dragonette
New member
Hi everyone,
Sorry for the long post here. As some of you may recall from my previous posts, I have been in a relationship with my Aspie partner, BF, for about 2.5 years. When we met, he had been with his wife for about two years, and although they had been open for most of that time, it was not until after he and I met that their style of “open” transitioned from “marriage plus casual dating” to polyamory. A few weeks ago, they decided to separate.
Over the course of our relationship, BF told me numerous times how important I was to him. He talked about wishing that he could spend time with both me and his wife (who was never really comfortable with the idea of spending time with me) so that we could have more time together, and at one point he suggested changing our schedule to add a second weeknight date in addition to our weekend date. He told me that I was just as important to him as his wife. He talked about trying to find a living situation where my apartment would be in the same building as theirs so he could see me more often and spontaneously.
Although his day-to-day behavior did not always seem fully consistent with those statements, I attributed that to his Asperger’s syndrome and once I got used to the fact that he was not inclined to talk about emotional things or give compliments, I felt secure.
I always worried about what would happen if he started dating a new person, though, in addition to me and his wife – I thought I would get “squeezed out” between his obligations to his wife and his excitement to spend time with his new shiny. We discussed this fear, and he assured me that there was no way he ever would not want me in his life. I asked that if and when he was ready to start dating again, he discuss it with me first, so that I could prepare myself emotionally and perhaps have some say over how he went about it. He said “OK.”
A couple of months ago I suggested that he and I start seeing each other only once a month, so he could have time and space to try to work out the problems in his marriage.
When we resumed dating again after he and his wife decided to split up, I assumed that he would want to spend at least a little more time than we had spent in a “typical” week before all of this happened, since we’d had a period of about six weeks where we had only had one date. But BF actually seems to want to see each other less. I told him I was hurt by that and asked if his feelings for me had changed. He responded that there was no change in his feelings, but that he had just always been happy with the amount of time we had been spending before (not addressing the fact that we had had significant periods of not seeing each other at all, and that we were actually now seeing each other somewhat less).
In the context of these discussions, I told him that I would try to be patient given that I know he needs to process a lot of negative emotions about his pending separation, but that eventually I was going to need some reassurance that he still wants to be with me and isn’t just dating me out of habit.
Fast forward one week. I reached out to him about scheduling a mid-week date and suggested Wednesday. He responded that “Wednesday isn’t ideal, any possibility of tomorrow?” Already this bothered me – I wasn’t assuming he had a date, but he doesn’t usually have a lot of mid-week plans and I used to know about them when he did. And when I say no to a particular night I always tell him why, just because I want him to know what’s going on in my life. He didn’t say why. This felt like I was scheduling a first date with a stranger, not a regular event with my long-time sweetie.
And I wasn’t totally sure it wasn’t a date, because he has been very slow to respond to texts lately, even though I know he’s usually glued to his phone. He never texts me to ask me how I’m doing or how a particular event went (he has never been great about that but would do it a couple of times a week before all of this.) We had an agreement that we would talk about it first, I thought, but he has a tendency to “forget” about agreements he’s made, or interpret them oddly (e.g. if this is the first date he’s going on, he might consider his text message to be “talking about it first.” So I asked, half-jokingly, “what’s wrong with Wednesday? Hot date?” I also explained why Tuesday would not work for me. He responded, “Wednesday is a working dinner although I may do a date tonight. I guess I’ll see you Saturday.”
This series of events has made me incredibly upset. It seems like BF wants to downgrade me from “co-primary” to “someone I date when it’s convenient,” without doing the courtesy of communicating with me about that. He didn’t tell me that he wanted to start dating new people in an appropriate way or at an appropriate time or place (in fact, he dropped the bomb that he was in the process of scheduling a date by text at 11:25 AM yesterday, when he knew that I had work events all of yesterday afternoon and this morning for which I need to be totally focused and at my best – I actually did manage to put him out of my brain during yesterday’s event, but woke up in the middle of the night so definitely won’t be at my best for this morning’s more important event).
I have no objection to him dating in theory, but I am concerned that he is putting what little energy he has left, after work and trying to process his divorce, into arranging and going on dates with new people, instead of into reconnecting with me after a long period of stress and disconnection. I had actually been planning to suggest that we hold off on seeing other people for a couple of months so that we could reconnect, but I decided to wait because it had only been a couple of weeks since his decision to separate, and his wife hasn’t even moved out of their apartment yet - I incorrectly assumed such a discussion would be premature. So I hadn’t explicitly asked him not to date, but he knew that I was feeling insecure, and instead of trying to address that, he did something that he knew was going to make me feel more insecure, without asking how I felt about it at all. I feel like he just told me “I don’t care about your feelings at all.”
Frankly, I am starting to question whether BF is really capable of maintaining a relationship past the NRE phase. When he and I were first dating, I would suggest that he try to plan special things with his wife to ensure that their connection didn’t suffer because of the energy he was putting into me. He always said “yeah, maybe” and then did nothing. Now that we are past the NRE phase, I can easily see why he might be bored with our routine and feeling less excited about me – but he’s not willing to admit that anything is wrong, so it’s hard for me to figure out, on my own, how to fix it.
So, here are my questions for you all:
1) Am I overreacting to how he handled getting back into the dating process?
2) Is it unreasonable for me to ask for a time of focusing on our relationship and reconnecting, before he gets himself sucked into NRE-land with someone else?
3) Is it clear that he’s just not that into me anymore, or is it possible that his current behavior is a temporary result of his divorce stress that I should wait out before making any big decisions?
4) I have read that relationships sometimes transition from something more serious to something less serious. Has anyone been in a situation like this, where one partner seems to want to downgrade but the other feels hurt? If I could get past the hurt, I might be fine with having a more casual relationship, but I don't know how to get there.
Thanks!
dragonette
Sorry for the long post here. As some of you may recall from my previous posts, I have been in a relationship with my Aspie partner, BF, for about 2.5 years. When we met, he had been with his wife for about two years, and although they had been open for most of that time, it was not until after he and I met that their style of “open” transitioned from “marriage plus casual dating” to polyamory. A few weeks ago, they decided to separate.
Over the course of our relationship, BF told me numerous times how important I was to him. He talked about wishing that he could spend time with both me and his wife (who was never really comfortable with the idea of spending time with me) so that we could have more time together, and at one point he suggested changing our schedule to add a second weeknight date in addition to our weekend date. He told me that I was just as important to him as his wife. He talked about trying to find a living situation where my apartment would be in the same building as theirs so he could see me more often and spontaneously.
Although his day-to-day behavior did not always seem fully consistent with those statements, I attributed that to his Asperger’s syndrome and once I got used to the fact that he was not inclined to talk about emotional things or give compliments, I felt secure.
I always worried about what would happen if he started dating a new person, though, in addition to me and his wife – I thought I would get “squeezed out” between his obligations to his wife and his excitement to spend time with his new shiny. We discussed this fear, and he assured me that there was no way he ever would not want me in his life. I asked that if and when he was ready to start dating again, he discuss it with me first, so that I could prepare myself emotionally and perhaps have some say over how he went about it. He said “OK.”
A couple of months ago I suggested that he and I start seeing each other only once a month, so he could have time and space to try to work out the problems in his marriage.
When we resumed dating again after he and his wife decided to split up, I assumed that he would want to spend at least a little more time than we had spent in a “typical” week before all of this happened, since we’d had a period of about six weeks where we had only had one date. But BF actually seems to want to see each other less. I told him I was hurt by that and asked if his feelings for me had changed. He responded that there was no change in his feelings, but that he had just always been happy with the amount of time we had been spending before (not addressing the fact that we had had significant periods of not seeing each other at all, and that we were actually now seeing each other somewhat less).
In the context of these discussions, I told him that I would try to be patient given that I know he needs to process a lot of negative emotions about his pending separation, but that eventually I was going to need some reassurance that he still wants to be with me and isn’t just dating me out of habit.
Fast forward one week. I reached out to him about scheduling a mid-week date and suggested Wednesday. He responded that “Wednesday isn’t ideal, any possibility of tomorrow?” Already this bothered me – I wasn’t assuming he had a date, but he doesn’t usually have a lot of mid-week plans and I used to know about them when he did. And when I say no to a particular night I always tell him why, just because I want him to know what’s going on in my life. He didn’t say why. This felt like I was scheduling a first date with a stranger, not a regular event with my long-time sweetie.
And I wasn’t totally sure it wasn’t a date, because he has been very slow to respond to texts lately, even though I know he’s usually glued to his phone. He never texts me to ask me how I’m doing or how a particular event went (he has never been great about that but would do it a couple of times a week before all of this.) We had an agreement that we would talk about it first, I thought, but he has a tendency to “forget” about agreements he’s made, or interpret them oddly (e.g. if this is the first date he’s going on, he might consider his text message to be “talking about it first.” So I asked, half-jokingly, “what’s wrong with Wednesday? Hot date?” I also explained why Tuesday would not work for me. He responded, “Wednesday is a working dinner although I may do a date tonight. I guess I’ll see you Saturday.”
This series of events has made me incredibly upset. It seems like BF wants to downgrade me from “co-primary” to “someone I date when it’s convenient,” without doing the courtesy of communicating with me about that. He didn’t tell me that he wanted to start dating new people in an appropriate way or at an appropriate time or place (in fact, he dropped the bomb that he was in the process of scheduling a date by text at 11:25 AM yesterday, when he knew that I had work events all of yesterday afternoon and this morning for which I need to be totally focused and at my best – I actually did manage to put him out of my brain during yesterday’s event, but woke up in the middle of the night so definitely won’t be at my best for this morning’s more important event).
I have no objection to him dating in theory, but I am concerned that he is putting what little energy he has left, after work and trying to process his divorce, into arranging and going on dates with new people, instead of into reconnecting with me after a long period of stress and disconnection. I had actually been planning to suggest that we hold off on seeing other people for a couple of months so that we could reconnect, but I decided to wait because it had only been a couple of weeks since his decision to separate, and his wife hasn’t even moved out of their apartment yet - I incorrectly assumed such a discussion would be premature. So I hadn’t explicitly asked him not to date, but he knew that I was feeling insecure, and instead of trying to address that, he did something that he knew was going to make me feel more insecure, without asking how I felt about it at all. I feel like he just told me “I don’t care about your feelings at all.”
Frankly, I am starting to question whether BF is really capable of maintaining a relationship past the NRE phase. When he and I were first dating, I would suggest that he try to plan special things with his wife to ensure that their connection didn’t suffer because of the energy he was putting into me. He always said “yeah, maybe” and then did nothing. Now that we are past the NRE phase, I can easily see why he might be bored with our routine and feeling less excited about me – but he’s not willing to admit that anything is wrong, so it’s hard for me to figure out, on my own, how to fix it.
So, here are my questions for you all:
1) Am I overreacting to how he handled getting back into the dating process?
2) Is it unreasonable for me to ask for a time of focusing on our relationship and reconnecting, before he gets himself sucked into NRE-land with someone else?
3) Is it clear that he’s just not that into me anymore, or is it possible that his current behavior is a temporary result of his divorce stress that I should wait out before making any big decisions?
4) I have read that relationships sometimes transition from something more serious to something less serious. Has anyone been in a situation like this, where one partner seems to want to downgrade but the other feels hurt? If I could get past the hurt, I might be fine with having a more casual relationship, but I don't know how to get there.
Thanks!
dragonette
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