DH has a hobby. Don't really want to say what it is as friends and family know this issue well and all the phrases DH and I use connected to it, so let's just say it's a sport, and he plays it semi-professionally and he is looking to do it full time professionally. So much so that he has given up part of his real life job time to practice to get better at it.
It takes up most of his evenings after work for hours and hours as well as his days off. I'd say we have one day a week where we are "sport free." DH spends most of his time preoccupied with his performance at the sport and is constantly studying adjusting his diet and his sleep patterns to maximise his performance. He dreams about it and it's his main topic of conversation with anyone he meets (yawn).
Tolerable, so far, for me. I find it annoying but it's not a deal breaker for me that my DH is geekily so preoccupied with something... however, and this is where the logical jump for me takes a nosedive, it has got to the point where most topics of conversation are banned because he feels they affect his performance negatively.
I'll try and explain it better..
I can't say as he's going off to do said sport "oh I'll miss you today," or "what time will you be back?" or "can you come home a bit earlier today?" or while he's there "I've had a shit day, can't wait to see you" or simply "miss you." And all variants. He says that anything I say that may provoke any glimmer of guilt in him will affect his performance negatively and that it is my fault if he fails.
We haven't had sex for three months due to how busy he is after work and at weekends with the sport. This morning at 8am the conversation went like this:
Him: "I will go to play sport from 2pm today."
Me: "Oh okay. Will you be back late? I'd really like to have sex with you as I'm quite horny!"
He then has a total and utter meltdown. "I've told you hundreds of times not to have a guilt inducing conversation with me before I go. But you do it every time. You are sadistic. It makes me lose. You want me to fail. You want me to fail at everything I do."
This is not normal, is it?
Cue lots of huffing and puffing and wringing of hands, storming off and then coming back to accuse me of trying to ruin his life. He says I have taken away his appetite, he can't eat or sleep. I have ruined everything. He goes to bed in the dark in the middle of the day and cries in frustration. I repeat over and over again "I just asked a question!"
He's right that he has "told me so many times" the kind of thing that puts him off before he goes and the "rules" I have to stick to, to prevent him from having an epic little boy meltdown. But of course I am not going to monitor my genuine questions and reactions (often practical ones, so I can make dinner or deal with the DC or organise our lives.)
What do you think is going on here? I have, for a long time, thought he has some aspergers qualities. Would this explain anything? I fail to see the logic in his rules because he seems to have the equivalent of a mini nervous breakdown any time anything happens outside the bounds of his "planned" activity and the "rules" of that activity. And it's not just me. He does it with friends and strangers too. Anyone he feels is getting in the way of how he's planned to do something.
But he interprets my failing to see the logic as me being completely against him and trying to ruin his life. Sometimes I go along with the "rules" but then I think this is ridiculous and decide I am free to ask him anything I want. Cue epic meltdowns again.