Another naive human who thinks someone close to them might have aspergers. Advice on peaceful rule making please! aspergers

Backstory

This could be a 500 page book if I let it, because this guy has been a dear and close friend for 22 years and we have lived together many times. A few of the places we have lived, I have been asked to get rid of him or leave myself (we tend to come as a package deal because I consider this guy my brother, though we have no blood relation). There have been times he rented a place and I crashed on his couch and vice versa. There is no score being kept.

On one trip to burning man together we teamed up with a guy who founded an autism foundation in the Bay Area. This guy asked me at one point if I realized my brother was on the autism spectrum. I always just thought he was a weirdo but I had never suspected there might be a reason.

We are both 35 now and 2 years ago I rented a place with 2 bedrooms and a plan to rent out the second bedroom because the rent and bills were above my means. My "brother" took up residence in this room and got so attached to it that I just silently decided to let him stay in it (rather than on the couch). My boyfriend moved in shortly after and began to help me pay for the place by teaching guitar lessons out of the house.

Current

Chores have always been an issue. If the rest of us are cleaning, he will join in usually without even being asked, but if I ask him to do particular things he will get a little upset. The problem is if I don't, he will be cleaning things we have already cleaned or just taking random objects and putting them on surfaces like he's playing a game of Tetris.

He would always get upset about being asked to buy toilet paper until I made a "whose turn is it to buy toilet paper list", after which he almost seemed excited to contribute. I realized that he might respond better to having a concrete list in front of him but I made the mistake of not only making a chore list, but putting instructions on how to do the chores and this overwhelmed him. This is an ongoing process that I am working on balancing.

There is now a bigger issue. My boyfriend's guitar lessons. We immediately made the rule that he cannot cook, walk through the house naked, or shower during these lessons. But if there is a lesson at 3:30, he will either start cooking or start taking a shower at 3:20. I have tried to explain to him that sometimes people show up early but he gets upset and says he is following all the rules so he doesn't understand.

It seems like he can't factor in unexpected events into his actions and I need a non-confrontational way to remake these rules in a way he will accept (it's always been harder to get him to accept changes in rules than rules themselves). He has already chased off one of the students because he cooked onion curry five minutes before a lesson and the student came in with burning eyes and grossed out by the strong smell. As my boyfriend gets more students, the time slots that my brother can do things in shorten (there are never more than 2 lessons a day). My brother suggested that we use our room for lessons and I tried to explain to him that it's inappropriate to take 11 year old boys into a bedroom with a grown man and close the door. My brother claimed we were making assumptions and didn't know what we were talking about. I have thought of a couple possibilities and I would like to get your opinion on them.

1. Put a weekly calendar up of not just the guitar lessons but the time slots in which the kitchen and shower cannot be used. (Which might make him feel even more limited?)

2. Instead of a chore list give him "monthly projects" like cleaning under the stove and refrigerator, or fixing household things because he is really good at that stuff and has also broken a lot of stuff in the house that could use fixing. I would want to specifically state that these projects are his "rent" so he begins to take some sort of responsibility in the house (he can't hold a job, and doesn't contribute his food stamps because he has an expensive diet).

Earlier today I upset him by telling him he had to leave the bathroom now and go to his room (he was standing naked in the bathroom post shower) because the next guitar student was due in 5 minutes. Whenever I appologize for upsetting him like this he says it's ok, he knows "I'm crazy and have mood swings". This makes me feel really sure he truly doesn't understand all this social stuff.

I admit I'm not the best either, I do have mood swings and get easily frustrated when he makes sudden loud noises or pulls things out of the trash we are throwing away, etc. Maybe I am the one that has the problem? Am I just really OCD? Oh god we are two crazy fucks living together with a boyfriend who is too zen to express his household needs.

Is there a better way to communicate to him that these lessons are what allow us to stay here?

Is there a peaceful way to get him to help with things? A way that won't just upset him and cause him to lock himself up in his room?

please feel free to be annoyed that I am assuming this aspergers.

Tldr how to get someone with possible aspergers to help around the house without upsetting him.

Submitted November 24, 2015 at 03:25AM by leptoquark http://ift.tt/1lFIUqd aspergers