Monday 22 December 2014

status quo

Right after I wrote that, I watched a bunch of videos by Dr. Sue Johnson, which talk about emotional closeness in relationships and cried my eyes out.  And I read a bunch of forums about having a relationship with someone with Asperger's, and cried more.
Now, Nerdboy has not been diagnosed with Asperger's (it's on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum) nor does he fit all the typical characteristics of someone with Asperger's.

Yes:
He does miss social cues, he does have trouble keeping friends.
He talks too long about things that interest him, even when the listener is clearly bored.  (Or even when I interrupt him to tell him I don't care!)  I have to remind him daily to ask about how my day went.
He can get obsessed with things.

No;
He's not physically clumsy, does not do repetitive movements, nor does he speak oddly (although he did have a speech impediment as a child)
He can make eye contact and is often better at chatting with strangers than I am (although does tend to forget to ask questions about other people.)

The hard to categorize ones:
He thinks he's empathetic and I think he's not, but...
He can relate deeply to characters in fiction.
He was deeply upset when he accidentally killed a mouse.
He can read my emotions from my body language , he just tends not to respond correctly.
His own emotions are very locked up.
He randomly decides to make elaborate gifts for acquaintances that he doesn't have a close relationship with (including people we volunteered with, coworkers he only sorta likes, my relatives....)
~~~

And somehow we had a fun week and I felt okay about things.  And since then we've been quite affectionate with each other and I've stopped crying.
The other night we watched 'It's a Wonderful Life' (his favourite) and it made me weepy and made me think about the type of person I want to be.  So we were cuddling on the couch and I turned and asked Nerdboy 'What do you dream about?'
"That's a weird question.  Stuff and things."
"I mean, what do you want in your life? Do you want a house?"
"Well that's never going to happen so there's no use wishing for it."

"What about travel?" got a similar response.

I was silently weeping.  He got up and did dishes.  When he came back, he said in an angry voice, "It's depressing to me to talk about this stuff that I can't have in my life."
And I cried openly and said 'It's not about having a house, it's about who we want to be.  I want to know about your inner life and you shut down.  I feel like a failure, probably more than you, and yet it doesn't hurt me to dream about a house.  And if you're depressed you need to be able to talk about it with me."
I told him this is why I feel lonely.  I think I said in broken sobs, "Why don't you ask me about my dreams?"

And I don't know what he's going to do with this information, but I said what I wanted about as clearly as I could.




Monday 8 December 2014

comfortably unhappy?

Little News


Had a small success at an art show and made $800.  Makes a tiny dent in what I spend on studio rent and art supplies..

Got a part-time job at an art supplies store, making just over minimum wage and I have to give out plastic bags (which I don't personally use) to shoppers all day long.  But it will ease the money stress, although I'm certainly still living below the poverty line.  It's only temporary until Christmas, but maybe will stay on if they want me to.

My brother-in-law has a tumour in his leg that will need to be removed.  I am worried for my sister, who is already stressed to the max.


~~~~

The Big Worry


Have been feeling like I want more from my relationship with Nerdboy and feeling like if I'm this unhappy I should probably end it.  But I owe him last month's rent, and I don't want to move and shake up my little life again right now.

It's like we're friends who occasionally sleep together, really.  I thought love would be a little more intense.  And not just sex, but an emotional connection that he might never be capable of.

Daily life is okay. We do the domestic chores together, we tease each other, we do these craft fairs together, we amuse each other and can enjoy some of the same sort of activities.  But if I'm sad I try to talk to him and he just tries to make me laugh and get things back to normal.  He doesn't come to me with his 'stuff'.

I talked to him this week.  I said I try to talk to him and hit a wall.  Every day I ask him about his day and every day I wait for him to ask about mine.  Nothing.  And I've told him at least three times, including this week, how important it was to me.  He asked the day after we talked, and that was it.

It's 7am and I've already been crying.  Yesterday I had a crazy 10 hour day.  He picked me up, he made me dinner.  As he was cooking I felt thankful and went to kiss him and he said, 'I just want to cook right now.'  And that's part of his weirdness that I don't understand.  To him, he was just focused on something else.  To me it was rejection.

I have to tackle something else big today.  I teach art classes, as a contractor not an employee.  And I think that's not legal and I'm angry but I haven't said anything.  But on Friday I got an email saying contractors are now required to have insurance because we are not protected by the organization's insurance, since we are not employees.  And financially it's not worth it to me, and I think it's just wrong.  So that's part of this morning's tears.

On Friday when I found out, I was really fragile for a few hours, near tears but not able to cry.  I went to the studio to work and when I came back, Nerdboy had made a mistake on his crafts and lost several hours of work.  I went to hug him and he said 'I'm hands-off right now.'

Well, I wish a crafting mistake was my biggest problem in life!  I am facing losing $5000 income a year if I quit my teaching job.

I'm out of my comfort zone in so many things right now.
Nerdboy supports me financially (although he's keeping tabs), he drives me around, he does all the cooking.  I'm incredibly spoiled in that.  I'm a terrible roommate, messy and behind in my rent.  I don't bring a lot to the relationship.  Maybe I'm the one who does the emotional work, but this is my first relationship and I'm making it up as I go along.

Ok  I know it's not working.  I shouldn't be crying so much.  Thank you to the reader who emailed me with advice on this.
I am a big black hole of needing affection because I was alone way too long.  So dating a loner probably isn't a good combo.  I never know when he's going to retreat into his shell and it's never explained when it happens. I am always scared to reach out to him.

I guess I lay it out clearly one more time and I make plans to live somewhere else for a while if it's not going to work.  I hate to do this before Christmas but I'm realizing I can't do another month pretending things are okay.