personal life

Does any else find it hard to keep a relationship going past a few months.
I am real finding it hard to trust someone or rather find someone who can understand the way I am and understanding intemasey issues that arise with this.
And apreciate the advantages of having an AS in there life

Hey, thanks for posting here. I have no problem with trusting somebody (In fact I'm quite gullible) but I still find it very difficult to maintain relationships. I am currently in contact with no-one from my school days and no-one from my first college - I am now 23.


Relationships over the Internet or through a phone are okay but it all breaks down in relationships where you are supposed to meet-up with people. I hate socialising but if I do go out and am in a group situation I quickly become bored. In one-on-ones, as the relationship matures, my depression gets the better of me and the relationship fails. It is disastrous.


The only advantage that I can think of having AS right now is my good grades at college (my second college).


Take care,
Kevin.

i can hardly talk to anyone outside, im ok with relationships online and i have improved alot on the phone, i agree its the meeting part thats hard, it always easier said then done, what i notice about myself...

i get bad Mood swings when it comes to relationships

i get hugely jealous of other ppl in relationships because they have got it so easy

easly angry or upset by silly little things

anyone else experience them?

im currently in a online relationship, she likes me and wants to meet me, she lives like 8 hours away from me lol, she fully understands the whole asperger's thing, and says she doesn't care, but then again she is the complete opposite to me she is full of life, confidents and quite crazy at times and has over a dozen friends, and im not to sure how i would be in person with her, she might decide im alot more difficult then she thought :cry:

One of the key learning tools in relationships is failure. Neurotypicals find it far easier to establish friendships, thus the loss of any single friendship due to a failure to behave properly is less significant. We find it difficult to build friendships to even the basic stages, so losing all that progress to a mistake is more devastating.

Additionally, when the neurotypical has a problem they're much more likely to be able to identify the cause, avoid it in the future, and perhaps even repair the relationship that was damaged by apologizing for the correct mistake. We Aspies tend to stand around dumbfounded scratching our heads at a complete loss for what went wrong.


What this means is that it takes us much, much longer to learn these types of lessons. Unfortunately they just can't be learned very well out of a book or non-practical environment. You pretty much have got to jump in with both feet and either sink or swim.

The most invaluable tool for us is someone who's patient, understanding, and above all able to be completely honest even if it isn't the nicest thing to say to us. If you've got the opportunity to make friends with someone who believes they can handle a friendship with someone with Asperger's go for it. Either they can or they can't, and honestly it's no skin off your back either way.

It sucks, but failure is the best teacher. Don't pass up opportunities because they're likely to fail; walk straight in. Try not to fail, but be extra alert so that if failure happens you're more likely to record all the details that can help you unlock what led to the failure. (Note that when I'm using the word "failure" I'm not meaning it in the personal way, but in the mechanical way. Ie "structural failure". It's not our fault that social rules weren't "written" with us in mind.)


So whyme, take the chance. I wouldn't say that an 8 hour trip is nothing at all (it's not insurmountable, but that's a heck of a long way). Just keep your mind open to solutions of getting together with this girl. Who knows, there might be something there. Try to stay open to the possibility without letting yourself depend on it enough that you'll be crushed if it doesn't work.

Success in long-distance relationships is a low percentage, but it's non-zero. (I'm blissfully married to a wonderful NT girl that I met online who lives 13 hours from where I did at the time.) Sometimes the long shot pays off, just don't bet the farm.

whyme wrote:she is full of life, confidents and quite crazy at times and has over a dozen friends

All of my previous girlfriends were like that. I think that is the type of partners that we will attract. Picture it like this: They are talkative and we are not. Therefore they always get to say everything they want to while we happily listen away. It is definately a case of opposites attracting.


Kevin.

I haven't talked to a girl around my age in years, so I can't get into a relationship in the first place. =/

Spektyr wrote:One of the key learning tools in relationships is failure. Neurotypicals find it far easier to establish friendships, thus the loss of any single friendship due to a failure to behave properly is less significant. We find it difficult to build friendships to even the basic stages, so losing all that progress to a mistake is more devastating.

I don't know. I do make contact with people rather easy, there's a fixed set of phrases and behaviour that can make you look like a nice person. The problem is keeping up appearances for a longer time, so most of the time people tend to stop calling me after a couple of months. Only "friends" I meet regularly are the people I play together with. I play in a band and a fanfare, saxophone. That's easier, because when playing, you don't have to talk

Additionally, when the neurotypical has a problem they're much more likely to be able to identify the cause, avoid it in the future, and perhaps even repair the relationship that was damaged by apologizing for the correct mistake. We Aspies tend to stand around dumbfounded scratching our heads at a complete loss for what went wrong.

Very recognizable. I just broke up with my last girlfriend. I still don't know exactly why in fact. Yes, she asked "the question" : whether i'm the most special for her. I couldn't say yes, because I don't know how to measure "specialness". But then again, I realized that she was the structure-element in my life. Without her, I'm back to chaos all over.

What this means is that it takes us much, much longer to learn these types of lessons. Unfortunately they just can't be learned very well out of a book or non-practical environment. You pretty much have got to jump in with both feet and either sink or swim.

Wise lesson. But trying also implicates multiple failure, which can lead to the thought that it just never will work. So I'm happy for the positive stories here, keep me going too.

The most invaluable tool for us is someone who's patient, understanding, and above all able to be completely honest even if it isn't the nicest thing to say to us.

Describes my ex-girlfriend perfectly. One more factor you should add : being able to deal with less visible affection and understanding the emotional difficulties. I wanted to do things for her that made her happy, but I couldn't do the thing that would make her happy the most : loving her in the way my mother, brother and sister love their partners.

Success in long-distance relationships is a low percentage, but it's non-zero. (I'm blissfully married to a wonderful NT girl that I met online who lives 13 hours from where I did at the time.) Sometimes the long shot pays off, just don't bet the farm.

I find long-distance more easy : you don't have to watch your steps the whole time. Even when your partner is very understanding, I at least have to think constantly about not saying something that hurts them to the bones. I'm pretty good in that But they're defenitely not evident, it's again moving around in multiple environments, and switching constantly is rather stressy sometimes.

greetzz

Okay i'm trying to go off of memory because i am not sure how mindyou added all the quotes.
To the person who posted the original i would like to give you props for attempting new relationships even though they only last a couple of months. I believe it takes a special person to understand as completely, just as some people will refuse to understand, it is possible that you are just choosing individuals who cannot understand as. Or the people you are meeting are just not right for you. Whatever the case i hope you meet someone who understands.

chucky, i too am 23 and i agree with the people we attract. my last girlfriend of a year and a half was very talkative and freindly my only mistake was not accepting and or understanding myself, I ended up letting her go for her sake, I felt as if i could not give her what she needed. But now i regret what i did and only wish i could have known about as and tried to make it work. Oh well i guess it was a big life lesson. She still has a spot in my heart and i am thakfull for the time we had.

whyme: i feel what you are saying because i have experienced sour relationships, ones i felt jealous in and also moody. My input is those relationships in which you feel jealous are incomplete relationships, I appreciate the good relationships i have and actually avoid relationshis that spur resentment. I have been fortunate enought to experience both sides. I feel in relationships with women opposites attract but in relationships with same sex or friends (buddies) similarities attract.
as far as the female you met i would say right on, i would also suggest you be yourself, becasue the worst thing i have ever done is be someon i am not. I also want to know where I can meet someone like you are describing. I tried a dating website but blah, nothing real came out of it, i wish you the best.

mindyou wrote:I don't know. I do make contact with people rather easy, there's a fixed set of phrases and behaviour that can make you look like a nice person. The problem is keeping up appearances for a longer time, so most of the time people tend to stop calling me after a couple of months. Only "friends" I meet regularly are the people I play together with. I play in a band and a fanfare, saxophone. That's easier, because when playing, you don't have to talk

Yeah, that's not what I was referring to. The short-term "Hi, I'm just another faceless social automaton" interaction is pretty formulaic and simple. It's the long-term stuff that runs our social cloaking device down and expose us for being alien.

It's like physical exercise - the more you push yourself the better your endurance gets. I can't say for sure that any Aspie will get to the point where they aren't absolutely exhausted at the end of a day of pretending to be normal just so that they don't have to train each and every NT they meet to understand AS. Personally, I gave up. I'll make an effort for most of the people I meet, but I quit trying to make a career out of acting "normal" as well as working a career.

mindyou wrote:Very recognizable. I just broke up with my last girlfriend. I still don't know exactly why in fact. Yes, she asked "the question" : whether i'm the most special for her. I couldn't say yes, because I don't know how to measure "specialness". But then again, I realized that she was the structure-element in my life. Without her, I'm back to chaos all over.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like this girl wasn't really adapted to the task of maintaining a relationship with an Aspie. The task of assembling things said and unsaid into a picture of a relationship is an inexact science, but I've always seemed to have a knack for it. (From the earliest days of the Internet I've seemed to have an uncanny insight into other people's relationships, but little to no insight into my own.)

One of the key requirements is the ability to step outside your own emotional responses and evaluate the Aspie's response dispassionately. Yes, your answer was not the one she wanted to hear. It was, however, honest. Furthermore, it was not actually a reason to terminate the relationship. That response coming from a neurotypical would have been bad. From an Aspie it's not that big a deal.

So the fact that she'd ask this question, get what she perceived to be the "wrong" answer, and then walk away from the relationship because she didn't understand the reasoning behind it indicates to me that you were probably trying to be "normal" and she was expecting you to react in a more traditional manner.

The relationship can't be conducted too much on one side or the other - we can't be expected to adapt wholly to them, and they can't be expected to adapt wholly to us. It's got to be a middle ground and some rules have got to be set - and not left unspoken.


Take for example my marriage. Now my wife is like most men in that she thinks the question "Do I look fat in this?" is both unfair and useless. There is only one correct answer, thus the question need not be asked. You either get an honest or dishonest response and there's no way to know which is which. Furthermore, should the incorrect response be given it is still the asker's fault for requesting an answer. But more important than the fact that my wife and I agree on this is the literally spoken rule that the asker of a question must allow for an honest answer. If you don't want to hear a potential response you must stipulate so in advance. Furthermore, if you get a response you don't like you absolutely must seek out the reasoning behind it before holding it against the other person.


But again, it seems to me that this girl wasn't really ready for a relationship with an Aspie. Not your fault. Not her fault. Just a fact.

mindyou wrote:Wise lesson. But trying also implicates multiple failure, which can lead to the thought that it just never will work. So I'm happy for the positive stories here, keep me going too.

Positive stories are great. Just don't bank on success either. This is the depressing part but I'm not going to lie - I would expect everyone here to be intelligent enough to see the flaws in that logic if I tried.

Bad odds are bad odds. Aspies are likely to fail at relationships more often than they succeed. That means the odds of never successfully acheiving an enduring relationship are much higher for us. Does that mean it can't be done? Certainly not. Does that mean it's not worth trying? Of course not.

Just be realistic, that's all. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. If at some point along the way you get tired of trying and failing just put trying on hiatus. There's nothing wrong with a person who decides to be single.

I guess what I'm saying here is that I believe it is important to recognize the very real possibility that each of us may end up spending most or all of our lives alone in the romantic sense. Find other things to enrich your life - don't allow yourself to consider romance the central yard stick of your social success. If you have some success, great.


Before I met my wife I had planned out a life that would be rewarding and full without someone else to validate my existence. I just happened to get lucky. But honestly you're not likely to be happy with someone else if you can't find a way to be happy with yourself all alone.

mindyou wrote:Describes my ex-girlfriend perfectly. One more factor you should add : being able to deal with less visible affection and understanding the emotional difficulties. I wanted to do things for her that made her happy, but I couldn't do the thing that would make her happy the most : loving her in the way my mother, brother and sister love their partners.

Yeah, there's a lot of factors in a relationship. If you take all the things a NT expects in a relationship and all the things an Aspie expects you're likely to add up more things than either party can supply. It's not important which things you end up actually bringing to the table as long as both parties feel like they're working together as an equal partnership.

mindyou wrote:I find long-distance more easy : you don't have to watch your steps the whole time. Even when your partner is very understanding, I at least have to think constantly about not saying something that hurts them to the bones. I'm pretty good in that But they're defenitely not evident, it's again moving around in multiple environments, and switching constantly is rather stressy sometimes.

Again the issue is endurance. Long-distance relationships are easier, but do not possess the ability to "go the distance". The greater the challenge the greater the reward, you get what you pay for, and all that, right? It's easy to pass under the radar if you keep the exposure limited. However, because you hide part of yourself from them in this way you never let yourself be known.

Relationships are fulfilling in direct proportion to how much the other person knows you and chooses to be your friend in spite of your flaws.

Spektyr wrote:So the fact that she'd ask this question, get what she perceived to be the "wrong" answer, and then walk away from the relationship because she didn't understand the reasoning behind it indicates to me that you were probably trying to be "normal" and she was expecting you to react in a more traditional manner.

Thank you for your long response. Most of it sounds very much like my idea about the whole thing, although I have to admit that I have difficulties accepting it.

One point I have to make clear though : she didn't run away. I did, because I couldn't cope with those questions and how she was hurt every time I gave an answer. She can't help it, it's logic that it hurts. It just made me realize every time that I am not capable of loving her as a partner instead of as a friend (although a very valuable one). It made her sad, because worried that I would run away at some point. And now she "knows" she is right, but I can't explain to her that I left her because I don't want to make her sad. Which doesn't make sense, because leaving her makes her sad too. Only less long, I tend to believe.

The point where I couldn't take it any more, was when a good foreign friend of mine called me to say that she wasn't going to have contact with me any more. That girl was madly in love with me. I tend to talk to people the way they talk to me (an easy way to figure out which "register" one has to use : formal speech, loose speech, clear, diplomatic, rude,...). So you can imagine it was hard for this girl knowing I had a girlfriend and still hearing me talk to her in a bit too emotional way. She did have some attraction factor as well, and being a man and all that...

After that girl called me, I was a bit devastated, because I realized I liked talking to her and mailing with her. And then my girlfriend was devastated too, because she noticed I was confused about the whole thing and thought I would rather be with that girl than with her. Now to be truly honest : if she asks that question, again I cannot but answer "I don't know".

So with all this, I thought it would be better to just leave her again, so she could find somebody that loves her the way a woman has to be loved. I just couldn't imagine it rock my life that hard. I feel confused, sad because I hurt her, and I have no clue as to what I want to do now. Apart from figuring out what's wrong with me exactly, and first clean up my life and myself before I even think about a relation again. As you said :

But honestly you're not likely to be happy with someone else if you can't find a way to be happy with yourself all alone.

Very wise and thank your for pointing that out again. So for me, that's back to start.

kind regards