As an autistic man, I have always struggled to form relationships, and stay in them for any length of time when they do start.
That said, a couple of years later I would find myself in a relationship with a woman named Nadine. We had actually known each other for nearly five years, and we were good friends – but there wasn’t ever any hint of romance between us.
And we just “found” ourselves in a relationship one day. We never really dated, or talked about spending time together – we just found ourselves together, and before long it was becoming intimate – and sexually intimate at that.
This was both amazing and terrifying to me. I truly appreciated her and came to love her – although it perhaps wasn’t the strongest relationship you might find. It was perhaps more an extension of the friendship we’d had for years, and it was perhaps a time where we both needed someone.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved Nadine and was fully committed to being with her, but it wasn’t a “normal” relationship in the sense that hadn’t been romantic sparks flying left, right, and centre between us.
As I said, we just found ourselves together.
In those early times, it felt almost convenient to both of us – we needed each other, we really liked each other, and here we were.
The day we discovered Nadine was pregnant was utterly mind blowing. It wasn’t planned, but it was absolutely welcome. We both wanted very much to be parents, but I don’t think either of us were expecting that this would be the relationship from which that would come.
Nadine called me at work one day, and insisted that I needed to come home and take her to the doctor – I wasn’t sure why she couldn’t go by herself. She didn’t say the words, but somehow she managed to convey the understanding that it was “for something that I should be there for.”
She had actually been to the doctor first thing that same morning and had a pregnancy test. The return visit in the afternoon was to get the results. We had been living together for some months, and were seeing the same doctor who we both liked very much. He was kind enough to rush the test through, which is why we knew the same day.
She was indeed pregnant, and about six weeks along.
We told our families straight away of course, but you’re not “supposed” to tell anyone else until you’re in the second trimester, in case there are problems in that time – the riskiest time for a pregnancy. However, I told Maddie almost straight away too.
I didn’t want to not share it with her. It felt a little odd to be telling an old flame about it and I didn’t tell Nadine that I had. She did know about Maddie – she had come up in conversations throughout our long friendship – but I wasn’t sure Nadine would appreciate it being talked about to outsiders so early in the pregnancy.
For some reason though, I felt that Maddie needed to know about my pending fatherhood.
She was rapt for me, and rapt that I had gotten so far into a relationship that this was happening. She knew Nadine and I were together, but knowing that I was going to be a father made Maddie really happy.
We had talked in the past how I wanted to be one so much, so she completely appreciated my excitement, even if it were a little uncool that I would be sharing it with her on the first day.
That’s the thing about my autism – you either completely bottle up and don’t talk about things at all, or you completely overshare every thought and emotion with people who most likely don’t need to hear about them.
They are the polar extremes that happen inside of you. You don’t mean it, and you almost immediately regret some of the things you do and say. You still feel like they were the right things to do and say, but you doubt yourself and feel horrible straight away too.
I had always dreamed that this day would involve Maddie – that it would be a moment of joy between us about becoming parents together. It wasn’t between us, but my brain kept me within that dream, and it had to include Maddie.
Maddie was never an issue between Nadine and myself, but that was the only time I ever felt that I had been even just a little dishonest with her.
For the rest of the time, I was proud and over the moon to be with Nadine – and soon we would be sharing the joys of parenthood.
I could hardly wait.
Yet, I did stop and think of all of the stupid things I had done dealing with my love for Maddie during high school, and realised why it wasn’t her I was sharing this experience with.