Reaching out -

[Guest guest]

Hello,

When

someone, usually me remarks about an observation at dinner in our house and

usually wants just plain old validation or empathy, not agreement, my husband

ALLWAYS presents data and reasoning and no understanding of what his family

member just said, and it has been in the past maddening until he was diagnosed

and now my mouth just drops open when I realize how obtuse we seem from each

other.

One small

example was last night… I said our daughter was very tired since she had

been up since 5:40 am to catch her middle school bus, had 2 tests, and had to

stay after school and take the late bus to walk home carrying 25 lbs of books

and an instrument to arrive home at 5:40 pm to need to eat and do homework in 5

subjects. His response entailed explaining why the county needs to pick

up middle, then high school, and then elementary students in a staggered

schedule to accommodate everyone, and parents are lucky the middle schoolers

get out of school earlier than the elementary school students on most days so

they can babysit for parents at work. We all know the WHY we are talking

about the results.

Helen said

most people can usually manage to

figure out quickly, just on visual assessment, whether or not they

are offending the other person.

My husband

does not have a clue by my face why what he irks me with his explanations or

fact citing that does not relate to simply saying, “I am sorry she is so

tired.” Or offering her some encouragement! Explaining this

would start a fight. Good grief! It is too complicated.

Lori

[Guest guest]

Hi Lori ... and other new people.

I am NT in a long term relationship with an AS man - we have three

children too and our relationship and family life is good now that we

are learning to communicate, learning to understand each other. Before

we knew about AS things were about as bad as they could get between a

couple. It has taken a couple of years to repair the damage, but we are

finally getting there.

There are many things that have helped us to get to a healthy place but

I have just time now to pick up on one thing that Lori said about her

husband's response to her comment at the dinner table because I can

relate to this and I think this 'communication misunderstanding' is

often at the root of many problems between AS and NT. My husband used

to reply in the same manner too, and it seemed uncaring to me, but I

knew he did actually care. Luckily for us, he is learning a different

way to respond now that we have identified this as an issue and I am

learning a better way to express what I or our children are feeling.

We realised that my husband is unable to easily identify feelings in

verbal conversations (and neither can he detect them in writing or in

films). His brain seems not to be hearing the emotional words but

picking up the quantifiable stuff readily and this is what he responds

to... just like I can hear an English word hidden within a foreign and

unfamiliar language, a similar thing happens to him when conversations

are about feelings. I would mis understand his response as meaning he

didn't care.... but not so. Now I know this, I try to share the

feelings explicitly and not amongst a pile of detail that hide the

feelings for him. He is more able to respond appropriately when

feelings are communicated in this way. Once he understands how someone

is feeling, he will always try to offer support or comfort. I guess

it's a bit like him being colour blind.. he won't be able to see the

red... there are few 'receptors' to detect this colour or maybe it has

to be put in a different context to see it.

It isn't always easy of course, but I have found it worth the effort...

and it means I get my emotional needs met, which is what our

relationship is all about. The most helpful thing that I could do to

help the learning process is not to be angry that he has this inability

to hear the language of emotions easily. And this was a tough challenge

for me!

Best wishes

Delyth