Yes - other people have commented that they wonder if he's on the spectrum. Including his mother, at one point. His sister once said to me that she thought he was a 'void' inside. He behaves this way towards everyone - he doesn't have close friends, doesn't talk to his family very much, isn't much of a 'giver' in relationships (but insists that's fine because he doesn't want anything in return...) Generally his heart's desire is to be left alone, and to leave other people alone - I guess that's why I found the EA so blindsiding. From seeing his messages to her he was showing interest in her, thinking about what she would like, buying presents, trying to impress her. I think it was all a fantasy and he would not have been able to sustain it long term, but still, it really hurt.
He did tell me at the time that he'd felt emotionally shut down for years and years, and the EA had let him find that softer, desiring side of himself, and he wanted to bring it into our relationship. I did see some signs of that in the few months of last summer, but I was so upset and angry and mistrustful that it drove him away, and he couldn't really sustain it with me either.
He also doesn't want to let me go - he doesn't want to buy me out of the house, he doesn't want to divorce and he wants to go to therapy. Sometimes he talks about a future with me in it, and sometimes he says he really needs to feel I am on his side, that he has my support, that he can trust me, that we can be close and have fun. He's mentioned rarely his fears about being lonely, about living his life on his own in a rented room and only seeing people at work. These are only words. I don't doubt that there's a part of him that means it, but I doubt - really doubt - he has the capacity to sustain a warm and intimate relationship and the willingness to reflect on why that might be so.
When I think about it like this, and think about my own warm friendships and the way I am able to give to people and receive from them, and the way I enjoy my children, despite how difficult they often are, I feel really really sorry for him. He isn't a bad man, though he's behaved very badly - what I see is a man who doesn't understand why he can't have what he wants, and most of the time is so shut down and afraid that he can't even let himself experience him wanting it.
Actually - that's unfair, what I said about him not being much of a 'giver' - he's a very practical man and he has unselfishly helped his parents, and mine, and other relatives of mine, and me, with practical things. Even today I could phone him and ask him to do something practical for me, and he would do it - perhaps grudgingly, but he would. He offers practical help as often as he can to the kids, and feeling needed as a 'do-er' is really important to him. I don't think he's jealous of my work or resentful of the time it takes - he certainly didn't want me at home or around any more than I was - but I do think because it's artistic and requires a kind of emotional response from the audience, that he just feels inadequate or excluded or doesn't see the point in it. He isn't disrespectful about it and he appreciates the fact it financially keeps us all fairly well (we're not rich but we're comfortable). But he isn't curious about it, or me, in any emotional or intimate sense.
