How to manage texting, silence, and anxiety while living apart?

February 13, 2024 2:34 AM

My partner and I are on the autistic spectrum. We live apart and can’t see each other every day. When there are several hours of no texts from my partner when I know she didn’t have plans at that time I start to feel anxious and irritated about the silence. The inconsistency is difficult for me to cope with - one day there will be many texts telling me about her day and the next it feels like she’s disappeared and I don’t know how to interpret the silence. Are there any reasonable boundaries and accommodations we can introduce for each other in this situation? What can I do myself to help me cope when I’m triggered? Have you faced a similar situation?

(Yes - we are both having therapy.)

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (10 answers total)

So my partner is autistic and also a bad texter specifically with me - what I have heard is that it is more difficult to communicate with me via text because the emotional context is higher and the penalties for getting it wrong worse. Ie, he cares about me very much and thus doesn’t want to be misunderstood and cause me any relationship pain, and so he agonizes over the response texts; it’s sometimes easier to send no texts than to agonize over the texts.

Would regular calls maybe help deal with this need?
posted by corb at 4:03 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

Reading about attachment styles and anxious attachment made my roller coaster brain with relationships easier to handle.

I don’t have any clue about attachment style scientific basis, but thinking of my thoughts of things going wrong in a relationship as just my attachment system activated has been helpful to calming that stuff down and making me feel closer to my partner.
posted by creiszhanson at 4:21 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

I've been on both sides of this equation at times. I would say that, if it's truly just a few hours of silence, there's really nothing to ask your partner to do differently. It helps me assuage my anxiety to realize that there are times I get really into my hobbies or job and could easily spend hours not texting. If this isn't the case for you, I encourage you to try it! Leave the phone in the other room and go get wrapped up in whatever you enjoy when you don't have formal plans. It can be very freeing to not stay tied to your phone at all times.
posted by Eyelash at 4:45 AM on February 13 [18 favorites]

I've been doing an LDR for a while. One thing that may help, if you don't have it already, is some more scheduled ~daily communication (e.g. a call every evening) that provides a reliable touchpoint. Of course, it still has to be ok if either you or they go do something that prevents this from happening on any given day (with explicit communication about it).
posted by advil at 4:51 AM on February 13 [8 favorites]

I'm autistic and want to give a third endorsement to a regularly-scheduled daily check-in (e.g. by phone or videochat, and scheduled to the minute, with an agreement to let the other know by text if one party is going to be late) on days when you won't see your partner in person. I do this weekly with my parents who live a long distance away. The predictability and regular schedule is very good for the autistic cognitive style.

Since you're autistic and on Metafilter, I'm going to assume that you're reasonably well-read about autistic monotropism, hyperfocus, and attention tunnels. It's bad for the autistic cognitive style to have to pull oneself away from an activity or pursuit to answer texts every 20 minutes. It's also common for autistic people to silence their phones (I will sometimes keep mine on silent mode for days at a time) to avoid being painfully startled by unexpected audible notifications.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:14 AM on February 13 [21 favorites]

There's a number of ways to make planned check-ins an organic part of the day. One of the most helpful, if you both happen to take any scheduled medications, is to send an emoji when you take your pills so that a) YOU remember you took them and have documented proof b) the other person remembers you took them and that you have not fallen in a ditch somewhere. Mealtimes are also good (especially if either of you are prone to forgetting to eat). Feeding the cat. Getting the mail.

Emoji in particular are great for this (or stickers or memes or whatever) because of the "right words" problem. When my focus is on picking the silliest or most mood-reflecting or somehow themed emoji to indicate "cat is fed" or "I is fed", it's fun and easy to check in. Photos can also be good and promote a feeling of "being there" - picture of lunch, picture of the weather out the window, picture of the cat, picture of today's sock selection.

Another thing you can do is just come to an agreement that the two of you will not use silence to indicate upset or displeasure and agree that it means "busy". This does not fix the "what if fell in a ditch??" problem, but if your concern is just that silence means they don't like you anymore, see if you can fix that underlying issue.

If you're both amenable, consider additionally using slack or discord or a messaging app that shows when someone is online. We do this in part because we're on computers all day, way more than phone, and it solves the ditch problem most of the day.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:04 AM on February 13 [6 favorites]

For this kind of anxiety I want to let you know exposure does make it easier - it'll become easier to avoid catastrophizing once you've got a good handful of times that they were away and you bit your tongue and played some video games rather than let your anxiety drive, and then they came back and were happy to see you. In the interim it may help to think of it as exposure therapy - you're sitting tight and dealing with your own anxiety (or boredom, or loneliness) rather than making it your partner's problem, and that's not just a necessary evil but actually something that will strengthen you.
posted by Lady Li at 8:27 AM on February 13 [10 favorites]

I'm also autistic and so is my husband.
I just want to second Lady Li's advice to see this as an opportunity to learn from experience that you can manage your own uncomfortable emotions.

The trick for me was to learn the difference between invalidating myself, and performing a non judgemental reality check.

So instead of trying to force yourself to stop catastrophising, or beating yourself up for what you're feeling, try to just note your state of mind in a non judgmental way:

"ok, I'm feeling anxious"

"Hmm, that was an unpleasant intrusive thought"

"I'm busy ruminating right now"

"I'm having difficulty concentrating on anything except for checking my phone"

Be especially aware of the negative self talk. Are you predicting how you won't be able to cope if bad things happen?

Are you having angry imaginary arguments with your partner?

Interrupt those in a kind and compassionate way.

Have some distractions at hand, things that will take you out of your mind and back into your body. Do some necessary useful thing. Do some pleasant routine thing that helps you to feel in control again.

Remind yourself that you have a very sensitive nervous system that's easily overstimulated, so it's not surprising if you get easily upset. But you can learn to self soothe and self regulate so that you don't feel so out of control and vulnerable.
posted by Zumbador at 9:27 AM on February 13 [7 favorites]

I third having a regular check-in you can count on. But RE your statement that you "don’t know how to interpret the silence": is your partner someone who has a habit of going silent if they're mad at you or upset or whatever? If yes, that's a relationship issue to work on. If no, then you can work on reminding yourself of that, and consciously noticing, "Hey, they didn't text for a while and then they did and everything was good." Doing that can help reprogram your tendency to catastrophize.
posted by metasarah at 9:49 AM on February 13

Hello, I'm in a similar relationship and had similar bother with IM because I too get anxious and assume the worst if someone doesn't reply to me. Turns out my partner wasn't always getting IM notifications, so I learned if contact dropped for a long period to just ring and ask if it was the notification problem. Contact gets irregular between us during the week as we both get sucked into monotropic interests and work. I just usually make a point of saying 'morning' even if it's mid afternoon to establish contact and know that he's there. But finding out what's actually going on at the other end can really help stop the catastrophising - my first assumption now is 'notification problem' and I I now know how to fix that
posted by Flitcraft at 4:25 PM on February 13