I try, but I can’t get it. I can’t pick up on tone of voice or body language no matter how hard I try. I was in my late 20s before I realized facial expressions were a thing, and someone had to tell me. It blew my mind.
You and I must know completely different people. The people I know give me brainteasers all day long. They shrug and say “I’m fine”, but what they really want me to do is 1) figure out 2) on my own with no prompting 3) what they’re feeling and 4) what made them feel that way, and respond in a way that’s 5) socially acceptable and 6) solves all their problems for them. I can’t do that. To say I struggle with social cues is an understatement. It is literally disabling for me. All I’m asking for is a little help.
But I don’t know… that’s the point.
The article basically reads like: “Step 1: Don’t be autistic.”
I’m sorry to hear that, and I understand what you are saying; many people don’t communicate effectively or honestly, and that’s a shame.
YOU don’t, but the man who wrote the article did. And he wasn’t paying close enough attention to keep his marriage in tact.
As for yourself, being on the spectrum obviously has its own difficult set of challenges on top of the usual obstacles couples face; and hopefully anyone that you try to build a meaningful relationship with will understand that and be willing to work with you.
That said, the man in question isn’t at the same disadvantage as you are, and neither are most men.
Women in general aren’t playing some game in lieu of actual communication; even among the healthiest and most emotionally stable people, there’s still a huge disconnect when it comes to actually understanding, valuing and respecting one another.
And sadly it’s women that often suffer the most because of that disconnect, because society historically isn’t set up to enable and facilitate us.
I think you’re giving them more credit than perhaps they deserve. I’ve been on the “neat-freak” side of a relationship before, and I can absolutely understand how a glass carelessly placed could elicit an emotional response, but if someone hasn’t been the tidier one in a relationship, I can see how they might not think it’s a big deal.
That said, if there is a fundamental disconnect like you suggest, I would think that it would have to be that the men, not believing that failing to honour simple requests can hurt someone, are feeling emotionally manipulated. That the women are faking the emotional response in order to make them feel bad and to thereby control them.
Looked at with any kind of scrutiny, that falls apart (why would someone put in that kind of effort if there weren’t a genuine emotional response?), but it seems to be a common trope that “women will fake crying to get their own way.”
I read this awesome interview once where they interviewed this autistic man, and then they interviewed his neurotypical wife separately. She talked about how one of the ways they made their marriage successful is she communicated with him in a different way than she had with her previous neurotypical boyfriends.
This particular article about the glass in the sink makes it clear, though: this guy’s ex-wife told him point-blank many times glasses left in sinks annoyed her a lot.
Now, he could have negotiated. He could have said, “I like to reuse a glass all day to save on dishes, but I promise I’ll load it in the dishwasher last thing before I go to bed” (or other appropriate point in time). I’m guessing, if he had consistently followed through with that, it would have made the wife happy.
Why?
Because it showed he did listen to her.
Because it meant she didn’t have to clean up after him.
Because it showed he was willing to negotiate and work with her to maintain the household.
Because, even though he asserted his own preferences, he demonstrated he respected hers.
Instead, he just thought, “Crazy bitch, it’s only a glass” and demonstrated none of those things. Nor, apparently, with any other opportunities which came up.
A friend of a friend recently got divorced. When people asked her what went wrong, she said she realised one day that she was the single mother of two children: the one she’d given birth to, and the one she’d married.
Precious few women want to be the “mom” with their partner (and the ones that do probably mean it in the roleplaying way).
Those “little” things add up if the partner isn’t holding up their end consistently.
Think of it this way: a friend of yours makes about the same money as you, but whenever you eat out together they never leave a tip, so you wind up making up the difference.
You don’t go anywhere expensive, so it’s never very much – but if they did it consistently and blew you off when you tried to talk about it, how long before you started wondering if you wanted to be friends with them? Especially if they were pulling other passive aggressive shit as well.
This is interesting, because my husband has anxiety that is somewhat poorly managed. And over the break at his folks’ place, I realized why. He’ll be doing something, but his folks, being fussy assholes, demand he does something else. Now. He was allowing our son to feed himself. The baby got food on the floor. His mom came over and asked him to clean it up. He thought she meant when he was done feeding, she meant Now. And he had to stop what he was doing and do it. Then. They later did the same thing in our bedroom - demanding we stop what we were doing (caring for our children) to clean our room. Then.
He’s always struggled with doing things. He gets really overwhelmed, and couldn’t seem to prioritize tasks well. After 9 years together, I finally put together why. So I’m trying something new where when I ask for something, I note when it needs to be done. Now, sometime this week, just something to consider. Things are getting done way better than any point in the prior nine years. They always got done, but he doesn’t seem like he’s melting down and unable to prioritize whenever I ask.
I have some damage from my folks, but yeesh. His executive function has been shot by his. Once we’re past his bar exam stuff in March, I’m going to revisit the issue in more depth.
[quote=“infundibulum, post:2733, topic:598”]
This is interesting, because my husband has anxiety that is somewhat poorly managed. And over the break at his folks’ place, I realized why. He’ll be doing something, but his folks, being fussy assholes, demand he does something else. Now.[/quote]
I can relate to that!
I am a shitty housekeeper. Like, really shitty. And a lot of it has to do with having housecleaning being used for punishment and/or gaslighting on me for years. (Actual quote from my ex when I said I could work and help him with his business, or work and houseclean, but not everything: “You could do [housecleaning] when I’m asleep.”)
In the last couple of years I’ve been trying to houseclean because I deserve a clean home, and wow is it difficult. I have to set reminders, reward myself, create calendars… all for something other people seem to do semi-automatically. I still get residual anxiety and despair just facing a 10-minute bathroom tidy.
Sure, but you can figure out this stuff by straight out asking, instead of relying on signals that you personally have a hard time interpreting.
Then you should ask, instead of staying in the dark, yeah? It should go both ways, in that you need to let others know what YOU need from them in terms of understanding as well. If you don’t let them know what sort of communication works for you, they won’t be able to communicate clearly with you. And if they’re not willing to communicate clearly with you, once they understand what you need from them in order to understand them, then it’s ON them. But if you’re also not telling people about how you understand others, they won’t know…
[ETA] I’m not trying to criticize you here, rather to note that different ways of understanding the world and interact with others is not an insurmountable problem, as long as all parties are open and communicate about differences that could impact understanding.
Ahaha no I can’t. Believe me, I tried. Usually when I ask, I’m told that I’m an asshole for not paying attention and that every functioning adult knows what XYZ means and that I should just try to have a little empathy. Sometimes they tell me that they can’t explain it to me, because in the real world nobody will explain things to me. Occasionally I actually get someone to explain what I need them to explain, but far too infrequently.
Where I’m from, the answer to “what’s wrong?” is always “nothing”, because if something were truly wrong I’d do something besides ask what’s wrong Plus, the person I ask would seriously be offended by how much of a clueless idiot I am and how little I pay attention and how little empathy I have etc etc etc. Us Upper Midwesterners are a really passive-aggressive bunch.
I do ask, only to paint myself as a shockingly unempathetic idiot. But I have no other way of finding out.
Maybe not, but it really feels to me like you are. You’re telling me what you’d do when you don’t even know from experience. I’ve lived with this for the past forty years. I know what works and what doesn’t. Things have changed a lot, so it’s easier for me now than it used to be,* but it’s still not easy.
in the eighties and nineties I was repeatedly told that I can’t be autistic because autistic people can’t talk.
The problem is, they aren’t open and they can’t communicate. And the communication issues are always someone else’s fault.
This isn’t an acceptable way to communicate and, when that happens, it’s the other person who’s being the asshole, not you, and,
This isn’t the type of communication issue being described in the article that was posted (where the author clearly and repeatedly states that he had been told how upsetting his behaviour was).
Okay. Sorry. I’m trying to be on your side, so I’d appreciate maybe if you weren’t so hostile to me.
My entire point was that though it’s difficult, it’s not insurmountable to say to the other person in a relationship that you have a different communication and understanding and have them work with you to communicate clearly, and that when the other person doesn’t do that, that’s not on you to fix. It’s them that’s the problem. But if you don’t communicate to them that you can’t read more subtle clues, then how will they know. Either way, if both sides in a relationship aren’t willing to do what needs to be done to communicate clearly, whatever that may mean, then it’s a more serious problem that either means the relationship might need outside help or the relationship isn’t worth pursuing.
I have split the thread as neatly as I can. The continued discussion on the difficult dance of communication can be found in this thread: Communication Is Broken
Ths was done to respect the purpose of this thread and the pattern of posting until this recent turn of topic.
Sorry for not acting sooner. We tried to retain as much readability as we could with the topic fork.
Please remember to respect your fellow posters - if a new facet of discussion veers toward a different tangent than the rest of the thread prior, it may be time to make use of the Reply As New Thread feature, which you can access by clicking on the previous post’s timestamp.
Plus, the person I ask would seriously be offended by how much of a clueless idiot I am and how little I pay attention and how little empathy I have etc etc etc. Us Upper Midwesterners are a really passive-aggressive bunch.