An abrupt breakup!
I was recently involved with an online relationship with a man who also has an ASD. The online relationship escalated to him calling me on the phone, texting my cell phone. It happened gradual, as we have been talkign to each other for about 8 months at this point. Eventually, our feelings grew- and we began to call each other affectionate names such as honey, darling, sweetums etc.... I have started to have feelings, and I'm sure he did as well. We would talk about random things such as work, reading, our occupations, families etc. During our text messages, we would talk about the possibility of me visiting him ( he lives in another country, and him visiting me. He always told me that I am everything he wants in a girlfriend- intelligent, friendly, attractive, cultured and strong values. The text conversation was spent talking about me comming to visit him, introduce my cooking recipes to him, and we would even send each other valentine day cards/gifts. All of a sudden; he grew cold towards me. He sent me the last two text messages telling me to find a rich man, and calling me "money hungry". He even stopped all contact with me completely- blocking me from his profile on another forum. I was told through a friend of mine that he said some really nasty things about me upon cutting off contact with me. I am really confused about this. I know- everyone keeps telling me to "get over it- it happened a week ago". Its upsetting, because I have developed fond feelings for him, and him me. I'm really disappointed that he now thinks that his moral, attractive girlfriend is now a beggar- and is money hungry. Im quite heartbroken about this. Any input-
If I have said NOTHING WHATSOEVER about money matters, then why would he suddenly assume that about me?
Bummer.
Knowing what other people are thinking and feeling isn't really my strong suit , but if I were to hazard a guess, it sounds to me like an idea someone else gave him (perhaps without even meaning to). Like maybe somebody, half-jokingly said something like 'You know, women are only after the money. They'll marry you and then they'll turn around and take half of everything'. Some stupid thing like that, and it affected him. Of course, I have no idea, but I'm the kind of person who misinterprets statements like that, so maybe he did, too.
You may never know what happened, and the not knowing must make it doubly hard for you to move on. I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to tell you how long you should take to get over it. It'll take as long as it takes.
I don't know much about broken hearts, except that they hurt. Sorry you're hurting now.
That is really sad! *internet hugs* You are perfectly entitled to grieve!
Here's my own experience with an abrupt breakup:
I had been dating a boy in High School for a year and a half, and my senior year asked him to marry me. It wasn't a healthy relationship, but I was in love. Then he started to get annoyed with me- we had a consistent calling schedule worked out, had the whole relationship, and suddenly I was "clingy". I guess this came from his mum, but I don't think I will ever know. The end of January of my Senior year of High school, my mother came into my room chatting with him on the phone, and hands me the phone. Though he had been chatting happily with my mom about leather making, he simply said, "check your texts," and hung up. I did, and he had broken up with me via text message. I screamed and cried for hours, had a complete meltdown, and then spent the next MONTH in my room doing nothing. I went into the Psych ward after repeatedly missing school, and spent the weekend there. I started having anxiety attacks at school again- which I hadn't had so bad in several years- and ended up quitting band because I couldn't handle it.
It took me a while to realize the abusive elements of our relationship. It took me that entire spring term to start to get myself back, and what got back to wasn't that healthy either. Thankfully, one of the girls in one of my classes had taken a liking to me- I later learned that it was because I didn't seem bothered by her reputation, which I had actually been utterly oblivious to. So I spent a lot of time with her and her friends, eventually making friends with them too, though when it came down to it the only ones I felt comfortable with were her and our friend Jacob.
It might take a while to get yourself back. Look for friends, and keep yourself open to healing. One of the big issues you might have to deal with, as someone on spectrum, the the change in your routines. recognize that these changes are there, and that they are upsetting you- and that you are allowed to be upset.
A week certainly isn't enough time for a broken heart to heal.
Savannah Nicole Logsdon-Breakstone Director of Advocacy 
Wow, Savannah, when my last break up occurred (and I found out he was cheating and had another girlfriend -- we were long distance but met in-person originally and saw each other time to time) I also spent a month in bed. Then it took years to recover (I'm still recovering due to his abuse during and after the relationship). I have to take a lot more anxiety pills now, even though I'm happily engaged and that was years ago.
I came here tonight due to something very like that which happened to the first poster here. Man I knew in real life - we both go to a drop-in centre. I have AS and I strongly suspect he does too. We also became friends on Facebook and spent a lot of time talking there. We had a huge row over a misunderstanding at the start of April but I managed to make him see I hadn't been trying to hurt his feelings. Then, at the start of May, we arranged to meet my friends for coffee. He cancelled, way too late, by email, with a lame excuse.
I had begun to notice that he never wanted to be alone with me - was only comfortable with me at the centre or online. So I emailed to ask if he'd rather be a very casual acquaintance. He sent a very brief email saying Yes.
I was devastated. I had fancied him a lot, but assumed there was nothing doing. I would NEVER have tried to corner him to get off with him. I assume now this was what lay behind the abrupt way things ended. I can't think of any other reason. He never said it, and I made it clear in an email at the start and end that we were platonic. But maybe he just sensed it.
Or maybe he just felt cornered that day and it was easier to push me away? I don't know.
He blocked me on Facebook (which he knows distresses me greatly). He sent some angry emails and I sent some angry emails... It all went to pieces. Now we don't even talk to each other at the centre or sit in the same room. He's blocked my emails, too. I'm scared to approach him in case he shouts at me or just walks away (we're both in our 40s, by the way - deduct 40 and get our emotional ages). It's horrible, so awkward and miserable, and makes me very anxious. I haven't a clue what to do about it.
We used to talk for hours, and I never felt lonely at night till that stopped. It seemed like one day we were talking like close friends and the next we were screaming at each other via email. I can't believe, still, it just fell to pieces like that.
Finding him attractive obviously makes it so much harder. I feel utterly repulsive. Time will pass, I suppose. My friends say he has huge problems and it's obvious he finds it impossible to cope with vast areas of life. I try to be sympathetic. But I am also enraged still. It's very difficult indeed.
*hugs* I'm really sorry that happened to you.
I've been there, too. It's really, really hard when you share so much of yourself with someone and then - BAM - that person is gone. And while you may realise on an intellectual level that it's not about you, dealing with it on an emotional level is SO much harder. Of course you're angry. You have every right to be. You have every right to grieve what you once had.
I wish I had some amazingly wise words of wisdom other than "Time usually heals all". Thinking of you..
I'm also very sorry this happened to you. While I haven't had that experience in a romantic relationship, I can relate to the sudden shut off experience. This happened with a few friends in my life, whom I'd known for a long time and (perhaps foolishly) trusted not to behave like that. We'd gotten along fine, very few conflicts, and then something happened that as I look back on it should have been relatively easy to resolve, and these friends seemed to decide perhaps the friendship wasn't easy enough anymore -- as if the presence of conflict negated all the time and effort we'd put into the friendship up until that point. I was devastated.
I had a few other friends walk because my son is autistic and mentally ill, and they said, "It's just too weird for me. I don't want to be around him. I don't want to help you with this."
There is one person once very close to me in my family who just decides people are out of his life and that's that. If he isn't enjoying the situation and it's stressful, good-bye. (He didn't talk to one family member for 14 years.) He does this with various people, and it happened with me (and I think it's because he can't deal with my son or any of the issues related to raising him) and he seems fine with it, happily moving on with his life, and in a weird way, I think shutting people off offers him a type of power, a type of catharsis that reassures him in some way. It is painful for me and hard for me to understand. But the friends and now this family member won't discuss it or work on it. It's hard to resolve conflicts when the door just closes like that.
Sad to say, some people seem to have a defense mechanism of pushing people away. I'm not sure if this is what happened in your case, but if it is, then this is a helpful thing to know about him now before things develop further. I don't think it is a good sign that he would behave this way, and it seems to point to other potentially serious challenges with commitment and forgiveness. It could be that part of him really likes the idea of moving forward and that another part of him is quite frightened of doing so. People can tend to seize on paranoid ideas when they are scared; I think it's a type of flight response.
By the way, I totally understand why you are hurting. The behavior is hurtful. I'm so sorry you are suffering.
Thank you both.
My family was full of I'm-not-talking-to-you: Mum didn't speak to Dad for maybe 10 years. I stopped talking to my brother as a kid (his Asperger's is much worse than mine, and my how we fought!) and we didn't make it up till I was in my 30s (there were other issues I won't go into here). And Dad's family shut down contact greatly because he married a Catholic! You don't need a degree in psychology to see the pattern here.
I was interested in what you said about paranoid ideas leading to flight. Both I and the first person in the thread seem to have encountered this. I wonder if that isn't the AS thing of becoming convinced that a passing remark is in fact a terrible insult which must never be forgiven? And the insulting person must be punished as painfully as possible. I've been on the other side there, too: I've rejected and fought against people when, in retrospect, I see I could have just sat down and talked it through. I know how all the evil in the world seems to distill into the person who insulted you, and they seem powerful and dangerous and must be shunned at all cost. And if they try to apologise, well, that's simply more insolence. Partly due to childhood bullying, I should think: partly due to the immensity of rage that possesses spectrum people from time to time. And our well-documented emotional immaturity, of course. Sometimes I think he doesn't even realise I'm in pain about this - doesn't realise, at some level, that others have emotions (probably the same for the first poster's man). Or maybe when you're in this state of mind, you think the "insulter" has hurt you so very badly that surely they are immune to pain.
No, it was NEVER going to be any good with him but I do still find him very attractive and that'll take its time to die, sadly.
Anyway - he will have to learn to get on with me a bit because we can't go on ignoring each other like children at the day centre. So there. I win.
I'm sorry about your bad experiences too. But anyone who rejects your child that way isn't worth knowing at all - just thought I'd remind you. :)
"I wonder if that isn't the AS thing of becoming convinced that a passing remark is in fact a terrible insult which must never be forgiven?"
I don't know if it's an AS thing, but I've been guilty of this, too. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I've been burned so many times in the past with people veiling cruel insults in benign body language. It's only later - sometimes much, much later - that I realise their true intentions. So I guess I've conditioned myself to be suspicious of everyone.
"I wonder if that isn't the AS thing of becoming convinced that a passing remark is in fact a terrible insult which must never be forgiven?"
I don't know if it's an AS thing, but I've been guilty of this, too. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I've been burned so many times in the past with people veiling cruel insults in benign body language. It's only later - sometimes much, much later - that I realise their true intentions. So I guess I've conditioned myself to be suspicious of everyone.
Yes I've experienced that myself too.
I haven't had it happen in a relationship, but a few years back a friend who'd i'd been corresponding with (by snail mail) for many years suddenly wrote and said she didn't want to correspond with me anymore, giving excuses that seemed pathetic even at the time. It was very hurtful, i still don't know her real reasons.
I would tend to agree with the above comments, re "passing remarks being terrible insults that must never be forgiven". I've been there, done that, thankfully i seem to be past the worst now, in my 50s. I guess even aspies grow up sometime!!! lol
Went to the centre today. Met a woman friend of mind who rarely goes - had a wonderful time with her. But I was forever aware of him, wary of him, unable to keep from pinpointing where he was, making sure I didn't look directly, etc. Exhausting. No idea what to do about it. He's always there and I can never relax. I hate this. I could ask the staff to arrange a meeting, but I doubt if it'd work. He'd not turn up, or he'd get overwhelmed and leave after five minutes (seen him do THAT many times) or else he'd clam up. Stuck, stuck, stuck.
One thought... both LadyCaptain and I got blocked on sites by our respective bewilderers. If there's anything either of us, or anyone else here can gain from that, then it's this: Always talk problems over with people. God knows I've been as guilty as either of these men of cutting people off without giving them a chance. And the AS makes the whole world black and white and extreme. But what I'm going to try hard to do in future is this:
1. NEVER assume that if someone's hurt me, they've done it deliberately.
2. ALWAYS go back and talk about it (leaving suitable time for tempers to cool, of course) and be prepared to LISTEN myself.
3. NEVER shut people out unless they really are proved to be dangerous or bad for me - like the sex pest I blocked on Facebook one time.
It sounds obvious but in the heat of the thing it's anything but. Life is full of bitter little lessons, sadly. And I'm not religious. But you take the good from your experiences when you can, I suppose.
And only ever talk to nice men :)
Hi lady captin
I was thinking about this post a lot and I was thinking maybe it sounds like the person is to afraid to meet you in real life and is just comfortable talking to you on the internet and or just really wants to talk to you on the internet and is causious about sometimes meeting people. Even if it is a guy. Maybe you helped him so much that it got to be a lot and there was a miss understanding. I think that maybe if this person has a problem mentally it's not you. Its just that your helping out in a different way and got caught up in the whole thing. I don't think it wouldn't be bad to have a someone nice to talk to on the computer. You don't have to meet everyone you talk to in life from the internet just isn't safe in my head. Just know your a good person. That person must think so even with all that you said near the end. So i'm sorry your feelings got hurt but maybe it was all just like I said something got twisted in a line or too. you seem like a nice person.
jenn
Sorry to hear this. I would first have to say that this is most likely due to some sort of miscommunication.
Perhaps he took something you said literally, and made some error judgments from there?
I would also add that you are entitled to a grieving process. I wouldn't say that it's necessary for you to be *over it* in one week after having spent over 8 months getting to know this person, and forming some attachments.
Everyone lets go in their own way, so don't expect it to be on another person's time schedule. You maybe starting off somewhat delayed due to the shock of it all.
Again, sorry this happened...