BassMan_720 wrote:
Chronos wrote:
I propose the original poster's husbands supposed difficulty with expressing his thoughts is not an AS thing, but, generally speaking, a man thing, and her need for her to know these thoughts is a woman thing.
While true in part, I think it is even more pronounced in some Aspies. My wife complains to me that she can't have a conversation with me. Personally, I do not have a problem describing my feelings as such but I do have a problem with small talk. Many Aspies have a problem with those bits of conversation that do not have a direct purpose. For example an NT person may start a conversation by talking about the weather, just as a starting point, not really expecting a detailed response. It would not be unusual for the Aspie to take this literally and go into details about occluded fronts, dew points, etc. This can kill the conversation dead.
With respect to feelings, many Aspies, me included, have difficulty with empathy, reading other people's emotions. This is not the same as sympathy. I can sympathize with another person if I am aware of a situation, but this would have to be explained to me in simple terms, I would not pick up an understanding naturally from another person without the explanation. This can make an Aspie seem unfeeling and unemotional, which is not necessarily the case. Your husband may have difficulty in describing his feelings if he is not getting explicit feedback from you. This makes the exchange very unfair to the Aspie, particularly if emotions are running hot. Your husband may have learned, subconsciously, through experience to be cautious about interpreting things incorrectly and responding inappropriately, which can happen with undesired results.
I think you have confused me for the original poster, as I don't have a husband.
As I have AS, I understand that people with AS aren't always the best conversationalists. I think what the original poster was trying to convey though wasn't really just that her husband can't have deep conversations, but that she can't get information from him that she needs to feel connected to him, and in sync with him emotionally, and this problem is common between NT men and women. In other words, though AS may compound it, I don't think it's AS specific.
Anyway, perhaps reading the last post I made on the page in this link will help him understand how to communicate with his wife.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt153705.html