Hi All,
I started dating a man about a year ago & couldn't quite figure out why we were having such difficult communications problems. Finally my therapist surmised that he might have Aspergers as well as his wife who had died two years prior. I am certainly NOT trying to lay all the blame on his illness, but there are so many things about him that I don't understand. Please, don't anyone take offense at my lack of knowledge, OK? The man also has considerable dyslexia and auditory processing problems from what I can tell -- never diagnosed.
One of the things I don't get is why he'll suddenly throw an insult aimed at me into an otherwise normal conversation out of the blue. Often he claims he doesn't consider it to be an insult but rather "a statement of fact" or "an observation". These remarks are cutting and painful to me, especially when I've revealed them to be very difficult issues from my past. Another area is that he considers everything to be black or white or, as he says, "beautiful" or "ugly". It seems that when he dislikes something, it then becomes "ugly". Emotions seem to be a very foreign country for him, which is distressing for me. I may write quite a long email and get back a one liner, generally ignoring the emotional component & telling me to just get on with it.
OK, enough for now. I'd appreciate any feedback available. Please forgive my lack of knowledge re Aspergers.
Sher
I started dating a man about a year ago & couldn't quite figure out why we were having such difficult communications problems. Finally my therapist surmised that he might have Aspergers as well as his wife who had died two years prior. I am certainly NOT trying to lay all the blame on his illness, but there are so many things about him that I don't understand. Please, don't anyone take offense at my lack of knowledge, OK? The man also has considerable dyslexia and auditory processing problems from what I can tell -- never diagnosed.
One of the things I don't get is why he'll suddenly throw an insult aimed at me into an otherwise normal conversation out of the blue. Often he claims he doesn't consider it to be an insult but rather "a statement of fact" or "an observation". These remarks are cutting and painful to me, especially when I've revealed them to be very difficult issues from my past. Another area is that he considers everything to be black or white or, as he says, "beautiful" or "ugly". It seems that when he dislikes something, it then becomes "ugly". Emotions seem to be a very foreign country for him, which is distressing for me. I may write quite a long email and get back a one liner, generally ignoring the emotional component & telling me to just get on with it.
OK, enough for now. I'd appreciate any feedback available. Please forgive my lack of knowledge re Aspergers.
Sher
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