My ASD partner goes through these cycles where he gets stressed and overwhelmed with his work, sports, et cetera, and sometimes it seems quite out of the blue, and he suddenly is not warm at all, and is really unresponsive to my attempts to communicate. This is happening now. He also lives about an hour and a half away from me, so when he’s like this, it’s not like we can at least rest in bed together or work on projects in tandem in silence, something we both love. When he gets like this, I feel totally stuck. I don’t want to call or text him to complain about it, because he gets further overwhelmed by my unhappiness and further withdraws. But I’ve also seriously hurt myself emotionally and mentally in the last year, just denying my own needs and emotions to try to keep a warm inviting energy for him. It feels unfair. I’m thinking of sending him a message that says I love him very much, but my attempts to be close to him right now are leaving me feeling stupid, rejected, needy, et cetera, and that I’m going to try to stop listening for his text tone on my phone and stop texting him and just live my life. And that I’m taking a leap of faith by requesting that he do whatever he needs to do to recharge and he comes back to me sweet and warm and appreciative, like he is when he’s feeling grounded. What do people think? I need to do something because I don’t want to spend the prime years of my life laying in bed crying.

Posted by taylor.lee.werner at 2023-04-08 16:06:44 UTC