Acts of service without emotional repair after mocking me

[yogabanana]

Husband and I are both autistic. I'm not alexithymic but he is. I'm an emotional person. Words of affirmation, quality time and touch are my love languages. He shows love through gifts and acts of service.

He hurt me very badly yesterday. He mocked my deepest, most vulnerable emotional needs, more than once. He has yet to apologize. I'm trying to decide if I can get past what feels like a huge violation of trust and safety.

He's spent all day working on a home repair and cooking dinner for the family. I know that's his way to show love but I don't know how to get past what he did without an actual conversation where he is remorseful and validates how much harm I am feeling from what he did.

He does not like to have those conversations. I tell him what would help and there is a delay in him doing it or he does it by rote/mimicry so the thing doesn't help like it is supposed to and he blames me for that, but I explain best I can. I can't help that he doesn't deliver it in a way that is emotionally available so it doesn't feel like it's supposed to.

I don't know how to explain what's missing. I just know it's missing.

He still hasn't apologized for mocking me for needing him to demonstrate some consistency, responsiveness and security promoting behavior after creating a sudden rupture.

We need to be able to communicate but he shuts down and disappears for hours. Then he wants to act like nothing happened but the relationship is drowning in all these unresolved issues. I need communication.

Alexithymia does not make you dismissive, correct? I understand it's common for alexithymic people to have an avoidant attachment style but the dismissiveness, disrespect and defensive behavior are NOT part of alexithymia correct? The refusal to apologize is that pride or is it possible he feels like he isn't wrong to mock his wife's vulnerabilities?

Is it really so unrealistic to want my husband to ask for a time out with an explicit, stated plan to return to the conversation within an hour or two? Is it unrealistic to ask him to put forth that need before he's so upset all he can do is disappear indefinitely? Like can he really not tell he's getting upset til he's so upset he can't leave kindly and considerately?

After ten years together it feels so disrespectful to me that he's not even trying. It's been a complaint since the first of five marriage counselors we saw together.

I am so frustrated. I feel like you can be autistic and alexithymic without being a jerk and then not apologizing for being a jerk. He masks just fine so I know he knows that he is breaking a bunch of social rules so why is he not trying to fix it? He just distances and blames me. Can he really not see the logic of mocking your wife's vulnerabilities means she's going to feel very hurt and you're going to need to face what you did?

Also geez the ads on mobile take up like 40% of the visible page. Makes it almost impossible to post.

 

[Aspychata]

Guess l need to ask, why does he feel a need to mock you? Is it to push your buttons? Is he super insecure? Does he want to breakup with you? When did he start doing this? Or did he always do this, and you were in denial? Anyways, sorry you feel awful right now. It's not you, it's how you are being treated which feels disrespectful to me, l hate that feeling too.

 

[VictorR]

The refusal to apologize is that pride or is it possible he feels like he isn't wrong to mock his wife's vulnerabilities?

Sometimes (not saying it is here) the reason an apology is not forthcoming is because the other party doesn't realize that they're in the wrong, and they may even think erroneously that it's the other party that's in the wrong. In which case it can be a challenge to try to get them to understand that their viewpoint isn't shared by others.

 

[yogabanana]

Guess l need to ask, why does he feel a need to mock you? Is it to push your buttons? Is he super insecure? Does he want to breakup with you? When did he start doing this? Or did he always do this, and you were in denial? Anyways, sorry you feel awful right now. It's not you, it's how you are being treated which feels disrespectful to me, l hate that feeling too.

He mocks me because he doesn't know how to use his words to say things like, "I'm trying my best to give you what you ask for and I'm really frustrated that my effort isn't working and I'm too scared to feel the inadequacy that makes me feel so I need to make it your fault."

He gets angry but denies he is angry and it leaks out. It hasn't always been like this but if we have an issue that I refuse to just let go of without feeling it is full resolved he can be like that. He lacks the self awareness to use "clean communication" like, I'm feeling angry/defeated/powerless.

He doesn't understand my perspective and thinks his is usually superior so he doesn't appear to try to understand mine which is different. And because he believes he is right, he feels superior to me.

He is dehumanizing because he is afraid of failure and because he thinks he is doing what I ask for because he can't even tell the difference between emotionally available communication and walled off communication so he resents me for not receiving his effort as if it came with some level of emotional intimacy or self awareness on his part.

Now his argument is that he was mocking me for something different not for my deep attachment vulnerability so my feeling of betrayed trust isn't valid. I told him you don't get to dictate how others receive your communication.

 

[Au Naturel]

I'm really frustrated that my effort isn't working and I'm too scared to feel the inadequacy that makes me feel so I need to make it your fault."

That sounds like an awful lot of human behavior. Not at all restricted to autistic people.

How did you marry this person?

 

[yogabanana]

That sounds like an awful lot of human behavior. Not at all restricted to autistic people.

How did you marry this person?

I agree most people don't say the stuff under their armored behavior. It's not necessarily an autistic thing.

I married him in a garden with a minister wearing a thrift store dress and Sketchers.

I don't think that is how you meant your question though.

 

[Aspychata]

I hope you can find a time to go to a neutral place, where you haven't argued, a beach, a park, etc. You can sit down and talk in a way that doesn't trigger both of you perhaps? Perhaps saying when l don't respond the way you think l should, l feel that you lash out at me by, (mocking or attacking the very thing l need , (your support?)? I am not sure exactly, only you know how you feel attacked, and trivialized and how to verbalize in your own words. Then hopefully you can get him to talk about this pattern of basically emotional abuse. The other way would be to stop him when he flips into that mode, and state stop this, you are not being emotionally present, by berating me, and escalating this conversation by trying to be hurtful with your words. How is this resolving anything? Let us come back to talk about this as caring partners when you feel ready to do so. But right now, you aren't being supportive or caring. Just throwing this out there to you. You basically have to break a pattern of what has been going for awhile l guess?

 

[Aspychata]

I basically had to tell a partner, no, l refuse to argue with you. I refuse to take the role of your mother. This completely shut down the whole conversation. The pattern earlier they witnessed in childhood was a lot of arguments, and the closer we got, the more they tried to wiggle into those dynamics which l wasn't having. I grew up with a lot of the same dynamic myself. It's amazing how complicated relationships can become. I only hope you can steer him to a better healthier place. Maybe you ask and show him clean communication by saying alright, l feel you are frustrated with me, and it is coming out as anger and frustration. Could we flip the dialog by you telling me you are frustrated and we can now move past that? Sorry @yogabanana to put you in the driver seat assigning you all the cleanup, sometimes our job never ends.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Alexithymia does not make you dismissive, correct? I understand it's common for alexithymic people to have an avoidant attachment style but the dismissiveness, disrespect and defensive behavior are NOT part of alexithymia correct? The refusal to apologize is that pride or is it possible he feels like he isn't wrong to mock his wife's vulnerabilities?

Is it really so unrealistic to want my husband to ask for a time out with an explicit, stated plan to return to the conversation within an hour or two? Is it unrealistic to ask him to put forth that need before he's so upset all he can do is disappear indefinitely? Like can he really not tell he's getting upset til he's so upset he can't leave kindly and considerately?

After ten years together it feels so disrespectful to me that he's not even trying. It's been a complaint since the first of five marriage counselors we saw together.

I am so frustrated. I feel like you can be autistic and alexithymic without being a jerk and then not apologizing for being a jerk. He masks just fine so I know he knows that he is breaking a bunch of social rules so why is he not trying to fix it? He just distances and blames me. Can he really not see the logic of mocking your wife's vulnerabilities means she's going to feel very hurt and you're going to need to face what you did?

Marriage rule #1:
1. Communicate, communicate, and communicate

Alexithymia, is for the most part, a difficulty being in touch with one's own emotional state.

Refusal to apologize: Personally, I will only refuse this if I think I was correct, and even if it means hurting the other person. Otherwise, I own my mistakes and will apologize.

 

[Aspychata]

I think apologies are good. We don't need to assign blame, we need to assign forgiveness, and acceptance. I struggled alot with one who may be autodiversely too handsome ,(for his own good,). But now l understand we went really far together. He wanted timeout. So our love lifestory is now on hold. Good luck to you as you navigate this.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Other dynamics that may be in play:

1. I cannot have an emotional discussion, period. My logic centers shut off and I cannot formulate thoughts or words.
2. If he opens up emotionally, he risks the chance of upsetting you, and then he ends up apologizing for upsetting you for it. It prevents him from opening up.

 

[Hypnalis]

@yogabanana

Expecting emotion-centric discussions with someone with alexithymia isn't realistic.

I can't tell what your objective is, but if it's reconciliation, I think your preferred approach is likely to slow the process down.
@Neonatal RRT 's post above has some of the reasons.

 

[Aspychata]

Excellent points @Neonatal RRT . Or on number 2, he just shuts down, and kicks you out because it's too painful to discuss, and then l just cry until my eyes fall out of my head. Two autistic partners are like two people in separate tunnels trying to connect. Sometimes l think l have a better chance buying a lottery ticket. But finding someone who gets you and accepts you for who you are is such a relief. That you just keep trying. @yogabanana - you said you both are autistic. I hope it works out, l truly do.

 

[Au Naturel]

I used to have experiences where my wife would get quietly worked up into a complete fury. Then it's the "We have to talk!" demand. This usually meant her angrily lecturing me on my failures as a human being. It was all, "You're this, you're that! I feel this, I feel that!" But there was never any allowance that I even had a side in the argument.

My response was a total lockup. This is the standard response from most aspies when hit by an emotional storm, but she interpreted it as not caring and refusing to engage.

This started when I got laid off from a nice position in aerospace and could not find comparable employment quickly. There were massive layoffs in aerospace at the time. Unemployment ran out. I got a stipend for job training, worked as a substitute teacher, and worked for low wages in a call center. Always managed to pay the mortgage, if nothing else. Four years later, I finally got a somewhat better job. But her anger never really went away.

When we first had kids, we agreed she'd drop to a 3-day week to have more time with them. But she refused to go back to full-time when I was laid off because she was convinced I'd then become a parasite and never go back to work.

When she was a girl, her father had a heart attack. He went on disability and never returned to work. Her mother - herself a bitter and resentful person - found work as a keypunch operator. The family had to pinch every penny until social security kicked in. She was reliving all that anger and directing it at me. I was seriously depressed, doubting my self-worth and working long hours at mediocre wages in an incredibly stressful job. All this while raising two children.

Took a couple of years of couples therapy for us and a decade of individual therapy for her to work things out. I went on Prozac for the next 20 years. Eventually "networked" my way back into a reasonably well-paying - if stressful - job.

There are fixes, but often, they are not quick, and you have to want to fix things more than you want to hang on to the bad lessons you've learned. I suppose that step one is accepting that the lessons were bad.