Help the n00b?

[NovemberRain]

Thank you, dirtclustit, for that. It was beautiful and it spoke to me.

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by hylierandom

So I guess my goal is to build up HER self-esteem until she either (a) feels secure with my poly-ness, or (b) feels special enough to tell me to get lost because she can't take my poly-ness.

The only person who can build up her self-esteem is herself. Her parents could have done it when she was a child, but that ship has sailed. If it's ever going to happen, the responsibility is squarely on her shoulders. There is nothing you can ever do to replace the hard work she needs to learn self-esteem.

You are her partner, not her therapist. What she needs is counselling. What she does not need is a partnership that fails to meet her emotional needs.

Another strike against your approach is that with her mental state (lack of self-esteem, fear of abandonment), a partnership with you is more likely to harm her than help her.

Self-esteem: She'll be asking herself, "Why am I not enough for you? What's wrong with me that I can't satisfy your needs?" It will never NEVER click that polyamory is about your needs as a polyamorous person, not her failure as a partner.

Fear of abandonment: She'll see you going on dates with other people as you looking for her replacement. She will spend every moment expecting you to come home and tell her it's over, that you've found someone better.

There is nothing you can say or do to change that, because she does not have a healthy mind. You can't reason with an unreasonable person.

The best thing you can do for yourself and for her is to let her go as a partner and continue to be her friend. You don't have to abandon her completely. Tell her that you need to be polyamorous in order to be true to yourself, but that you can see how much polyamory is hurting her, and that you do not wish to hurt her. Encourage her to seek help and stand by her as she makes the difficult life changes.

[hylierandom]

Thank y'all for taking the time to examine this in excruciating detail.

...I DO remember saying I didn't want seriousness...
...I seem to be getting seriousness anyway.

Dirtclustit:

to be fair with this woman, you should probably figure out what kind of non-monogamy you are after. Because the intimate, good friends who are lovers need to be able to respect themselves. That requires that you treat them as you would a close friend, with respect.

Right...
Ok.
So I need to figure out what I want.
Right.
So I need to know how to communicate respect to her in a way that she can receive.
So I ask her what she needs to feel respected.
If the answer's sexual exclusivity, then she and I are going to have to be friends, because I can't give her that.

Do I respect her?
I have to think about it...I know I ought to feel respect for her.
I am doing my best to treat her with the respect she ought to have as a unique, precious, and tenderhearted human being.

What I do feel is fear.
Sort of a battle between desire and fear.

I find it kind of nervewracking that she's attaching to me so rapidly.
It's frightening.
Flattering too though...

After having my ex tell me what a loser I was in exquisite, Aspie-powered detail, and making me feel like a perv for desiring sex...

[hylierandom]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

The best thing you can do for yourself and for her is to let her go as a partner and continue to be her friend. You don't have to abandon her completely. Tell her that you need to be polyamorous in order to be true to yourself, but that you can see how much polyamory is hurting her, and that you do not wish to hurt her. Encourage her to seek help and stand by her as she makes the difficult life changes.

...Again, it's been a month since we started seeing each other.

Probably right though, I need to move on.
I'm not shacking up with ANYBODY.
Sod that, I'll never willingly live with another person again.

[NovemberRain]

Originally Posted by hylierandom

..
I'm not shacking up with ANYBODY.
Sod that, I'll never willingly live with another person again.

Tell women that within the first three dates. You'll weed out many that way. I was with my hunny for awhile when he first said that to me, and that's when I knew it wasn't going to work. I totally get why he said it (by the way, 'aspie-powered' was awesome!). I'm glad I found a way for it to be okay for me (non-monogamy).

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by hylierandom

...I DO remember saying I didn't want seriousness...
...I seem to be getting seriousness anyway.

Yeah, I've been there... I had to cut loose to save myself.

Look, she's hurting and she's in need... but that doesn't mean you have to be the one to save her. Nor can you. She needs to save herself.

So I need to know how to communicate respect to her in a way that she can receive.

If this is not a skill you already possess, then learning how to do that with her as a test subject is not going to accomplish that goal. Seriously, she needs a therapist.

So I ask her what she needs to feel respected.
If the answer's sexual exclusivity, then she and I are going to have to be friends, because I can't give her that.

What she needs to feel respected is self-respect. Again, she needs a therapist.

Do I respect her?
I have to think about it...I know I ought to feel respect for her.

Ouch. If you have to think about it, the answer is "no."

From what you've shared about your own past and resulting personality, you just aren't "there" emotionally & mentally to be what this girl needs. I don't mean that as a dig against you. You've got your own issues to deal with right now; you can't do that and fix her too. You need to focus on healing yourself.

I find it kind of nervewracking that she's attaching to me so rapidly.
It's frightening.
Flattering too though...

Fear is our primary signal that something is wrong. You say that being with her feels like it did when you were with an abusive partner. Listen to the cues your body is sending you.

Your demeanour overall shows a lack of experience with healthy relationships. The way to start forming healthy relationships is to form relationships with healthy people. If you are not healthy, start there. Find a therapist who specializes in abuse. Stay single for a while and deal with your past. The alternative is a lifetime of repeating this pattern.

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by NovemberRain

(by the way, 'aspie-powered' was awesome!)

Actually, I found it offensive. My step-son has Asperger's. To me, using that term to refer to someone's abusive behaviour is degrading towards people on the spectrum.

[WhatHappened]

Originally Posted by SchrodingersCat

Actually, I found it offensive. My step-son has Asperger's. To me, using that term to refer to someone's abusive behaviour is degrading towards people on the spectrum.

Ditto.

[hylierandom]

...I did not mean that as any slight against Asperger's people in general... But one of the noted tendencies of people with Asperger's is to accentuate flaws in things...
So she was just a veritable fountain of everything I did wrong.

To her this was being helpful...

She was unable to hear the feedback that I gave her for years that she was hurting me...She simply assumed I must want to redo anything I had gotten imperfect.
She doesn't get the idea that someone with health problems and chronic fatigue doesn't need everything to be a shining paradigm of excellence.

...I still think she is a well-intentioned and brilliant person...But I think that people who have Asperger's...have to learn to do scientifically what the neurotypical do automatically, to paraphrase an Aspie who wrote a book to help do just that...
Too, Aspies substitute logic for emotions.

So...starting from the assumption that I MUST want to do everything the VERY BEST... I must not have noticed these glaring mistakes.
So it was her duty to make sure I knew exactly what I was doing wrong. She'd "helpfully" come over and tell me what I was doing wrong...even as I was doing it.
I kept telling her "This feels like an attack, please stop." I kept telling her things like "Fine, YOU do it then!" And stomping off.
I told her that her actions caused me to feel she could not trust me and had no faith in me, like I was a toddler that had to be supervised.

I kept telling her to stop criticizing me. She would offer "explanations," I would tell her the emotional reason why the logic she used did not apply.
She kept basically dismissing that because it was not logical.
Nor did she ever stop to think "My spouse goes explodey when I do this. It makes no sense when she tells me why, but I am making her unhappy, so I should stop."
Rinse and repeat, and it was a driving factor in the marriage being over.

...So, I really do feel that our marriage died in part because she refuses to go find a therapist and learn how not to hurt and anger the neurotypicals, including the one she was partnered with.
She was angered at the suggestion she ought to get therapy for Asperger's and went off on this long rant about how there was nothing wrong with her, and maybe everyone else should conform to the way she is.
...Which...there IS nothing wrong with her, I agree.

However, her way of thinking and feeling is highly unusual and it's not adaptive for her to refuse to get help understanding the normies.

It means she is, by this choice, assuring she will be isolated.
She will have a hard time getting along with coworkers too, meaning she won't advance to where her intelligence could take her, because she can't get along well.
Because I wish her happiness, I don't like this.

[SchrodingersCat]

Originally Posted by hylierandom

...I did not mean that as any slight against Asperger's people in general... But one of the noted tendencies of people with Asperger's is to accentuate flaws in things...
So she was just a veritable fountain of everything I did wrong.

To her this was being helpful...

She was unable to hear the feedback that I gave her for years that she was hurting me...She simply assumed I must want to redo anything I had gotten imperfect.
She doesn't get the idea that someone with health problems and chronic fatigue doesn't need everything to be a shining paradigm of excellence.

Sooo... you expected her to conform to your differences (health problems and chronic fatigue) but you were not willing to conform to her differences. You chose to feel hurt and take it as personal criticism. An alternative would be accepting it as part of her Asperger's and just explaining, for example, "I understand that you would like me to do this a certain way, but I'm satisfied with how it is. You can re-do it if you'd like, but I'm not going to."

...I still think she is a well-intentioned and brilliant person...But I think that people who have Asperger's...have to learn to do scientifically what the neurotypical do automatically, to paraphrase an Aspie who wrote a book to help do just that...

No, they don't. That attitude is ableist. Some may choose to adapt, but they don't "have" to do anything unless they want to. They're not on this planet to please you.

You wouldn't expect a blind person to learn to see, a deaf person to learn to hear, or a person who uses a wheelchair to learn to walk. That's no different from expecting a person with Asperger's to learn to act neurotypically.

NT's need to learn and accept that people with Asperger's are different. A cat cannot learn to be a dog. A cat is not a dog, but a cat is a great pet. It's the human's responsibility to understand how cats behave, and to expect them to act like cats, not dogs. And some people want dogs, not cats, so they should have dogs, not cats. If you can't handle the challenges of being with someone with Aspgerger's, then move on and accept that as your limitation, not hers.

For example, I no longer date people with severe depression. I have in the past, it was very challenging for me, and I made a conscious choice that I'm just not cut out for it. I accept that as a limitation in my emotional capacity. I don't go around expecting depressed people to just get happy for my benefit.

The fact that someone felt compelled to write a book to teach other people with Asperger's to act in a way that is contrary to their nature is nothing short of heart-breaking. It fuels people like you to refuse to accept the differences as gifts rather than faults. Sure, if someone chooses to make those changes, that's their prerogative. But it doesn't validate your discrimination against the rest of the group.

Am I saying that every moment with my step-son is a walk in the park? Heeellll no. Every day is a challenge. But his differences are what make him special and unique. Without them, he wouldn't be the wonderful child that he is.

She was angered at the suggestion she ought to get therapy for Asperger's and went off on this long rant about how there was nothing wrong with her, and maybe everyone else should conform to the way she is.
...Which...there IS nothing wrong with her, I agree.

Frankly, I think you're full of shit. If you thought there was nothing "wrong" with her then why would you want her to change? Your attitude is discriminatory. Don't sit there and pretend that you're just being rational. People do that to folks with all kinds of disabilities, and it's nothing short of bigotry.

She was right to be angry: you were discriminating against her. Hey, it's a free world... you're allowed to be as close-minded, discriminatory, and stubborn as you want. And I'm allowed to judge you for that.