Communication roundabout- not feeling understood by my AS ma

Post Reply New Topic

This is the first time I'm posting here. I've been in a relationship with an AS man for 2 years. The first year was mostly amazing and off the charts full of passion and love, the second it seems we have been fighting the entire time.

When I have any negative feelings about him, like say getting my feelings hurt by something he says, he reacts defensively and turns it around on me. In response, I don't feel understood by him. When he tells me his view of me, it is all wrong about where I'm coming from and the reasons for my negative feeling, but he insists I'm being selfish and unkind to him to demand any emotional reaction from him.

He doesn't understand that my need for emotional reciprocity is so strong that I don't seem able to change my negative mood when I don't recieve it. I feel all alone, and misunderstood. He doesn't see how his lack of compassion in his tone affects me and I although in my head I know that he has a hard time showing those emotions to me when he feels defensive, I think I'm still reacting to those "signs". And the behavior I want him to change, to him, seems like, seems like I'm saying I don't live you the way you are. But I think we all have to make adjustments for each other and that includes me too, and I'm trying to keep an open mind, but how do I learn to recognize his expressions are not what they seem?

From the beginning he said he cant argue at all in relationship, and I did try to give that to him. However, I see how my negative feelings and reactions to his behavior is never met with a compassionate ear, but a defensive one. Now, we have this distance between us that's killing me.

I am not wired to be distant with my man, and I'm the type of person to want to put everything on the table and look at it scientifically too, and anytime I bring up his AS, not to hurt him, but as a way to look clearly at what we are working with, he gets super offended and defensive.

He doesn't appear to understand me and my needs. He does not elicit physical affection even though he knows how important it is to me. I'm just not getting the intimacy and closeness I need, and a way to make up from our fight so it doesn't drag out for days and days of distance. Of all things, the distance makes me more upset and depressed. It's a viciouscycle I don't know how to stop.

His moods seem unaffected by my pleas for softening, and when I try to model the compassionatetone by giving it to him. He doesn't even recognizeit.

I do realize I'm super sensitive and emotional. He says he likes that about me because it helps him understand the world of a NT as if he can see through eyes. He even says he loves my emotional range and ability to feel so much and so deeply. But this strong trait in me also instills a need in me to be emotionally close and understood by my man.

The first year he was able to push his own limits and give me what I needed, but after a few huge fights, followed a pattern of more arguements. Now, I cant seem to reach him. If he could only learn to respond differently to me when I'm upset, and give me some compassion in his tone, instead of becoming defensive and turn it around on me, then it would defuse this ticking bomb, and I would feel loved and understood, then allowing me to stop defending too. But it always turns into fighting. It's as if we are stuck in a communication roundabout- me trying to elicit an emotional response, then it backfires and I feel even worse and more distant. When I bring up his AS tendencies as a way for him to see my perspective and try to solve it, he hears criticism and accusations. I keep telling him I'm not trying to put him down. And I bring up my own ADHD behaviors that I can put on the table and say yeah, my pattern of interrupting is not helpful and my ADHD makes it super hard but I want to get better at that.

I had some ideas about how I can get that feeling of intimacy from him - like putting little things on his checklist behaviors that would help me feel close and loved, and I would suggest that I give him little gestures and things he could say or do that would help me feel better, but he takes that as me trying to control him, putting him down and blaming him for everything.

He says he feels criticized and controlled. But I just need these things to be happy in relationship, and to be honest, even in the beginning when he had his intense focus on me in a most positive way, I would fantasize still about being kissed more by him. But I fell so madly in love with him I wanted my romantic needs to not be an issue because I knew about his AS from the start and I knew that romance and physical affection didn't come easy. But he made me think he could make adjustments, and I guess those adjustments that he says he already made, are not being seen through his negative reactive patterns to any negative or hurt feeling that has to do with him. I have been asking him if we can try to drop all our resentment and anger and start over with a new understanding of what we both need and maybe finding common ground on how we can give each other what we need. But his mood is still so negative and when he sits me down to try and connect, he speaks to me coldly and without feeling that I am not able to connect with him, making him feel helpless after his big try. I read alot about how NT women react to their AS man, and I'm wanting to find ways that HE is able to do that will make me feel understood and loved by him. I'm not sure if it's how I communicate or how he does, but no matter how hard I try to reach him, i come out feeling more distant because in his reply to my opening up about my feelings, there is a perceived lack of love and gentleness in his tone and the way he expresses himself makes me feel chastised instead of talked to or closer to him. He doesn't understand why I'm not listening to his words and being affected by them, its because I have a hard time hearing words through a mood and tone that does not feel loving I guess. So I'm at a loss here and I fear this is about to end, and he was so different In our first year and the arguments have now created this huge wall that I cannot breakdown. I still am clinging to hope that something will shift and a cloud will clear and I will see the light in his eyes I once did.

I also want to add that I see my being triggered negatively by his way of communicating has not helped the situation. I know I have issues with rejection and abandonment issues as well. I have been working on them decisively and although I have made some major breakthroughs, it hasn't been enough to help my negative reaction to him. I began this relationship too with an open mind, also seeing the sticky and manipulative way NTs can be with each other to get the emotional responses from each other. I thought it grand to be free of needing an emotional response from someone else in order to feel better. I thought what freedom could come from this way of being. I also thought that I could hack my own emotional world to trick my own wiring into feeling that closeness through different means. I still have this idea that if certain gestures were dishes out to me by means of a checklist, that I would be able to get those needs met. Even more creative, I'm thinking that I may even be able to make new meaning out of new gestures that would replace the old ones I'm used to looking for. But none of this works if so much contempt is built up we cant even talk without arguing now.

I woke up this morning and as we were having a normal conversation, he slips in a little comment of how he would have talked to me and told me this if I didnt just want to argue all the time. I reacted to this comment with a calm tone and pointed to this "way" that he communicates with me only adds to the fire, and he insists it does not. I am trying so hard but he seems stuck in this view of me or whatever it is that won't allow him to talk to me without these little negative insults that make me feel bad. He doesn't get how his own behavior is keeping us stuck in negativity. I want to let my defenses down but how do I when the other wont?