Partner spiralled and shut down after ASD assessment

I am sorry, this is be a long one.

I am lost and hurt and am hoping some of you out there can provide some insight or guidance.

I am 42 and have my own history of past relationship trauma and abandonment issues, and also have ADHD.

I recently met and was (am?) dating a wonderful man (43) who is currently undergoing the assessments for an ASD diagnosis.

This is the first time I am dating someone on the neurodivergent spectrum, and I am learning as I go and am trying to be sensitive and respectful of his needs because I care very deeply about him and want him to feel safe, heard, understood and loved.

I like him a lot, but I guess I wasn’t being obvious enough about this at first. Because I’ve been hurt so many times I tend to lean more on the guarded side, and he took this as indifference and said to me a couple of times ‘I don’t know if you like me sometimes’, which broke my heart because I really do. I have a hard time with expressing vulnerability and was trying to protect my heart as abandonment is a huge fear for me when I have feelings for someone.

Slowly the walls were coming down and I know he was feeling this.

He would comment about how I was pacing things between us, when he has been typically rushed into intimacy, sometimes before he wanted to, and he’s commented ‘I know the pacing is good’. He’s talked to his family and friends about us, the pace, about ‘how he can be a better man, for me’ and about what it means to be a good person. He’s very self aware when it comes to kindness and community and he’s just all-around the most beautiful soul I’ve ever met.

We hadn’t yet been intimate with each other, but because I knew this could be a possibility soon I disclosed to him that I have hsv, and that I would never do to him what someone did to me (not disclose, even though the person that gave it to me knew). He didn’t really say anything more than thank you for telling him and that he was sad that someone did that to me.

Life went on as normal for a few weeks, I was in the process of buying a home and was busy with everything, (mortgage paperwork, packing, moving) and he was preoccupied with dread for upcoming testing an autism assessment he was going through. He had been told if he didn’t have it, he wouldn’t have gotten this far in the testing process. This understandably was and still is a huge stressor for him, it is something that once you’re diagnosed there’s no going back. He was finding the testing to be incredibly invasive and hurtful and was having a lot of big feelings about it. He didn’t know how to describe those feelings other than ‘it’s hurting my feelings and I don’t know how to handle this’. I knew he was having a hard time and was trying to be as supportive as possible while also being very busy during those couple weeks. When we’d talk about it he would get into these negative loops and wouldn’t be able to self-regulate or change topics. He would say things like ‘I’m so tired of making people uncomfortable in conversations. It happens all the time. It’s been like this my whole life.’ He’s felt misunderstood and felt like he’s had to mask to be accepted his entire life.

One of our last conversations, I was stressed because the movers were coming the next day and I was trying to finish packing and he was in a loop and I said that I didn’t know what to say to make things better and that I was tired. This triggered a deep wound in him and he said ‘all of my partners have told me I’m emotionally exhausting and too much, and now hearing this it’s the same story and the same result’. I was asking questions to clarify because I care and want to understand him, and that I’m not going anywhere. We misunderstood each other. He couldn’t hear anything after that. And was comparing me to every other person he’s dated (not fair).

There was a shift that I noticed after this.

I saw him right before I moved, he was very quiet and in his own head, his body felt warm, and he ended up saying ‘I just feel like I’m not being helpful and I don’t feel okay, so I’m going to go home so I don’t jam you up’ (he didn’t want to get in the way or bring me down).

I moved, and he did his latest part of the assessment and he was NOT okay. He stopped texting me back as often, he stopped sending voice notes, it’s like his spark went out or he just stopped caring. He stopped answering my calls, and would give one word text answers. It was really hurting me not knowing what was going on, and I didn’t want to push him further away.

We ended up finally talking on the phone and I regret this whole conversation. I asked him if he was breaking up with me. He started crying and said ‘I don’t know, I think so, I don’t know. I don’t know if this is going to work’. He said that he’d been obsessing over the HSV conversation and couldn’t talk to anyone about it because he wanted to maintain my privacy. He was worried ‘what if I get it and we don’t work out?’ And then said that he didn’t think I wanted kids, because I had mentioned I’m taking a medication that I can’t get pregnant on (It is Accutane and has nothing to do with hsv). So instead of asking me questions to clarify, he jumped to the worst case scenario conclusions and made up this whole story that I don’t want a family or can’t have a family. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about ‘what somebody did to me (hsv) and felt that this was so unfair and that he couldn’t get over it. He’s said that even though he knows the transmission risk is extremely low, it’s caused him to spiral and he doesn’t know if he can get past it. I didn’t know he was struggling on his own about this and wish he’d been able to talk to me.

I wanted to eventually talk to him about it to make sure he knows I would do whatever I can and am willing to take daily medication (antiviral) to reduce viral shedding, use condoms, etc. I’m also very in tune with my body and I know when things feel off, I would not engage in sex. These combined reduce chance of transmission to between 1-4%. It would absolutely break my heart if this is the reason he decided he doesn’t want to do this. I understand that he feels stuck right now on this and I know his brain processes differently than mine, but honestly the worst part about it is the stigma (I don’t get outbreaks).

All of this plus he hadn’t seen his therapist in around 3-4 weeks and he usually sees him every 2 weeks.

Our last conversation was on the phone and he was completely spinning out of control, saying he doesn’t want to hurt me or say anything sharp but that he feels like a terrible person for being stuck on that one thing. It ended with him saying he’s feeling hot and even the feeling of his clothes he couldn’t stand, and he couldn’t stop crying and was getting frustrated and doesn’t want to say anything sharp but that he’s really not okay and then kept looping these things over and over. I got off the phone.

The next day I sent him a text saying that I wasn’t upset with him, that I care about him very much and if he wants to talk I’m here for him always.

He replied the next day saying that he was going to read my message when in a better headspace because he wanted to give my message the time and capacity that it needs, and that he was seeing his therapist on Monday and would respond around then.

This was a week and a half ago and I’ve heard absolutely nothing.

I followed up with a simple ‘you were on my mind today, I hope you’re finding some peace and calm. How are you doing?’…in case he was scared to reach out to and didn’t know how to get past the feelings of shame and guilt because it had been so long. And again nothing.

I’m afraid I’ve lost him, but I also understand that his nervous system is in complete shutdown and that it’ll probably take a while for him to re-set and there’s a whole series of feelings to work through including guilt, shame, etc, before he can start to feel regulated again. I also understand after listening to a million podcasts trying to understand what happened, that this is a fairly common pattern in people with autism in relationships. I’m trying to have hope that the way he felt about me is still in there somewhere, but I feel lost and hurt because I’ve been completely shut out.