You're in a relatively long-term, intimate relationship with the guy who's getting an advanced degree; that wouldn't be happening with someone who was on the autism spectrum, that's a developmental disease and he'd be struggling with everything from the get-go in ways that could not include you and advanced schooling.

Why are you trying to figure out what's "wrong" with him? You don't have enough problems of your own? :-) My husband doesn't have any friends and I identified with the stopping in the middle of a sentence and being "choppy" when trying to explain something (a euphemism for being all over the place); my husband literally has to keep saying things like, "I don't hear any nouns" but there's nothing "wrong" with me. That's me! I've always been a dreamer, do a heck of a lot of reading and unless I'm writing, like this, trying to understand me can be "difficult" (or "interesting" :-) at times.