Confidence disappeared with new ish man

[Yoppp]

I’m feeling a bit lost and frankly embarrassed about my relationship and don’t feel I can talk to anyone IRL. I feel I need to set some context which maybe explains why I feel so embarrassed. I am very independent, work for a large company, have two of my own homes (mortgaged), work hard, have lots of friends, hobbies, interests. I’m making myself sound like some fantastic person…obviously I have plenty of flaws! Basically what I’m trying to say is I very much have my own life and independence and I wouldn’t really consider myself to be needy in relationships, in the past I’ve often been labelled as the opposite.

I met someone a year or so ago and really fell for him. He has a demanding job too and is often busy with work which suits me fine as I work late and need someone who understands that. But things have unfolded that have made me feel horribly insecure and I don’t know if I’ve suddenly become needy with age or something?! Or if this is a result of his actions or lack of. Examples:

It took him 8 months to tell his family he was seeing me. He would take calls while I was in the house with him staying for a few days, and he would gesture for me to be silent. I would then hear him talk about the weekend and no mention of us having done anything…not even saying the reality of what he’d done at the weekend in terms of the activity we’d done and omitting he was with me, but literally saying he’d not done much all weekend when we’d climbed snowdon or been to the lakes etc. He’s since told them about our relationship but says they never ask him about me or us as that’s just ‘not what they’re like.’ He only had a dad and very autistic brother so no mum around. Not sure if this is a man thing but it’s certainly not how my family are.

He still hasn’t told his friends or colleagues about me and claims this is because he doesn’t like talking about his private life to colleagues and that he wants to tell friends in person and he’s not seen any close friends the last few months (the first few months we were together he said he didn’t want to say until we were established as a couple - fair enough).

He doesn’t follow up with arrangements and the times I’ve decided I won’t bother asking what we will do this week/ weekend, I get a text from him last minute saying ‘are you still free this weekend?’ Like we are basically friends, not a couple? I’ve told him after almost a year and a half the assumption for me would be we see each other at least every weekend unless we are seeing friends or have other plans…we are mid and late 30s, not kids.

He asked me recently if I had any travel plans for summer, as if we wouldn’t be making plans together. He has no plans to go away and no interest in doing so, so it’s not as if he had a lads holiday booked and wanted to encourage me to do the same with my friends.

The times I have been to stay with him he will often cook a lovely meal with things I like, chat over dinner then disappear for 2 hours doing work. I have a hard job and I manage my time around the evenings I have with him and I cannot understand why he doesn’t do the same for me. If it was a one off I would get it but the last time it happened it was the day before we were about to have 2 weeks apart. Even then he couldn’t make the effort to spare a full evening.

When we are apart we do have phone calls sometimes but usually just get one or two texts from him in a day, very short, formal, almost like he’s used a precedent from his phone!! It’s like ‘hi x, hope you are very well…’ like he’s a stranger.

What confuses me is he has been adamant from the start that he wanted a serious relationship that was going somewhere. He said he’d never been with anyone longer than 6 months and he really wanted to have a long term relationship with someone and to have a family. I was clear I felt the same. Yet why do I feel like he has no interest in this?

I don’t want to be wined and dined and travelled everywhere all the time. I have my own money and friends for all that. But I feel like he is quite disrespectful towards us. I don’t understand him because when I bring it up he just says he knows we love each other and he wants the same things as me yet his actions don’t reflect this.

He can be very kind and understanding and caring and obviously those are the reasons I am with him. I just struggle with this and I feel much less confident than I ever have in other relationships. Can anyone relate? Am I being too harsh on him?

Also to be clear he’s never been involved with anyone, I’m not the OW and he’s not cheating as far as I’m aware. He’s just quite a solitary quiet person that I can’t always understand.

Today is another example. He’s taken the day off for’ life admin.’ Fine. But I’ve heard nothing from him all day. Despite not having seen him for two weeks because of work. I don’t think he misses me or anyone really

It seems v v unlikely that moving in together would address these issues!!

Agree it wouldn't help.

Actually it might be worse. He may spend loads of evenings working, whilst you watch telly on your own, in silent resentment.

Honestly I'd have gone right off him by now tbh. I'm amazed you're still feeling loved up, doesn't it chip away at it?

@ElspethFlashman

Agree it wouldn't help.

Actually it might be worse. He may spend loads of evenings working, whilst you watch telly on your own, in silent resentment.

Honestly I'd have gone right off him by now tbh. I'm amazed you're still feeling loved up, doesn't it chip away at it?

@ElspethFlashman yes it’s greatly chipped away at it. I guess I’d just fallen in love with him. I feel shit tonight

Oh dear. I think you need to walk away. This relationship sounds so depressing.

I read your whole thing and thought, I wonder if he’s autistic. So my husband is autistic. We have been together for 20 years. He’s wonderful and I love him (and he’s a great husband). But I learned very early on that I had to set expectations clearly and I couldn’t take things personally. DH would have totally gone off to do 2 hours of work. And the formal texting sounds familiar as well.
In my case DH was funny and good company and very lovely in lots of other ways (empathetic, made me laugh, cared about me) but I learned that he didn’t always do things the conventional way. It’s hard to describe because we have been together for so long but I realise that if I had less self confidence I wouldn’t have lasted.

Yes sometimes I go all day without hearing from DH. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care or isn’t thinking of me- it’s hard to explain- he just doesn’t feel the need to check in repeatedly. But if I told him I needed support he would call straight away and be great.

I definitely think there's a "type" of guy like this.

Sounds awful but if he's got a good job and no kids and is ok looking and in his 30's he knows he doesn't need to massively change his emotional behaviour to get a girlfriend, so if you walk he won't be too fussed?

It's really down to you if you can live with it and that doesn't sound like it is working for you.

I know a couple who "went the distance" with this dynamic and he's not a bastard but the whole thing may look very cold and transactional to outsiders.

She's accepted she's always doing most of the emotional/social work and he's "sometimes very decent and generous but sometimes very unloving".

He's very, very rigid about boundaries (ie always separate money even though it meant her DD had to work her way through at uni BUT buying presents like earrings worth 1000's) and "sticking to set principles" even if it looks weird and callous at times.

It's like in his head he's framed the marriage/relationship as "something he didn't instigate" so he will go along with it and tick the basic boxes as long as it runs smoothly, but no more - in his head he's not a "partner".

Insisted on a pre-nup and when she was stressed at her (admin) work from bullying, first question was "make sure you can still afford to pay exactly your proportion of the holidays we go on."

They'd been together/married years at this point and he must be a millionaire.

They seem content enough so it's her business, but I think there's a "certain emotionally independent confident personality type" who can handle men like this.

@ChaBishkoot

I read your whole thing and thought, I wonder if he’s autistic. So my husband is autistic. We have been together for 20 years. He’s wonderful and I love him (and he’s a great husband). But I learned very early on that I had to set expectations clearly and I couldn’t take things personally. DH would have totally gone off to do 2 hours of work. And the formal texting sounds familiar as well. In my case DH was funny and good company and very lovely in lots of other ways (empathetic, made me laugh, cared about me) but I learned that he didn’t always do things the conventional way. It’s hard to describe because we have been together for so long but I realise that if I had less self confidence I wouldn’t have lasted.

@ChaBishkoot that describes him exactly :( especially the bit about him being there if I am upset and need him. It’s hard to know he still wants me with the formality and the compartmentalising

My mums second husband was exactly like this. Good looking guy and extremely clever (think PhD astrophysics type clever) but he had very rigid ideas and routines , did exactly the same things at certain times of day , and some of these were a bit odd too. I always wondered if he had a touch of autism . Is this guy exceptionally academic OP— I’m not saying all academics are weird but certainly some I have known struggle to prioritise people or relationships

And yes DH is ferociously clever. He has a PhD, is a doctor and has a clutch of major major awards/scholarships. He’s utterly brilliant but finds lots of everyday things hard. This will sound both weird and (possibly outing) but when we are on a plane we don’t always sit next to each other. DH likes sitting on his own. The first time I was WTF (I was 21) but over time I realised that’s just something he likes. BUT when my mother died and we flew back to my home country I told him I needed him to sit next to me and he did (and he booked the tickets and handled my dad and did many other things). We have kids and he’s a brilliant hands on dad. Partly because it has never occurred to him to be anything else.
But in many ways he exceptionally low maintenance and so am I. As I said, we have been together since we were just out of our teens and in some ways he’s ‘more’ autistic than he was then. He’s not obviously but he’s now comfortable especially at home to be himself. This was particularly true during COVID when as a physician in the US he was working on the frontline. When he came home and the kids were in bed, he just needed to be himself with no expectations. It didn’t mean he wasn’t considerate in other ways but he needed that downtime.

What I will say is that you cannot change him. (To be fair DH was always open about your relationship). He’s not going to magically become the guy who makes holiday plans and books impromptu dinners and does something cute and spontaneous. DH also doesn’t have a huge set of friends- a small group that knows he’s a bit different. I have a much bigger friend circle. And sometimes I socialise on my own and I don’t mind. If I want DH to come I’ll tell him and he’s always good company.
I was always okay with this. We worked out what we wanted very quickly. We plan our holidays in advance. And yes when we were dating DH would do that thing of not assuming we were hanging out (because to his brain there was nothing logical about thinking you would spend all your spare time with X) so I would say ‘which evenings are you free?’ or whatever. And we were both super nerdy so in fact we would spend all our time in the library working next to each other.

My expectations are that he would be kind, loyal, and be there for me when I need it and he always always has. In return he expects me to spell out things that might be obvious to others (like how couples assume that the weekend is to be spent with each other!). I have also made it clear to DH that he doesn’t need to ‘perform’ for me. I don’t need flowers and Valentine’s Day meals or whatever and that has made life easier.

On a different thread about autistic other halves I posted about how DH and I got together. Basically I asked him out and he said, let me think about it. We were good friends, hung out together and then one day he said to me: I think when we grow up we should get married. I said: I think so too. And he kissed me. And that was it. (And we never did a ‘proposal’ btw even though we got married 6-7 years later). We both agreed that we had had a conversation and that was all we needed. Again had I been waiting for a ring and a bended knee it would have all gone to pot.

Our relationship in the second line. Sorry.

I've been reading @ChaBishkoot posts with interest as my exh sounds very similar. It's easy for me to think, oh if we'd communicated better it might have worked. But I also had/have to be honest about who I am and what my needs are. There's a great metaphor in a book about asd relationships, where an Eagle and an antelope love each other but have different needs - the Eagle keeps bringing carrion for the antelope and the antelope offers the Eagle grass etc. Both slowly start to die of hunger.

A bit dramatic perhaps (!) but if you have needs he can't meet then it will slowly starve you :( indeed that is how I felt in my marriage.

I hope you figure out what's best for both of you x

DO NOT MOVE IN WITH HIM! Omg just don't. Why would you give up even more of your own lovely, fun, busy, happy life to hang around with someone who makes you feel unconfident, low, and insecure??!

Move AWAY from things that hurt you. Not towards them.

Besides, his agreeing to your moving in won't give you what you want. You want someone who dreams of spending time with you, talking to you and about you. Not someone who lets you keep your pants at their place.

Don't move in. If you do I will find you and slap you and drag you out. 😆

He might be nice some of the time but there are men who are lovely ALL of the time and you are worthy of one of those.

Since posting that I've gone back and read some of the other posts about autistic men and I hope that nobody thinks I'm slagging off autistic men as that was NOT my intention.

The problem is not that you are 'needy'. It's that he is shit.

Relationships are meant to lift us up. Make us feel strong, secure, supported. If they do not, then they are not healthy. And not the relationship we should be in.

@ChaBishkoot

What I will say is that you cannot change him. (To be fair DH was always open about your relationship). He’s not going to magically become the guy who makes holiday plans and books impromptu dinners and does something cute and spontaneous. DH also doesn’t have a huge set of friends- a small group that knows he’s a bit different. I have a much bigger friend circle. And sometimes I socialise on my own and I don’t mind. If I want DH to come I’ll tell him and he’s always good company. I was always okay with this. We worked out what we wanted very quickly. We plan our holidays in advance. And yes when we were dating DH would do that thing of not assuming we were hanging out (because to his brain there was nothing logical about thinking you would spend all your spare time with X) so I would say ‘which evenings are you free?’ or whatever. And we were both super nerdy so in fact we would spend all our time in the library working next to each other.

My expectations are that he would be kind, loyal, and be there for me when I need it and he always always has. In return he expects me to spell out things that might be obvious to others (like how couples assume that the weekend is to be spent with each other!). I have also made it clear to DH that he doesn’t need to ‘perform’ for me. I don’t need flowers and Valentine’s Day meals or whatever and that has made life easier.

On a different thread about autistic other halves I posted about how DH and I got together. Basically I asked him out and he said, let me think about it. We were good friends, hung out together and then one day he said to me: I think when we grow up we should get married. I said: I think so too. And he kissed me. And that was it. (And we never did a ‘proposal’ btw even though we got married 6-7 years later). We both agreed that we had had a conversation and that was all we needed. Again had I been waiting for a ring and a bended knee it would have all gone to pot.

@ChaBishkoot my DP sounds so so similar to everything you have written. I think for me it’s been hard as I am used to been quite ferociously pursued by men in general and in relationships it’s always been abundantly obvious to me that someone wanted to spend time with me. DP will never say he misses me out of the blue unless I say it to him first. He does thoughtful things like he will always remember every detail of what I like and don’t like to eat, he can be very attentive and understanding if I am upset or worried. But essentially there is no drive from him to progress or manage the relationship, it’s all left to me. The weekend thing is reassuring to read, I can’t tell you how much that hurt me in the past. It’s a prime example of how I feel clingy as my reaction is to think he doesn’t want to see me…yet once I say I am free he will happily spend the whole weekend together. So it’s not that he doesn’t want to it’s that he doesn’t assume or communicate it with me. I do think equally though he would be quite happy if I said I was busy. He’s quite matter of fact like that.

What do you make of the secrecy with colleagues about me?!

Like you, we are both happy working alongside each other and a lot of our time has been spent doing that. I love this and it’s another reason I am happy with him. I just feel SO confused at times, because he has a lot of moments where he seems genuine and straightforward yet aloof and cold at the same time. He’s booked a restaurant once I think but he wouldn’t think ‘oh we’ve not seen each other for 2 weeks let’s book somewhere nice for yoppp and show her I’ve missed her’ which is the approach most people/men have always had.

@ChaBishkoot I’m cringing at my comment ‘I think for me it’s been hard as I’m used to being pursued by men…’ as if no other woman has this experience! That’s now how I meant to comment across

*to come across

It’s fine to have been pursued by men. I would say that’s frequently the norm. Ultimately you have to work out whether this is something you can live with or not. In my case because we were so young when we met there isn’t another version of DH or another version of dating that I know. I was slightly upset and confused at first (at 20/21) but I was also determined not to change him and also very open about what I wanted. We also have lots of similar interests etc. The thing is that a lot of my friends were in relationships with NT men who were much more obvious about their relationship but who 20 years down the line are average husbands and frequently shit dads. (And I could have predicted that 20 years ago). DH though is an awesome father- he took paternity leave in the US (rarer than rare), has always always done his bit as a parent- in fact I would say he loved being a parent way more than I did at first. I never have to say ‘can you make sure you do X chores?’ He does it. He also does a lot of the mental labor that many mothers of kids do. And he has solo parented for long stints when I have been away on research trips to Asia and Africa and has never ever complained. He’s fiercely feminist but not in some performative way- to him it’s obvious that we are equal and he does his bit. Again, he’s always been that way. So for me I don’t mind the other stuff because so much else makes up for it. AND most importantly because I also don’t need that validation generally. (DH would never say ‘oh wow you look amazing’ as a way to seduce me. If he thinks I look nice he’ll say so- there is zero ulterior motive!).

Have I been frustrated at times? Yes. He’s a workaholic and brilliant at what he does. But being a dad and a physician has sometimes come before ‘us’ and I am not sure he would ever be able to fully articulate how our marriage works. I don’t think he quite sees that it’s not like everyone else’s. If you are in it for the long haul, you have to be prepared for this.

Why he didn’t tell his family? I have no clue. DH’s parents adore me- we come from the same community although he’s American and I am not. To his parents I am their dream DIL (they are lovely but quite mad) and I think he’s always known they would approve. Just ask your partner- it might be that you have to take his explanation at face value.

I’ll give you an example. 20 year old me musters up the courage to ask DH out for a movie.
He replies: ‘oh I am swamped the next two weeks so no I can’t. I’m hitting the books quite hard for now. I am looking forward to the summer when I have time for this stuff.’ I was a little upset going ‘ah that’s him turning me down for a date.’ But you know he wasn’t. He was actually studying like crazy for his finals and when it was over, I asked him if he was free to watch the movie and he was, and we did.

@ChaBishkoot

I’ll give you an example. 20 year old me musters up the courage to ask DH out for a movie. He replies: ‘oh I am swamped the next two weeks so no I can’t. I’m hitting the books quite hard for now. I am looking forward to the summer when I have time for this stuff.’ I was a little upset going ‘ah that’s him turning me down for a date.’ But you know he wasn’t. He was actually studying like crazy for his finals and when it was over, I asked him if he was free to watch the movie and he was, and we did.

@ChaBishkoot around 6 months into our relationship DP had to prepare something at work. It was a big deal for him (being vague as would be outing). He was so strict and formal about spending time together. It was quite literally no I can’t see you or I have an hour and that was it. I thought his strict timings were awful and over the top and concluded he wasn’t interested. Yet he always ‘came back’ and stayed in touch. So I knew he did care but how he expressed it was so unusual. He didn’t plan anything nice to do when the work thing was over, he didn’t say he was missing me…it was all just matter of fact. Yet when we did spend time together it was amazing. It took me a while not to take his formality with me as rejection. I still struggle with it sometimes. Thanks for sharing some insights, it doesn’t change the situation for me but has made me try and consider it in a different way.

Be with someone who makes you feel fantastic. Having to analyse someone’s behaviour that is clearly making you feel awful isn’t a life! You have one life, as a PP said, move away from things that hurt you. Find a DP who your friends love, who enriches your life, who is a life partner. You don’t want to be in retirement age saddled to someone who isn’t going on lovely adventures with you do you? Just walk away. I walked away from a man that made me feel like this and have never regretted it for a single second x

@Dogoodfeelgood

Be with someone who makes you feel fantastic. Having to analyse someone’s behaviour that is clearly making you feel awful isn’t a life! You have one life, as a PP said, move away from things that hurt you. Find a DP who your friends love, who enriches your life, who is a life partner. You don’t want to be in retirement age saddled to someone who isn’t going on lovely adventures with you do you? Just walk away. I walked away from a man that made me feel like this and have never regretted it for a single second x

@Dogoodfeelgood I do have moments like that and when I first posted my mind was in that space of thinking I need to end it. It’s not necessarily constant reassurance that I need from a partner but just that feeling of being a team. He’s always there for me if I need him but day to day I rarely feel like we are a team and a partnership. Typing that out feels so pathetic.