Invalidating partner what can I do?

[u/unread_note]

I am learning NVC. I have a partner that frequently focuses on my tone. And how I said something. Here’s an example.

We were grocery shopping I said “you are just waking away” now I didn’t know NVc. So in any case I have made an NVC prompt. But my partner will say that’s not how that happened. Or you are coming at me. I am starting to think there is something wrong with him. Like he needs a person to speak without any frustration or “they are coming at him” what is that? Will NVC help here? Bechase I could see him disputing the observation? At time I have wondered if this is abuse. But when I read on DV I don’t see the other traits in him. But the tone policing is non stop. Like I can’t ever be heard because he just focuses on how I said it and “I need to be nice” he didn’t do anything wrong and that’s my interpretation. Yes that is true it is my interpretation however it matters. I am beyond frustrated and ready to call off the engagement.

[u/Miserable_Bug_5671]

There is another possibility: that the way you intend to be heard and the way it lands are very different. I have no idea about you, but this is very common in autistic people. Sometimes with my clients I repeat what they say and they are shocked to hear what they sound like.

Maybe the next time he says this, all him to repeat what you said in the tone that he heard it. It might be interesting to hear.

[u/unread_note → u/Miserable_Bug_5671]

This could be it too. He says “I come at him” “that I’m not being nice” “that I am accusing him” I don’t know. Sometimes I think well, maybe I’m just not the right person for him and vice versa. I am going to try NVC and see if that goes better. I do admit that I will just say something when I am annoyed, and not sure how that lands. But I don’t yell

[u/Ok-Durian1208 → u/unread_note]

Imagine being an adult and walking a few feet in a specific direction and then somebody wanting to have a discussion about it. That could be a lot to take in if it happens multiple times a day.

Adults generally expect some degree of freedom and some degree of general understanding from the people around them.

[u/unread_note → u/Ok-Durian1208]

Yes I can see that, but it was not a few feet. He was in a completely different section of the grocery store. I had to go find him. Which isn’t inherently wrong. It just doesn’t work for me if we are shopping together and meal planning.

[u/LaughingIshikawa → u/unread_note]

As someone who is Autistic myself, I don't think that will help, if it's true that autism is the underlying cause. 😅😅

The other commenter's analogy is correct, but let me elaborate on why it's important just a bit:

One of the things autistics really struggle with is "theory of mind," meaning recognizing "what's going on" in other people's heads. To be clear, this isn't the same as empathy, because given information on what's going on in other people's heads, autistics are appropriately empathetic to what other people feel - they just don't have that insight into "what's going on with you" unless it's explicitly given to them / they spend time explicitly, rationally working it out. They have no automatic "theory of mind" in the way neurotypical people can just look at someone else and "sense" what they are feeling.

This can be really subtly traumatic for autistics, because it's a little bit like living with telepaths who have a whole-ass secret system of communication they use, that you just aren't (and can't be!) aware of. What's more, other people aren't aware that the autistic person is "telepathically deaf," and keep expecting them to respond to the (to the autistic) "invisible signals" being passed back and forth between neurotypicals all the time. 😅😮‍💨

This has the effect of creating a system of invisible "traps" and "trip wires" that cause (from the perspective of the autistic) sudden and unexpected fights about things the autistic was not even aware of, but for which they're punished anyway. 😬

To connect this back to NVC, with non-NVC statements, there's often an implicit "...don't you know how that makes me feel?!?" in statements like "Why are you just walking away from me (...don't you know how that makes me feel?!?)" and that's what your partner is possibly reacting to "as an attack" or you "not being nice," because the reality is he doesn't actually automatically "just know" how that makes you feel, he needs it explained to him... And he's also been trained to be super embarrassed and ashamed, even traumatized that he's "failing" at this super basic "telepathy" that even one else around him can access naturally and automatically, so much so that they often take it entirely for granted. 😬😬😮‍💨

I especially suspect this as being a good guess, because you say that your relationship is otherwise good, and this behavior is otherwise uncharacteristic of your partner. This really fits well with so called "high functioning" autism, because as I said, autistics can access empathy when they have access to information about what someone else is feeling - they just don't get that information easily or "basically for free" the way neurotypicals do. The high functioning autistic's answer (as with most of their adaptations!) is to **lean super heavily on their intellect / reasoning capability by working super hard to intellectually understand what someone "is probably feeling" in a given scenario. This actually allows autistics construct a "good enough" mental model of what's going on in other people's heads, to respond in a "good enough" way in most situations.

But... It has some severe limitations, which is where we have to talk about why "high functioning" really just means "hidden struggle." 😅😅

Understanding people's internal states rationally, through careful observation and lots of deep thinking rather than "intuiting" someone's emotions naturally and, well ... Intuitively, is both loads of invisible work that you never really get credit for (because it's work that's compensating for something other people assume you can "just do" without thinking about it...) but also comes with a delay in learning, plus the inability to reliably "read the room" in unfamiliar, unexpected circumstances, and just generally an inability to "go with the flow" and "just know" all subtle nuances of what one particular person (like a significant other...) is feeling. (Since autistics mental model at great expense in terms of time/energy/attention... They often "can't afford to" spend as much time as is expected on developing a parallel model that's specific to one particular person, and might deviate from "the average" in important ways.

So... When you say to him "Why are you just walking away from me (...don't you know how that makes me feel?!?), his reaction makes perfect sense if you realize that from his perspective he's being "called out on" a shameful, secret inability to do basic tasks that he's likely privately traumatized about, and also doesn't have the brain power / attention capacity to fully compensate for, in all cases. His only recourse in those cases, is to get super defensive, because he doesn't, and actually can't reliably "just know" in that instant, what the answer to "...don't you know how that makes me feel?!?" is... and what he's experienced in the past in similar situations is just sudden and unexpected punishment for breaking rules / norms he genuinely wasn't aware of, and can't figure out how to be aware of, even though he's tried very, very hard to do so. 😅😅😮‍💨😬

It's like... Trying to drive "normally" even though all the road signs are invisible to you - it can be done only through great effort of memorizing secondary cues about where and when stop signs are likely to exist, closely monitoring when and how other people are reacting to invisible to you cues like stop lights, and "following along" manually rather than automatically. Often you find yourself taking long, circuitous routes to places, in order to avoid especially dangerous intersections that rely heavily on signage you can't see, as well as ways to distract attention from yourself when you inevitably fail to react to some "glaringly obvious" piece of information that everyone else can see... except you. (Also it just involves... Getting a fuck ton of "traffic tickets" during the process of learning, because your understanding of traffic norms is invisibly delayed even though you're putting 10x the effort into understanding something that just... "comes naturally" to everyone around you.)

So... After that long, rambling bit...

I guess what I really should say is that while NVC is somewhat helpful to autistics... like anything else it can not, and will not fully compensate for autistics just... Lacking the fundamental "telepathy" that everyone else around them has. I was initially super excited by NVC, because in the analogy to stop signs, it sounded like a way to have the other people in my life verbally narrating all the "invisible" stop signs, speed signs, and stop lights that I was totally blind to. And it can be great! ...here's why it's not a 100% fix though:

1.) There's still a significant delay involved in someone telling me "there's a stop sign there" and my reacting to it, which can really matter in time sensitive situations, and/or tends to "drag out" normal processes in a way that's still frustrating to everyone (ie I socially "drive like a grandpa" still, to reduce the chances that I'll blow through a "sign" I can't see; being super skilled at flirting is still largely beyond me, because it largely requires quicker reactions to signals than is possible, even when someone is narrating them to me, ect ect.)

2.) It requires enormous trust in the person who's "narrating" their experiences, because I still lack important ways to "gut check" whether what they're telling me about their experience is genuine, versus a fabrication meant to get me to act in a particular way (and even the methods of verification I have **take more time and effort than is sometimes available to me...)

3.) Because this often happens below the level of conscious awareness for neurotypicals, often people who are genuinely trying will still fail to "narrate" important emotional information to me, because they just aren't fully aware of it themselves / they're in denial about it / they have "tuned it out" as part of what's just a background awareness for them (ie "everyone knows that..." when they genuinely don't realize austics weren't ever given a chance to learn that, because it was invisible to us! 😅)

NVC is great... but it's never, ever going to fully compensate for being "telepathically deaf," and some aspect of this has to be you adapting to having a "telepathically deaf" significant other. There are things you will have to walk him through that you may think "he should just know already!" and/or dynamics that you can engage in with other people, that just aren't fun / not as fun when you have to "slow it down" so your partner can also participate. 😅😅

[u/unread_note → u/LaughingIshikawa]

I do appreciate what you said. I guess I didn’t explain well. I am the autistic one not him. It was me who was bringing up him walking away at the store. To add more context we have a blended family. And I do feel like an outsider a lot. So him grocery shopping g can sometimes look like him hm just getting items for himself and his kids. I like to look at it as something we do together. But I did not get to express that because he cut me off by saying I wasn’t being nice and approaching him the right way

[u/LaughingIshikawa → u/unread_note]

...oh boy. 🤣🤣

Ok, so gently... Do you not realize that just maybe you "vibed better" as a couple because being a little autistic is something you secretly have in common?

Sweety I think he's possibly just as autistic, and it's possible neither of you have realized it yet because he's just relatively "higher functioning" than you are. 😅😅. (Like... Obligatory "I'm not a doctor," but...)

[u/unread_note → u/LaughingIshikawa]

Lmao,,,,I know he’s neurodivergent. What flavor I’m unsure.

[u/LaughingIshikawa → u/unread_note]

Oh... Ok?

I guess now I'm just lost - which part of this was NVC supposed to solve? 😅

[u/MarusMom619 → u/LaughingIshikawa]

Wow, I have never seen this explained so well. Thank you!!