a lot of support anyway and so, I try to be what he wants.

But you guys seem to just text and so, it is not a "real" relationship and so if ones can misunderstand when face to face, how much more so, when via text?

I would, in all honestly, advice you to say good bye, because if you are looking for the emotional support, you are not going to get it from him!

 

[Persephone_]

I just have to say thank you for all your answers here.

Maelstrom,
I was thinking about your words: "you said feelings, he understood facts"... I guess that might have happened.

Mia,
Yes, perhaps I used words with too much ways to interpretation... Not wise of my part.

Suzanne,
You just don't give up something that is special for you. I see many AS here just giving up people cause is hard... Life is hard, you have to fight for what you want. Relations between not AS people are also hard. We just need to know when is enough, the point that doesn't worth the relation.
I am not a needy person. I just wanted to know if he was taken the relationship serious, cause he said one specific phrase that made me worry. And I had no idea about other things that he was doing to build the relation, that I just found out after having this discussion.
And yes, is a long distance relation ship, but the time we spend together is really good, and yes, much easier to resolve things; and we both know that this is not easy, and to be together I will have to move.

 

[Persephone_]

Give him some time, to think this out. Making no demands on how he feels about you. Then explain and clarify, often in relationships with Aspies there are misunderstandings with words, phrases, things said that are misinterpreted wrongly. He might think a certain phrase or word has only one particular meaning for him. When there may be several meanings and interpretations of those thoughts. That he is unaware of.

Mia,
How much time you need to process one situation like this? One week? Two weeks? Or wait his contact? Cause I don't want to give him the impression that I don't care...
Thank you

 

[twilightzone76]

I just have to say thank you for all your answers here.

Maelstrom,
I was thinking about your words: "you said feelings, he understood facts"... I guess that might have happened.

Mia,
Yes, perhaps I used words with too much ways to interpretation... Not wise of my part.

Suzanne,
You just don't give up something that is special for you. I see many AS here just giving up people cause is hard... Life is hard, you have to fight for what you want. Relations between not AS people are also hard. We just need to know when is enough, the point that doesn't worth the relation.
I am not a needy person. I just wanted to know if he was taken the relationship serious, cause he said one specific phrase that made me worry. And I had no idea about other things that he was doing to build the relation, that I just found out after having this discussion.
And yes, is a long distance relation ship, but the time we spend together is really good, and yes, much easier to resolve things; and we both know that this is not easy, and to be together I will have to move.

I think Suzanne is just telling it like it is. Sometimes the truth hurts and people would rather stay in denial. It just kills me to see people alter who they are to try appease someone or make excuses for unhealthy behavior. You're just prolonging the inevitable by doing this. Just because someone has Aspergers doesn't mean you should bend over backwards to try to not "set them off".

 

[xDominiel]

Suzanne,
You just don't give up something that is special for you. I see many AS here just giving up people cause is hard... Life is hard, you have to fight for what you want. Relations between not AS people are also hard. We just need to know when is enough, the point that doesn't worth the relation.
I am not a needy person. I just wanted to know if he was taken the relationship serious, cause he said one specific phrase that made me worry. And I had no idea about other things that he was doing to build the relation, that I just found out after having this discussion.
And yes, is a long distance relation ship, but the time we spend together is really good, and yes, much easier to resolve things; and we both know that this is not easy, and to be together I will have to move.

Well said. Relationships are never easy. But if you care about each other and value it, it would be a shame to throw it all away. People really do give up too quickly. And I see that some here really underestimate how strong feelings can be even when it's long-distance. There is nothing "not real" about that. I hope you two succeed in working it out. Good luck.

 

[Mia]

Mia,
How much time you need to process one situation like this? One week? Two weeks? Or wait his contact? Cause I don't want to give him the impression that I don't care...
Thank you

Give it a week, and then make contact again. It will have given him time to process everything. Good Luck.

 

[Maelstrom]

[QUOTE="Suzanne,
When my husband shouts that all he wants is my sympathy or empathy or understanding,[/QUOTE]

Shouting at a lady isn't good

He should give you a ((hug)) if you are feeling bad.

The best way to get love and sympathy is to show it.

 

[Persephone_]

I would like to thank you all again for your words. I can understand now a bit more of what happened. And hopefully, how to deal with it.
thank you

 

[MrSpock]

I'm not expert in romantic relationships, I find them confusing, and of course I have a very limited idea of what's going on in your relationship. However I am an aspie and do want romance, have been working at it, and can offer the perspective of one person for whatever that's worth.

It often takes me many days, occasionally weeks, to figure out what has happened in an hour's worth of conversation with the woman whose wall I'm currently banging my head against. She uses hints to communicate with, not all the time, but often enough that I must be on the lookout for hints or else risk offending her by failing to respond to a hint. I cannot tell what is a hint and what is not, I am very poor at reading facial expression and body language, so I must treat a great many statements as possible hints. The possible hints could refer to just about anything so far as I know, and depending on what other statements are or are not hints can affect the meaning of any one hint. So the possibilities are seemingly endless, and I spend hours running through the various interpretations that may have been intended by her. I choose the most likely ones to accept for the time being, but must always keep in mind that any one, or all, of them may be wrong. Even after weeks of analysis all I really have are guesses.

When I am not feeling very confident about my current theories regarding hints and meanings it can be stressful to communicate with her. It seems that the more we communicate while I am feeling very confused, the more likely I am to respond inappropriately, the more likely she is to misunderstand what I am saying and to misinterpret my thoughts and feelings. From my perspective she seems quite capable of imagining that I feel a certain way when I don't, she doesn't tell me what she thinks I'm thinking often, and then she doesn't tell me why she thinks that so if she is wrong in what she thinks I'm thinking I have no way to tell her that I'm not thinking that in a convincing way. Because my feelings and facial expression are not wired in the same way that most people's are she can often misinterpret those feelings, and it's easy for us to reach the point where we are both either unsure or just wrong about what the other is thinking and feeling.

At such times of great confusion I am not comfortable trying to communicate with her, particularly when she's trying to force a conversation about feelings. I can not depend on her hearing what I say without misunderstanding, and talking on such topics at such times will often lead to further misunderstandings, which require more puzzling out and more damage repair is necessary than when we started the conversation... the opposite of what we were trying to accomplish. It can be very intimidating, more so because I do really care and want it to all work out.

At the best of times I'm well aware that my interpretation of our relationship may be faulty. At the worst it can take me well over a week to make anything that feels like a reasonable guess at what she's thinking and why the previous conversation went the way it did.

The following advice would apply if you were trying to communicate with me, just one unique aspie male. Try to keep your statements clear and logical, do not assume that he will know what the right thing to do is based on your feelings alone, you must explain what the consequences of you feeling a certain way are. Do not make any guesses at what he is feeling or thinking, if you suspect that he's feeling a certain way, ask him. Take his statements at face value, and if they seem to contradict what you have interpreted you should accept his words. I find it frustrating that often my words seem to be a small part of what she uses to assess what I'm thinking and feeling, her guesses based on things besides direct statements from me seem to serve only to confuse things for both of us. Don't respond when you're feeling really upset, write your texts in advance and look at them again when you're in a different mood and see if they might be interpreted differently, try to word things in a way that your mood does not affect the interpretation, make things very black and white. If he is struggling with interpreting your previous conversations you may not want to add to his confusion with further communication regarding intense feelings or relationshippy things, if you are uncomfortable with the silence then you might ask how he's doing, that sort of thing, but make sure that what you say can't be reasonably interpreted as hinting anything.

I want to help your relationship to succeed, in a way it makes me feel better to think I'm helping, if I cannot help my own relationship this seems at least some positive effort in a similar situation. So feel free to ask more questions, ask me to clarify anything that seems unclear. Keep in mind that I don't have a lot of romantic experience, and all of that has been rather confusing for me. It is quite possible that he wants your romance to succeed, but feels that he is hopeless at romance and while it might be worth the effort so far as he is concerned he might just be dragging you down with him. We don't just give up because it is difficult, many of us seem to give up because we're aware that the process causes pain for others, the ones that we really, really want to make happy. If it is true, you might want to let him know that you're willing to endure the pain for the possible reward that awaits you both.

I admire your determination and wish you the best of luck.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Do not make any guesses at what he is feeling or thinking, if you suspect that he's feeling a certain way, ask him. Take his statements at face value, and if they seem to contradict what you have interpreted you should accept his words. I find it frustrating that often my words seem to be a small part of what she uses to assess what I'm thinking and feeling, her guesses based on things besides direct statements from me seem to serve only to confuse things for both of us.

I was wishing I was Mr Spock after that reply.

Been married for a while and this stood out.

I try to speak plainly and mean what I say. I didn't realise that so much of what I have said in the past has not been taken at face value - especially when things are mentioned again after some time has gone past.

A lot of the time I'm not feeling anything or trying not to. So to be asked (when everyone knows the answer can't be nothing) is often not straightforward

 

[paloftoon]

Another possibility to consider, when you do speak again, is to consider de-escalating the relationship to platonic friendship since it appears that your aspie partner might not be able to handle the pressures of being in a relationship.

Even if things don't work out, the best way to leave is to end off leaving something positive behind. Try not to be fake about the positiveness. Really mean it. Because you never know. Don't blame, except for yourself possibly. I wish I had thought about this beforehand for myself ;(, but better slightly late than never.

 

[Judge]

One thing that frustrates me with NT/Aspie relationships is a perception that it's natural for both persons to give 50% in their relationship.

Not that the OP has expressed this. But rather that in this particular instance, her partner may be incapable of giving or expressing much at all. And that merely mentioning it sends him reeling in frustration.

I guess I can't help but wonder if this is one of those Aspies who simply cannot give what most any NT would construe as woefully inadequate to sustain a relationship. Where the NT must inevitably pull more weight in the relationship than they want to or can themselves. I just get this vibe here. If true, there's not much you can do in such a situation, unless you honestly begin to sense any real improvement volunteered on his part.

 

[Persephone_]

I want to help your relationship to succeed, in a way it makes me feel better to think I'm helping, if I cannot help my own relationship this seems at least some positive effort in a similar situation. So feel free to ask more questions, ask me to clarify anything that seems unclear. Keep in mind that I don't have a lot of romantic experience, and all of that has been rather confusing for me. It is quite possible that he wants your romance to succeed, but feels that he is hopeless at romance and while it might be worth the effort so far as he is concerned he might just be dragging you down with him. We don't just give up because it is difficult, many of us seem to give up because we're aware that the process causes pain for others, the ones that we really, really want to make happy. If it is true, you might want to let him know that you're willing to endure the pain for the possible reward that awaits you both.

Mr. Spock, thank you so much for this!

And again, thanks for all other messages... You guys are really supportive ...for everyone that comes here with doubts...

And, is funny, I call him Spock sometimes...... is like a couple nickname....

It seems to me, Spock gave me a very close perspective of what happened.... and then on the next messages, I ended up confusing him even more with my angry feelings..... that must have been like Chinese to him...... he must had felt angry and unwanted... oh my...

been like one week we don't talk...now we are apart, and I guess I ll have to wait his time to come back, and then I ll have to be really assertive and direct that I don't want this to end now......

I guess, this is the first time ever that I really understood how this went so bad...

and again, you all helped me....

Thank you...