My partner suggested we do a particular activity last weekend and I said "yes, and you should invite your mother" because I thought she would enjoy it too and he feels guilty about not spending enough time with her.

[I've considered doing a poll on this, on the average frequency and length of interactions between aging parents and adult children, to have actual human facts to argue at his guilt. I haven't, though, because I'm concerned it could come across like a passive-aggressive attempt to get him to spend less time with her. This would be an uncharitable interpretation, completely without foundation, but lord knows allistic people love those.

(Also I think there are too many factors to get usable crowd-sourced data.)]

Anyway, so we did the activity and everyone was happy, and she asked us about our plans the next day and I said "Probably nothing together" and she laughed.

Which seems fair. It was an atypical thing to say, but saying typical things bores me.

(It is perhaps also relevant that he and I were basically sitting on each other at the time. He seems to consider this an appropriate level of contact in front of his mother, and I happily defer to his judgment here.)

ANYWAY, so, his mother laughed quizzically at me but it happens to be the truth: planned time apart is good for us, for the two of *us.* We exchange tiny love notes full of gleeful emojis about all the things we accomplished in the other's absence, sometimes with "thinking of you"-type attachments.

All I've ever wanted is an epistolary relationship where my brain and body and heart partner is often there, but also often he fucks off to do his own thing.

#AutisticRelationships, #AutisticOCDRelationships

(#Autistic-OCD-Relationships?)