Husband has bizarre communication style and expects me to read his mind

[EasterJoy]

… Neither is better. It’s just the way people are…I think the bigger problem is how I am willing to be accommodating to his style but he is not willing to be accommodating to mine. …

I’d use the colorblindness analogy to explain that…like the difference between what a cat sees and what a horse sees. It is in the nature of horses and cats–both their eyes and their brains–that a sudden movement will prime a horse to shy and yet will prime a cat to pounce. You may simply have a better ability to see where he is coming from, and he may have a lesser ability to understand why you talk the way you do. That doesn’t make him either diseased nor does it make him self-centered in his expectations. It just means that the extent to which each of you can choose to see these interchanges differently may also be different.

I think it is a good thing that conditions like Asperger’s are being identified, but I think it is unfortunate that they are seen as disorders. A horse is not disordered. It is simply not a cat. Yes, a horse forced to live in world tailored to cats will, fairly or not, be the one who’ll have to come up with the coping strategies and endless explanations about its differences, but as you point out, being in the minority of the group you happen to be in does not constitute a disorder, per se.

 

[johnnyjones]

Too loose, I guess. I had to read that five times before I had any idea what you were saying! Yes, I would agree that communication problems come when two people try to talk to each other without realizing that their language choices are based on very different unspoken (and probably unexamined) assumptions. IOW, you’re going to have trouble if you have no idea that what you are saying can be taken any way other than the way you meant it!

Still, the OP was describing common idiomatic language that most people understand if English is their mother tongue. To fail to understand that kind of language in adulthood–not just to get the wrong idea momentarily, but to fail to get the concept of the idiom after your mistake is brought to your attention–is a feature of some atypical mental make-ups. I hesitate to call all of those disorders just because they aren’t typical, but identifying that kind of issue is just as useful as realizing that your spouse is color-blind before you try to decorate a home with him. It helps you avoid beating your head against immovable walls.

You see, we’re different. Your right, it was common language but it goes back to my original point that although common language, one brain interprets it as suggestion and/ or sees past the the “obstacles” of words. Employers (at least mine) spend thousands of dollars on developig communication skills. In law enforcement, body language is everything and what somebody would typically do (without words) is mega relevant.

Just because people are married and project the image of societal norms, this does not preclude that they may fall into the same need as the “man on the street” in regards to deciphering . When communication is weak between two people it needs to develop into an art, and a desired understanding of each other. Otherwise, you get the mess the OP is in, baring any personal intent to non communicate.

 

[EasterJoy]

You see, we’re different. Your right, it was common language but it goes back to my original point that although common language, one brain interprets it as suggestion and/ or sees past the the “obstacles” of words. Employers (at least mine) spend thousands of dollars on developig communication skills. In law enforcement, body language is everything and what somebody would typically do (without words) is mega relevant.

Just because people are married and project the image of societal norms, this does not preclude that they may fall into the same need as the “man on the street” in regards to deciphering . When communication is weak between two people it needs to develop into an art, and a desired understanding of each other. Otherwise, you get the mess the OP is in, baring any personal intent to non communicate.

Exactly. It is like knowing more than one verbal language. Even if you’re not fluent in the other person’s language, just knowing that the other language exists is very helpful.

One of the pitfalls of learning a new language is to think that a cognate–a word with a commo root and a very similar meaning–can be translated exactly from one language to another. The same is true between people who speak the same mother tongue. They can use the exact same words, but can mean something very different. Appreciating that this is inevitable can help immensely.

Two people, separated by a common language!

 

[PaulGH]

I imagine somewhere out there is a forum with a man posting this:

. . .

I wonder how many people would ask if she had a medical condition or a mental illness?

So true! I was thinking as well about how we are getting only limited information from one of the two spouses, and yet some people seem sure that the husband is a jerk, or communicates the wrong way, or has a mental illness.

 

[odile53]

I have no advice for you, but I can relate completely. This is how my husband communicates as well. I try to take it all in stride and not take anything personally (like when he gets upset that I didn’t turn the heat on ) but even after several years of marriage it still troubles me and even sometimes hurts me. I haven’t found the solution. Let me know if you do. :hug3: You are in my prayers!

I used to take every bizarre communication from R personally, and it nearly killed our marriage. I found out that most of what he communicates in an odd way really has nothing to do with me.

Actually, I did find a work-around to R’s odd communication style. I learned that he is not good at reading nuanced communication, or body language, so I simply state what I want. I’m better at reading facial expressions than he is, and if he looks ill at ease, I ask him directly if there is any way I can be of help.

R also has a habit of communicating in grunts, and I have a bad tendency toward sarcasm, which I’ve prayed about and worked on over the years. I cannot always figure out if a nonverbal vocalization is an affirmative or a negative response, and it used to drive me up a wall. One day I hit the roof and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak guinea pig! If you want to tell me something you will have to do so in English!” and did the dramatic flounce out of the room, exit, stage left. Naturally, that went over like a lead balloon.

So nowadays if he grunts in response to a question, and if the grunt is not readily identifiable as positive or negative, I say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Was that a yes or a no?” in a pleasant voice. He usually clarifies, and is usually polite about it.

We women as a group tend to be able to read communication better than many men (as a group.) Naturally, many individuals fall outside these generalizations. And we usually tend to emotionally invest more in the quality of any specific communication because we tend to be more relationally-oriented. Unfortunately, that also means that we tend to make assumptions more than men tend to do, simply because we seem to need to validate the relationship by having favorable communications. It has nothing to do with whether we are more traditional or progressive, or anything like that. It seems to be part of our hard-wiring. So the burden of guiding communication to something intelligible and satisfying for both ourselves and our mates tends to fall somewhat more heavily on us.

Assumptions, though, really throw a wrench into the works. Remember the old saw about the word assume: When you assume you make ***/u/me!

Be pleasant, but clear and direct. We’ve managed to cut our fights down by about ninety percent since I took the initiative in doing this. It’s a lot more liveable, and I find myself enjoying talking with my husband a lot more nowadays.

 

[EasterJoy]

So true! I was thinking as well about how we are getting only limited information from one of the two spouses, and yet some people seem sure that the husband is a jerk, or communicates the wrong way, or has a mental illness.

Keep in mind that people who actually know people with make-ups such as Asperger’s syndrome very often do not attach a stigma to it, any more than they would attach a stigma to finding that someone else is near-sighted or double-jointed or is prone to migraines. They don’t necessarily see these conditions as “mental illnesses” in the same sense that they would if the condition directly predisposed a person to personal unhappiness, addictions, manipulative behaviors, suicide, or other violence towards themselves or others. Rather, they see the syndrome the person has as a difference that is much easier to accommodate once you understand it. They quit expecting things of the person that are not realistic and they quit putting the person in situation where the person is practically doomed to failure. They are free to quit seeing atypical as being the same thing as damaged, and they can identify things that are barriers in the person’s life, but don’t have to be after they are understood.

When you realize that you are dealing with a large cat that you mistook for a small dog, you can more easily change your expectations for the animal. You can tailor your communication to the perceptive abilities of the being you are trying to communicate with. You don’t have to look down on the animal for being what God made it to be instead of what you expected or what would suit your own convenience.

OTOH, if you are like the OP and you see that you have neither a small dog nor a large cat, you keep looking for insights into this other creature’s nature that will smooth the way for mutual understanding. It is understanding the nature of the person you are trying to live with, communicate with, and love that is the main thing, not labels.

 

[rayne89]

To me “do you want to go?” means “do you want to go” not “are you ready to go”. My husband won’t generally speak up either if he’s cold, he tends to being cold where I tend to be warm so I’ll ask “are you warm enough?” or " are you comfortable?" Yes he’s a grown man and can let me know but he just doesn’t usually. So I ask, twenty+ years of marriage -its just one of the things I do because I love him. He generally waits until he’s positively freezing and then he’s crabby about it so I usually just ask so we don’t get to that point. Some are “just the way he is” kind of things. I think Marriage Encounter is an excellent idea. Its very private, no group sharing. It definitely helps. We probably should do another one soon.
You can’t make someone change. Only they can do that, if they choose to. You can only change how you look at it and how you react to it.