My boyfriend broke up with me after 4 years, told me he "fell out of love with me"

[Dear3G]

What do I do?

My boyfriend of 4 years just dropped me like I was nothing to him. I am NT, he is an aspie. We have worked on our relationship continuously, for all this time, and we were doing really well! I gave him his space, I let him feel free, uninhibited. Out of nowhere he came down after working on a month long project where we didn't see each other. I was supportive, because he was working on something really important to him, but i did ask, after noticing he was a little distant, that he just message me back every once in a while.

He was completely cool, kind, caring, and I told him how excited i was to see him after a month of not having seen him. We were making plans for the weekend, and he told me he would come down.

He came over, woke me up, and asked me if we could go on a walk. I felt, sure why not. We started walking down the street, and not even 500 feet from my house, he stops. We were talking about random stuff, I was just happy to be there with him. Out of nowhere he tells me we need to talk about our relationship, tells me that its not working, that its not me its him, that he doesn't want to be in a relationship at all, that he doesn't want the obligation, tells me that he "fell out of love" with me.

I am destroyed. We have been through everything together, and I have given him all of my love, patience, kindness. I have been nothing but supportive. We had our little tifs here and there, where he would snap or i would, but they were mild at best and quickly taken care of.

He is not able to give me any other reason for breaking up with me, other than he fell out of love with me. Which is a cop out in my opinion. We were in a long term relationship, we had our ups and downs, moments when i felt as though i was falling out of love with him, but after a little time and effort, i realized i was just going through some things. I never threatened the relationship with this.

Im devastated. But I dont know what to do. He is ignoring my calls and my messages, even though he said he would like to remain friends.

I need insight. And be kind please, im still very fragile.

 

[Judge]

Sadly it's no consolation, though NT women have "dumped" me as well under similar circumstances.

It happens. He may have been thinking about this for some time, but choosing to withhold it for whatever reason. (Logically it seems a mistake IMO to even bring up such a thing if the door is to remain open on the relationship itself.) Then again he might have also met someone else in the interim.

Though I just can't say that I see anything here which really reflects his neurology in play.

 

[Suzanne]

I can imagine how painful it must be for you. Being in love is torture and despite everyone saying that they think it a blessing, I often think of it as a curse!

Unfortunately, the only thing you can do, is leave him be, because if it is just in the moment, as it were, if he does love you, he will be in touch. One cannot force another to love them.

It is difficult for us aspies to cope with emotions, let alone try and explain them!

Please, for your own sake, stop trying to contact him. Because it will not win you any favours.

It is quite possible that saying he wants to remain friends, is his way of trying to make amends for causing you pain; like the second best thing, because his actions of ignoring you, are certainly not saying he wants to be friends.

 

[Warmheart]

I'm sorry you are hurting. Time will provide you with better perspective. This may have zero to do with his Asperger's.
I know that's the easiest place to look when you feel both hurt and baffled, but consider how common & normal it is for neurotypical people to dump others. Answers from him directly might ease your curiosity, but would not necessarily ease your mind. You need to focus on your own supportive self-care during this raw, hurting phase. You're your priority now, so you can begin to heal. Please take extra good care of yourself right now.

 

[Dear3G]

He isnt and has never been this type of person. He has always been kind. This is cruel.

I will try and not contact him, but its the worst thing in the world for me. He was my best friend. I lost my best friend and my boyfriend, all at once. The person i would turn to, he took that person away. I want to talk to my best friend about it, i want to have him here.

I feel so lost and alone.

 

[ksheehan88]

Its not cruel.

He told you up front that he is not in love with you anymore, that the relationship is not working. He didn't try to drag it out, or be distant or try to cause rows, he was honest and to the point. A friend always says "People want honesty, but they don't want to hear the truth", he is very right.

It feels cruel because you are heartbroken, but I think he did it in a very good way. If he has said he wants to be friends, he probably does. He may be raw from the break-up too and it may be why he isn't responding - emotions are difficult for us and he may be struggling, the easiest way to get over that? Avoid contact.

I'm sorry you are going through this.

 

[Nitro]

 

[Suzanne]

He isnt and has never been this type of person. He has always been kind. This is cruel.

I will try and not contact him, but its the worst thing in the world for me. He was my best friend. I lost my best friend and my boyfriend, all at once. The person i would turn to, he took that person away. I want to talk to my best friend about it, i want to have him here.

I feel so lost and alone.

I do empathise, because I have been where you are now and it did hurt like crazy, but it does diminish with time and although that time is negligable, it does happen.

The problem is, that he is suffering too. Because he OBVIOUSLY did not want to hurt you, as he took a while and then, took you for a walk, which shows someone who cares.

The thing is: would you rather he stick with you and not be in love with you? Which means: literal friends and cope with him falling for another woman?

 

[Bolletje]

Couldn't agree with @ksheehan88 more. This isn't cruel behavior. This also isn't something necessarily caused by being on the spectrum. People fall out of love. People soldier on and pretend everything is fine until they can't pretend anymore. It sucks. It hurts like hell. But you can't blame someone for falling out of love any more than you can blame a person for falling in love.

 

[Ambi]

What do I do?

My boyfriend of 4 years just dropped me like I was nothing to him. I am NT, he is an aspie. We have worked on our relationship continuously, for all this time, and we were doing really well! I gave him his space, I let him feel free, uninhibited. Out of nowhere he came down after working on a month long project where we didn't see each other. I was supportive, because he was working on something really important to him, but i did ask, after noticing he was a little distant, that he just message me back every once in a while.

He was completely cool, kind, caring, and I told him how excited i was to see him after a month of not having seen him. We were making plans for the weekend, and he told me he would come down.

He came over, woke me up, and asked me if we could go on a walk. I felt, sure why not. We started walking down the street, and not even 500 feet from my house, he stops. We were talking about random stuff, I was just happy to be there with him. Out of nowhere he tells me we need to talk about our relationship, tells me that its not working, that its not me its him, that he doesn't want to be in a relationship at all, that he doesn't want the obligation, tells me that he "fell out of love" with me.

I am destroyed. We have been through everything together, and I have given him all of my love, patience, kindness. I have been nothing but supportive. We had our little tifs here and there, where he would snap or i would, but they were mild at best and quickly taken care of.

He is not able to give me any other reason for breaking up with me, other than he fell out of love with me. Which is a cop out in my opinion. We were in a long term relationship, we had our ups and downs, moments when i felt as though i was falling out of love with him, but after a little time and effort, i realized i was just going through some things. I never threatened the relationship with this.

Im devastated. But I dont know what to do. He is ignoring my calls and my messages, even though he said he would like to remain friends.

I need insight. And be kind please, im still very fragile.

That is terribly sad :-( I think once you have healed you should focus on finding someone who has your same values about relationships, about seeing through the ups and downs and the "not feeling in love" parts. I think many people leave when they feel they are no longer in "love", (I think much of Western society encourages this as normal and healthy and to be expected) but there are those out there who believe in continuing on and working things out. Also, realize, for you the "out of love" feeling was you just "going through some things", but for him, that might not be the case - it may not be that he is "going through some things", so the basis of his feelings and his decision can be totally different. If what you really want is to find out more details about what happened with him, you've got to ask him - we really can't answer for him.

 

[Momo]

The best advice I can give is to leave him be. You're situation is not an uncommon one, though that doesn't make it any more pleasant. But if he feels this way, which he likely has for a while, it may have been better for the truth to come out rather than if he'd just kept putting the relationship on. I know it hurts, but I don't think it's your fault.

 

[Annieoh]

Sadly it's no consolation, though NT women have "dumped" me as well under similar circumstances.

It happens. He may have been thinking about this for some time, but choosing to withhold it for whatever reason. (Logically it seems a mistake IMO to even bring up such a thing if the door is to remain open on the relationship itself.) Then again he might have also met someone else in the interim.

Though I just can't say that I see anything here which really reflects his neurology in play.

 

[Annieoh]

I see this again and again on this sight. In my life too with an Aspie. At least he told you in person. The love of my life just texted me. That's it. No apologies. No concern for my feelings. No nothing. Only his need to end the relationship.
Unilateral decision. He didn't want me to get in the way of his relationship with his son. His ex might get angry if he is seeing someone and not allow him his visiting rights.

 

[Tyrantus1212]

I've never been in a relationship myself, I'll mention that first. However, by reading your post, I can obviously tell that he didn't break up with you because of your Asperger's. You two have been together for 4 years and based on your post there was nothing "off" about him or the relationship. I know breakups happen and that people do fall out of love, and even though I've never experienced one I can tell that they hurt. I think he did it in a proper way too but saying that he would like to remain friends was unnecessary in my opinion. Nothing is certain after a breakup. I'm sorry this has happened to you, but please know that it wasn't you or your Asperger's. Completely not your fault. Relationships happen, and so do breakups - and yours has lasted four years! That's huge...I have yet to go on a date, so you're way ahead of me there!

I'd advise you to not contact him anymore; despite not being in a relationship myself I heard that can lead to some unexpected complications later. Focus on yourself for a while - hobbies, interests, so on - and take as much time as you need for this, there's never a time limit on getting over a breakup.

 

[Alaska]

What do I do?

My boyfriend of 4 years just dropped me like I was nothing to him. I am NT, he is an aspie. We have worked on our relationship continuously, for all this time, and we were doing really well! I gave him his space, I let him feel free, uninhibited. Out of nowhere he came down after working on a month long project where we didn't see each other. I was supportive, because he was working on something really important to him, but i did ask, after noticing he was a little distant, that he just message me back every once in a while.

He was completely cool, kind, caring, and I told him how excited i was to see him after a month of not having seen him. We were making plans for the weekend, and he told me he would come down.

He came over, woke me up, and asked me if we could go on a walk. I felt, sure why not. We started walking down the street, and not even 500 feet from my house, he stops. We were talking about random stuff, I was just happy to be there with him. Out of nowhere he tells me we need to talk about our relationship, tells me that its not working, that its not me its him, that he doesn't want to be in a relationship at all, that he doesn't want the obligation, tells me that he "fell out of love" with me.

I am destroyed. We have been through everything together, and I have given him all of my love, patience, kindness. I have been nothing but supportive. We had our little tifs here and there, where he would snap or i would, but they were mild at best and quickly taken care of.

He is not able to give me any other reason for breaking up with me, other than he fell out of love with me. Which is a cop out in my opinion. We were in a long term relationship, we had our ups and downs, moments when i felt as though i was falling out of love with him, but after a little time and effort, i realized i was just going through some things. I never threatened the relationship with this.

Im devastated. But I dont know what to do. He is ignoring my calls and my messages, even though he said he would like to remain friends.

I need insight. And be kind please, im still very fragile.

Your ex did make a big effort to let you down easy, even though it does not seem to have been successful. Aspies and Auties are a very assorted lot of people, so we can keyboard you hundreds of replies, but that won't fix anything or do much to help you understand why you got dumped. He is the only one who can do much to explain it all to you. It does not seem as if he wants to do more explaining right now.

If you are to have any better chance of getting better closure to the end of your relationship, I think your only chance is to leave him alone and hope he meant it about remaining friends. Acting clingy and nagging won't help. I don't know that you have actually been clingy or nagging, but from his silence, he probably thinks so.

As a person who has been both dumped and dumpee, I know this hurts whether you are an Aspie/Autie or an NT. You need to do whatever you can to help yourself get through the worst of your pain. Be nice to yourself and do the things that comfort you, and maybe eat the comfort foods whether they fit into your diet plan right now or not. I am wishing that you see a glimmer of hope soon.

 

[Dear3G]

He finally sent me a message back, and eased my qualms for a little while. One of my biggest concerns was losing our friendship, because at this point in our relationship, thats what it was. We were almost never romantic with each other. Well, I was, and tried, but he saw it as an obligation rather than something he wanted to do. It is so hard to take the space, because he is my best friend, and im so not used to not being allowed to say hi, or hear his voice on the phone. I am hoping we can get past this. I am afraid he will ghost on me. I am trying to trust that if I just give him space, that it will help.

Thank you everyone, for your honest, and much needed perspective. I appreciate your kindness.

 

[Ladyliss]

Dear3G, of it helps at all, this is how I think of the recent ending of my marriage to my aspie husband. He COULDN'T do the relating, and knowing that he couldn't add how much it hurt me that he couldn't (our romance had long since ended), he called it. Maybe to end my pain, maybe to relieve his guilt, maybe both, but the important factor being that he was unable to have the relationship I wanted with him. I think maybe aspies can be more clear sighted about that fact than we NTs who hold on in hope, not quite grasping why the other end isn't working .

 

[Dear3G]

Ok, i have gotten to the stage where ive been really realizing a lot of things, where I have calmed down. I feel ok. I really do. And this might be because I have had my heartbroken more than once, and I have felt off guard more than once, both with friends and significant others.

My question to you all (i read every reply and truly apprecaite all of your words, they have helped me with this tremendously)is this; how likely is it that he will be ok?

I was his person to talk to about everything for 4 years, im giving him space, which means I cant check up on him. Im worried about him. Is he going to be ok? This is only the second relationship he has ever been in, and the first was less than 3 months and he was NOT ok. This was 4 years.

Im worried.

My second question, is a true friendship going to be something he can handle? If he says he wants it? Because honestly, thats all i want. A friendship is fine with me. Because then i have the whole world of possibility in front of me.

Hard questions to answer, i know, but any and all advice is truly truly appreciated. And thank you, this community has helped me already in so many ways.

 

[Keigan]

Welcome.

Sorry about how things turned. It happens to all people regardless of neurology.