It struck me tonight that there is a reason that I have am attracted to the ‘strong and silent’, ‘treat ’em mean- keep ’em keen’, emotionally unavailable types.
I actually like the silence.
Let me give you the context; I am married to an extroverted NT. How this happened I still don’t know: I was (un)happily whiling my life away getting into all sorts of unhealthy relationships with all sorts of toxic men and suddenly there is a man interested who is not another *insert non-ablist insult here* but one of the good ones.
So after a few hiccups caused mainly by my deeply ingrained mistrust of people, we got married.
Oh yeh, another tidbit, we’re Christians so we didn’t live together before we got married (not said to offend or judge anyone, that’s just how it is).
What they don’t tell you (but really should, especially to autistic people) is that, when you live with someone, there is someone in your house… ALWAYS… they call it their home and they have NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!
They ask you what you are doing. Every. Second!
They watch you doing your hobbies.
They want to cook with you.
They want to give you hugs for no reason.
They want to know how your day was when you stumble through the door.
They want to put their clothes in YOUR room.
They want to share YOUR BED.
Did I mention I live with an extrovert?!
So this has been my life for the almost two years and I am EXHAUSTED. I think I would say burnt out, but I’m not up on all the autism terminology yet.
Suddenly I remember the appeal of the introvert!
(Thankfully I also remember how bad my choices were.)
We have made some accommodations: I have my own room and bed for when I need it, I am allowed to dictate the time and place of the ‘daily debrief’, I watch A LOT of TV (which I never used to do) to get alone time. But I’m still not sure it’s gone far enough.
And I want to be able to give something back to the relationship as well. I feel that I spend my time at home trying to recover from work/life/etc that I don’t really contribute anything. I feel that I am asking him to make accommodations but not making any myself. And I would like to, but I feel that I have nothing more to give.
It’s funny because with the guys I used to date I was always the one wanting more from the relationship. I was the weepy, needy girlfriend. It just shows the calibre of loser I chose though to not be able to meet even my minuscule (autistic) social needs. Now I am overloaded, or as NAS put it: suffering from TMI, and I can’t seem to suffer even the smallest social interaction.
I think I need to step back and decompress so that we can find a happy middle-ground. I’ll let you know how that goes!
A Little Off the Mark 
I am married to a person who if not completely on the spectrum has strong leanings that way. We enjoy leaving each other alone to do our separate obsessive hobbies! It’s probably a clue to why our son was born Autistic too. But we managed an NT daughter as well and she is life and soul of the party! 😀 and quite exhausting!
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Though the strong silent type may have been your previous preferred choice, due to the bad choices you say you were making, he very likely would have removed more of your choices, would likely have leeched your energy and would not have compromised as much as your husband has. I know us NTs can seem fickle sometimes but I know when to give my wife space and when to give her time to defrag. I hope it works out ok for you both. I’m sure if you both talk about it then it will 🙂
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