Messaging mismatch

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I've been seeing a new man for about three months now. We're both in our 50s. We both have a dependent teenage child. Me most of the time and him, half of the time. The time we can see each other is limited. We usually manage it once a weekend. Sometimes that's not to stay over. And sometimes we don't see each other for 2 weeks. Because of children. Its going pretty well,we are enjoying spending time together, enjoying the sex, it's nice to have someone to do stuff with. When we are together, he is affectionate and sweet.

I'm not constantly on my phone but I do like messaging people that im close to - I message them frequently ...most days i suppose. Adjust little updates on life, questions, thoughts, jokes, whatever.

He , however does not message people frequently , including me lol. We'll have slowly flurries of conversations , but if I leave it and don't message him , I might not hear from him for 3 or four days.

He has an autism diagnosis which I think may be part of it.. he is not very obviously autistic but since I know about his diagnosis , I can see signs of it , I think.

We've talked on the phone and video called a few times which has worked out well. He suggested that at times, and at times I have suggested it.

But the lack of messaging I do struggle with.. i'm telling myself it's not because he isn't interested or thinking of me , but nonetheless , it does feel like that at the time , and I don't want to be the person who's always reaching out first.

We have talked about it , he brought it up actually , because I had made a comment , and he said he would try to message more and he did initially , but that dropped off.

I don't want to make any kind of demands or rules about how often we should message each other or anything. I'm just not that kind of person. I would rather it came from something he wanted to do, but I'm really not sure I can conduct a relationship when I can't see the person very often, and I don't hear from them for days.. im.struggling with this!

I’m like you, I enjoy a little message once or twice a day just to say I’m thinking of you, or sending a link to something he’d like. In the early days DP wasn’t much of a texter.

He’s also very likely autistic, and I came to realise that he hates texting because he replies to every single part of a message and always has to reply to any follow up message, so he finds it all a bit hard work and like a never ending task!

I’ve said he doesn’t need to reply immediately or in full, or even if he just ‘hearts’ a message I send him that’s fine, so it’s taken the pressure off a bit. I know he’d rather have phone calls instead, but I hate the phone so we ended up at a bit of a stalemate.

it’s involved some compromise (more him than me to be fair) so now we message less, I’m open to a call if he wants to, and we both try to make sure the other knows they are loved even in absence.

If your relationship continues hopefully you can find a balance, but if he’s not willing to compromise and instigate messages more often he can’t be surprised if you take that as a lack of interest on his part.

That's interesting. I think i just need to play it by ear and see how it goes. After posting this yesterday we then had a little text convo and again this morning.
Maybe I can get used to the irregular frequency, and that's my compromise!

Don’t overthink it, if he’s on the spectrum the way he interacts will be different, if i message my son who is also on the spectrum he will rarely respond, sometimes he’ll read it and not reply, other times he won’t even read it. I will only really get messages from him if he has something he wants to say or he’s after something, it’s very similar in everyday situations as well like around the house, he’s only really interested in what he wants to say, sometimes he will listen to you and other times he’ll just switch his ears off. It’s frustrating but you can’t fix it.

it’s good that you’ve framed it as a ‘mismatch’ rather than him doing anything wrong.
He’s not going to change so I think you just have to weigh up how important it is to you compared to the rest of the good points.
people managed to have great relationships without texting 20 years ago.

That does sound frustrating!. I do always get a reply, although often its like a hurried half reply. When its your kid you have no choice really but to live with it but when it's a potential partner I guess im figuring out whether it It can work for me as well.

This is true.My relationships twenty years ago didn't involve mobile phones. Although I think all my relationships then were all in from the beginning and I would have been seeing them a few times a week and we didn't have children. So there was less need for the connection in between seeing each other, If you see what I mean. I think that is part of the challenge, really. It's not just the texting thing, it's the fact that we can't see each other very much. And maybe that on top of that, it's also the connection with somebody who's autistic.
I do feel connection with him on and off. But I think I'm a person that needs a lot of emotional connection.I'm realising that now. It's a new thing for me trying to find that with somebody autistic, but life's never dull is it ....It's all a learning curve even in your 50s.!
He obviously really wants to make it work.He makes plans for us to see each other and if I suggest talking on the phone, He always immediately says yes , that kind of thing , so I don't want to give up on it too soon , you know?

I also have a partner who isn't a big messager - I do like a little message. We spoke about it and I realised that like you said it was just a mismatch. If I raise it he'll always make more of an effort but then I realise messaging about benign stuff doesn't really fill my cup anyway. I guess the real thing I noticed is that if I call him, he calls back straight away etc. Some people just don't like texting but I'd agree 3-4 days no contact is actually quite a gap!