Autism, Polyamory, and Reading Social Cues About Love

I've been with my husband, Will, for 17 years, married for 11 of them. He was my first boyfriend, first everything, and my only partner until about 6 months ago when we decided to become ENM. Right now, I have two other partners- Chris and Scott. I've been with them about 6 months and 4 months respectively. 

Chris is solo poly, and through my relationship with him, I've realized that I'm polyamorous. This scared the shit outta me, because we started this enm journey with the idea (like most people do) that we'd try to avoid feelings. Chris was actually the first one to suggest that I might be polyamorous, not just ENM, and that was about 3 months ago. We have both admitted freely that we have feelings for each other. He even has said "sometimes when I'm with you a certain three-word-phrase crosses my mind." I told him I didn't mind him saying it, but I was too chicken to say it first. This was maybe two months ago? So I've been operating under the assumption that we both had moved from like to love, and he was probably just waiting to say it because he knows that this is really only my second romantic relationship ever; he's very patient and careful with me because of that. 

Anyways, I've known that I love him for a while. And so this past week I decided to gently broach that fact with him by signing my birthday card to him "Love, Kathleen." I thought that this might tell him in a gentle way that we can say that out loud to each other now. So I did. When he read the card, he was obviously emotionally moved by it, almost to tears, and said "thank you." Then he hugged me, and said, "I'm so glad that we met. And I'm so grateful for you." And that was it. 

Later on in the evening, I asked him if what I had put at the end of the card was ok. He said yes, and thanked me for being vulnerable and communicating my feelings to him. I told him I was afraid that I had made things awkward or that he'd feel pressured, but he said I didn't and that he would definitely tell me when he feels those feelings for me. The rest of the night was perfect, normal, and he didn't act any different towards me. But on the drive home I just felt so, so stupid. 

I'm autistic, and I feel like I have grossly misread the social cues or something that led me to think he was in love with me. In fact, I thought he was in love with me for a while and just waiting on me to feel secure enough. Which, I did and is why I told him. I am definitely proud of telling him my genuine emotions, and being vulnerable with him, but damn I'm hurt. And I feel like I have fucked everything up for no reason. Or, that now he's going to be pressured to investigate his feelings every time he's with me and be like, "nope...don't love her yet!"

I did the brave thing, I took the risk, I listened to my feelings, I trusted that I was safe to tell him, and yet I'm just at a loss for how to not feel like a total and complete idiot. 

Not sure how to close this, other than to say thank you for being open to receiving this. 

I understand why you're having all these feelings, and there's a lot to unpack here. But first and foremost: you're not a complete idiot, it wasn't unsafe for you to tell him these feelings, and you didn't do anything socially wrong.

As an autistic person, I struggle with this too. The idea that I've done something wrong, offended somebody, or crossed some invisible social boundary is enormous for me. I still feel self-conscious about it and struggle with it constantly. I'm hyper-vigilant to people's reactions around me, and I take it super personally if somebody is a little quieter than usual. My immediate thought is: "Oh god, is it because I've done something wrong?"

You have to be hyper-vigilant sometimes, because people aren't always honest with you. As an autistic person, this is particularly hard. I know I can be 100% horribly rude without even realising it, and that's emotionally difficult. Human beings are social creatures. We have to be in social relationships. Solitary confinement is torture for a reason: when we're completely socially isolated from other humans, our mental health breaks down. So it's really disheartening when allistic people (people who aren't autistic) aren't honest about their feelings, and you end up saying or doing the wrong thing without realising it, and then nobody tells you, and suddenly you're the bad guy.

So validate those feelings. You're going to be hyper-focused on this, and that's okay. But it doesn't mean you have the full spectrum of information you need to make a judgment about what happened. You need to balance that anxiety with compassion for yourself, while understanding that you might be working with incomplete data.

There's a big cultural narrative that when you say you love somebody, the ideal outcome is that they immediately say it back, and if they don't, you've done something wrong. That isn't necessarily true.

Your personal journey of recognising that you love someone and being comfortable saying it out loud is completely separate from their personal journey of recognising their feelings for you and being comfortable expressing them. You mentioned that Chris has said, "Sometimes when I'm with you, a certain three-word phrase crosses my mind." I would interpret that as him having strong feelings but, for whatever reason that may have absolutely nothing to do with you, not feeling comfortable saying it out loud yet.

That might be because this is your second romantic relationship ever and he's feeling anxious about it and the power differential he has over you, but it's not because you've done anything wrong. It's fine that you put it out there. It clearly meant a lot to him. But his comfort in being able to say it back or say it out loud is his own journey.

Keep in mind: you didn't say "I love you" out loud. You put it at the end of a card. I'm not criticising how you did it. I'm pointing out that you did it in an indirect way, but then you seem to want a direct response back. He could equally have interpreted your card as: "This person hasn't said 'I love you' out loud, so maybe they're not comfortable with me saying it yet."

You're both kind of playing chicken with each other. You're both too afraid to make that first step. You did something vulnerable and you should be proud of that, but you also didn't say it directly out loud to his face. So in a way, you're still expecting him to be the first one to say it out loud, which is a lot. If he's aware that he has more relational experience than you, he might be afraid of that power imbalance. He might be afraid of imposing on you by saying "I love you" out loud first. You took a risk and it was safe to tell him. But I think you're creating a whole story here where you don't actually have any of the information to support it. I'm positing a completely different analysis that could be equally as true. It's okay to be afraid to tell somebody you love them. I've definitely been in that situation. One of the first times I told a partner I loved them, I was drunk because I didn't have my filters on and just let it out without realising it. Not the ideal situation, but it is what it is.

Here's the thing about being autistic and navigating social situations: I cannot control if I say or do something that bothers somebody and they don't tell me about it. I cannot control if I'm too much for somebody, or if somebody doesn't like me, or if I express myself in a way that doesn't jive with them. I can only express my emotions and feelings in ways where I'm doing my best to balance how vulnerable I want to be with how honest I want to be, and hope that I'm doing the best I can.

I don't have to be perfect. You're not going to avoid somebody leaving you by being perfect. That's really the core issue I want to address: you're operating on the assumption that there's a perfect way to handle any social situation—including this one—that means you don't get hurt by other people. That's not true. You could be the perfect person socially. You could say all the right things at all the right times, and still come across somebody who's going to be an asshole to you because of their own issues. You're never going to be able to prevent yourself from being hurt by someone, or judged by someone, or prevent social mishaps by being perfect.

Conflict is an inevitable part of human interaction. Misunderstandings are an inevitable part of human interaction. You're never going to be able to completely prevent that. As Clementine Morrigan says (which I appreciate so much): "You cannot fix the problem by being good, because the problem is not that you are bad."

This is an awkward situation. Life is awkward. Situations are awkward. It is what it is. You're not going to be able to prevent yourself from being in awkward situations like this, and you're not in this awkward situation because you did something wrong. See what happens. You've expressed your feelings, albeit not by saying "I love you" out loud, but by putting it at the end of a card, which is fine. You're trying your best, and that's understandable. There's a reason we don't always blurt out all our feelings right away. It's smart to judge the situation and use some discernment.

You put it out there a little bit. Maybe next time you'll feel comfortable saying it out loud. But his comfort in being able to say it back to you isn't like a vending machine where if you put in the right code, "I love you" pops out. That's not how it works. There's a whole situation going on with him, his past experiences with relationships, his own personal comfort, that has absolutely nothing to do with you. The whole situation isn't dependent on you putting in the right code or saying the right things to get the right response. Be kinder to yourself. You're not a total and complete idiot. You didn't do anything wrong. You did your best in the situation.

And even if you did fuck up? So what. Human beings fuck up. That's how we do things. As long as you're willing to acknowledge when you've messed up and try to do better going forward, that's all you can do. It's in the past. It happened. You can't change it. Look forward to the future. Beating yourself up is not going to fix what happened in the past. As much as your brain might think it's empowering in the moment: "If I beat myself up now and never make this mistake again, then I'll never have this problem again, and I'll be perfect and nothing wrong will ever happen in a relationship". That's not the case.

You can't prevent yourself from pain and awkwardness by being perfect. Because A) nobody's ever perfect, and it's unrealistic to expect that of yourself, and B) even if you were perfect, other people aren't. It's just part of being human.

I hope this helps and good luck.