Need Help with Autistic-NT relationship

*Please only comment if you have experience with NT-Autistic relationships*

Hi everyone, I am a 39-year-old Autustic man engaged to a 37-year-old NT woman.

Some background: this year has been difficult for us; I ended up losing my job due to Covid in April while she was furloughed until the beginning of August. As of right now, she's working and I'm looking for work.

We got engaged in December 2019, and have been under further stress with having to delay our wedding due to regulations. This has caused much emotional stress to my fiance and myself. I also have the additional stress of dealing with a parent who is going through chemotherapy.

We've weathered all this fairly well, (with help here and there of course), though lately I have been hitting a wall in regards to my aspie traits and depression.

The long and the short of my question is this: I have problems with time and organizational management, my partner, on the other hand is extremely organized and I tend to defer to her for these things.

She says I become fearful of her when I haven't done something by the time expected and that I don't communicate what's going on with me often enough. (I don't think I am fearful of her, per se, just that I've been in situations in the past where something was expected of me and I didn't complete it and felt inadequate, so I am scared of reprisal). Anyway this argument came to the fore tonight and she says resents being put in a role of someone who is feared in her own home (her words) and questions whether our relationship is valid based upon this going forward.

I don't know how to deal with this at the moment, and could use some advice. Thanks

 

Thank you for responding here. She just gets irritated and angry. We have been talking through it, its taken quite a few discussions, but I think she sees that I've been trying. I've gotten much better with prioritizing since I posted this, though I still have occasional slips.

I agree with your assessment of why she would think I'm afraid of her in those instances, when its actually more the past trauma of these situations that I'm responding to. Through meditation, I've been learning to better recognize when stress like this comes on, and to not give into the panic. Likewise, when I see her upset, I try not to feed her mood by responding in an irritated or grieved manner. I keep a calm composure and let her ride whatever she's feeling out, and 9 times out of 10, I've found its just a tempormental stress on her part and not a serious issue we need to discuss.