Is it me?

Sorry to read this, Starbuck.  I've had similar problems in relationships.  I've only cohabited twice, and wouldn't do it again - unless it was in a big enough house for us each to have our own quarters, and unless it was on the basis of certain understandings and acceptances.  So, it would have to be with someone who feels very much the same as I do.  That's not easy to find when so much of what it's all about is based on compromises and mutual respect.  Those compromises, and willingness to accept them, seem - to my understanding, anyway, which is most likely faulty - to be an essential part of what love for another is all about.

My longest period of cohabitation was 5 years.  My ex-wife was very much like me in that she liked to do her own things, too.  But it reached the stage where we became almost indifferent to one another, and stopped doing anything together (apart from eat).  Resentments grew into it.  There were things I did that irritated her, and vice-versa.  We should simply never have lived together.  In the end, we were like strangers sharing the same house.  We didn't really have blazing rows, though.  She would have periods of 'silences', when I knew I'd done something wrong, and she couldn't tell me. She didn't like discussing the finer, important points of the relationship.  I think she felt it would point to failings in her, and she had very low self-esteem (as did I).  I, too, became almost frozen into silence.  It damaged us both emotionally.  My second cohabitation lasted only 18 months, and was a hellish time.  She laid down her own ground rules from the start when she moved in with me, refused to do chores because she found them 'exhausting', only wanted things done her way.  She called the shots on most things.  She essentially took over, installing her own furniture in place of mine, using my desk (I was relegated to the bedroom with a tiny table).  We had horrendous rows, too.  It was awful.  In the end, I was so sick of it that I was glad when she moved out - but it took me a long time to get over.  And she absolutely refused to accept that some of my behaviour was in response to her own.  'Don't use your condition as an excuse,' she said, after I got my diagnosis.

I was asked by the behaviour support team at work to write a piece, trying to give some insight into what it's like to see the world through our eyes.  I did so.  Even those who thought they understood all about it before said they were surprised at what they read.  It's difficult to convey.  As difficult as it is for us, probably, to understand the NT mindset.  You can only 'get' it - on both sides - if you're born with it.  The thing is... NTs are in the majority, so they have far more support and evidence on their side, so it's a tricky one to get past. I really wonder, sometimes, if it truly is possible for an NT and an ND to have a successful relationship.

Have you thought about some kind of counselling or mediation?  I'm not sure if it's really the answer, and it would have to be with people who are able to understand both perspectives.  There would need to be another ND involved.  It could so easily just become you being told to 'try to relax a little and let some things go.'

I don't know if you saw that article I posted a short while ago, looking as Asperger's from a sociological rather than a behavioural perspective.  I thought some of the things that mixed NT and ND couples said was pretty salient.  Here's a link to the article, anyway.

Experiencing social life the 'aspie' way.

This passage particularly struck me - part of an interview with an NT wife and ND husband:

Sue: Yes, I mean on a number of occasions we tried various forms of counselling which hadn't really had any effect at all because the general aim of most sort of relationship counselling is to try to get both sides to appreciate the other person's point of view and that is something that Richard just couldn't do. He couldn't put himself into my shoes and see anything from my point of view.

Richard: I remember, the counsellor was saying, “You should take more account of your wife's feelings.” But even then I think I knew the problem was that I didn't know what her feelings were and that was why I wasn't taking account of them, so it wasn't helping. They were telling me to do something that I knew I wanted to do but I couldn't. (Richard, aged 58 and Sue, aged 56)

I don't know what else to say... except no, it isn't just you.  I hope things can work out for you both.

Hi Martian Tom, I can relate to that extract a lot - I am fairly confident I suffer with Alexithymia as well, so this only adds to the issue.  I always find it interesting in these studies, just how quick the NT is to point out that the ND cannot see things from their perspective - yet clearly missing the point that they have failed to see it from the ND perspective, so both parties are actually failing, yet the failings seem to fall very one-sided.

I certainly don't express my emotions well, in fact most people think I am very calm just because I don't emotionally act out what is actually going on inside.

I can relate to your experience about your ex-wife as well, where you both did your own thing.  I think we are at that point, only I tend to work around my partner through not knowing the plan, rather than just saying to each other, "right Saturday morning, we both go and do our own thing, then we can do X, Y and Z from 2:30pm" for example.

I used to try and compensate from my lack of 'theory of mind' by regularly asking my ex partners if they were ok, are they happy, is there anything I have missed etc. but this irritated them rather than helped things.  I got told on numerous occasions you should have to ask, you should just know!  This baffled me and I found it highly hypocritical, especially as they would fail to realise I was in distress at times - or maybe they didn't care, either way it is all overwhelming for me.

I would like to think I am an empathetic and caring individual, but when you read studies like this, you can't help but leave with the feeling that you are cold and uncaring whilst being difficult to be around.

Starbuck said:

I used to try and compensate from my lack of 'theory of mind' by regularly asking my ex partners if they were ok, are they happy, is there anything I have missed etc. but this irritated them rather than helped things.

Starbuck said:

I would like to think I am an empathetic and caring individual, but when you read studies like this, you can't help but leave with the feeling that you are cold and uncaring whilst being difficult to be around.

I have come to believe that the 'theory of mind' thing is another myth.  Another way for the majority to look at us and tell us what we 'lack'.  What we actually lack is the NT mindset.  Our perceptions and responses are different - which is what the paper was mainly focusing on, rather than looking at ways in which our behaviour is 'deficient'.  It seems perfectly feasible, therefore, that our 'theory of mind' would also be different.  A person from a tribe in the Amazon, who has never been out of their village nor seen a westerner, would be viewed as deficient if they were suddenly dumped in the middle of London.  That's an extreme and probably crass example, I know.  But the point is - if your head is wired a different way from the majority, the way you perceive and respond to the world (which manifests as your 'behaviour') is bound to be different.  Society needs to understand, accept and learn to accommodate this rather than expect us to do ourselves untold psychological and emotional damage by 'adjusting' to meet their needs and expectations.  As you say... because we're in a minority, assessments tend to be one-sided.  If you've 99 people telling you one thing, and only 1 person telling you something else, that 1 person's views are likely to be heavily outweighed by the bulk of majority opinion.

We are caring and empathetic people.  I work in care.  I can care for and about others.  Unfortunately, though, I am unable to put myself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling.  If someone bursts into tears in front of me, I can muster a response - but it will be a learned response, not an instinctive one (in fact, I'll probably feel acutely embarrassed and not know what to do - which will make me seem uncaring).  My mother was the closest human being to me in her life.  She remains so, in many ways, now that she is no longer here in her physical life.  Yet I have never shed any real tears since she passed, and I have carried on with my life in a way that must make me appear like some kind of robot.  I miss her so much.  But I am surrounded by her in other ways.  I have many of her things in my flat, her pictures on my walls, some of her jewellery, her lavender bags under my pillow, etc.  Every weekend, I visit the site where we scattered her ashes and stop for a few words with her.  My NT brother, on the other hand, has shut down on all of it.  He never talks about her.  He can no longer bear the smell of lavender.  He doesn't keep any of her things.  Which of us is the most emotionally 'mature'?  Maybe we both are - but in our own individual ways, which are quite different.  We all have our own ways of grieving, of course.  Similarly, we NDs have our own way of feeling, caring, responding to events.  An Aspie friend has the theory that because we have often endured a lot of trauma in our lives (bullying, social exclusion, abuse), we not only have a lower threshold for things that traumatise us, but we develop a different way of expressing ourselves when we experience others going through traumatic episodes.  Maybe this is what makes us appear 'cold and uncaring.'  I think there is a lot in this.

Yes.  Not deficient, different...

Yes.  Not deficient, different...