My boyfriend (18M) and I (20F) have been together for 2 years. He has got autism (Asperger’s), so I am aware he sometimes needs his space. I work full-time in a nursery, he has been employed for 9 months and is on UC, looking and applying for jobs daily but is not getting any luck still. Every Friday night I see him, I stay the night at his, get up for my driving lesson, have it and go back to his, then go home Saturday afternoon, that is it. The weekend just passed I’ve had a 4 day weekend due to Easter holidays. I stayed over at Friday night as per usual, then Sunday night I asked to stay over at his. He didn’t want to as I had seen him the day before. His reply was “I just want an evening to myself,” which is fair enough. However every single time he has turned me down the reason has been “wanting time to himself.” He has had no job for 9 months, he has plenty of time to himself at home. His only hobby is computer gaming, he has no other hobbies. I don’t know what he gets up to while I’m work besides gaming. When I questioned him further he said the past few days he had been driving around a lot, like picking me up and dropping me off home again, giving people lifts etc. This upset me further as I live 10 minutes away from him, 5 minutes with no traffic. That is not lots of driving at all. I am aware he is autistic and he needs his space, it’s just I love him, I love seeing him and I spend all my extra days off with him, when he spends all his time at home due to being unemployed.

Back during the week between Christmas and New Year I had that week off work as nursery was closed, and I saw him a lot. I stayed over one night, went home next day, day after that I didn’t see him, day after that we went ice skating. The day after ice skating I asked him to stay over the next day/night and he said no as he wanted time to himself. I got upset as when I wanted to see him would be approximately 48 hours after I last saw him which is plenty of time to himself. He got all frustrated and started being rude to me and sarcastic (he does that when he’s frustrated), we ended up arguing really bad over that.

I feel really sad when I wanna be with him when I get the chance and he says no. If he already had plans or was busy then I wouldn’t get so upset. I’d give anything to see him extra, I always wanna see him. I’d never turn down seeing him and I always choose him. I don’t feel like he always chooses me. I know he deeply loves and cares about me but I can’t help but feel like he doesn’t feel the same way about certain things as I do. Am I overreacting about this, am I being silly or too sensitive? I just wanna be the best girlfriend I can be and I try my hardest, it gets overwhelming sometimes. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you.