Empathy (Again)

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Empathy is basically whatever people like saying that we lack. I have empathy, you have empathy, Satoshi Taijiri the founder of pokemon has empathy, everyone who claims they don't well that's a psychological not a neurological phenomenon.

If you don't detect someone else's emotion when they talk to you that's because you're sane and don't live in a fantasy world of religious concepts. If you don't feel the same thing as someone else when they talk to you about it that is because you are detatched from their pain, which can easily occur or don't understand why someone is feeling that emotion in that situation, which is understandable if you aren't a sheep. If you can sympathize with someone then it doesn't matter how much people bang on about empathy because as long as you care for them it doesn't matter as it frees up your brain so that you can actually do useful s**t, like find a way to help the person or tell them that they are being stupid.

Autistics have empathy, as-do NT's, for people with-whom they can readily-identify.
For neither group is empathy easily-felt by the other, having brains wired completely-differently.
However, it is the Autist, immersed as it were in an NT-dominated world, who is labelled un-empathetic,
despite the fact that the NT world likewise cannot empathize with her and moreover feels it should not have to.

Now that that rant's over,
there is no magical component to empathy, which really does seem to be what your wife is talking about.

But nor is a lack of empathy the inability to NOTICE the emotional state of others (blindness to non-verbal communication, for example)
-it's the ability to intuit the origin of those feelings, and, more meaningfully, respond-accordingly.

I have great difficulty empathizing with the NT tendency to cry when people die, for instance-
I know tear-filled sadness overwhelms them at the passing of someone,
but I cannot for the life of me EMPATHIZE with feeling sadness just because of someone's sudden non-presence,
unless they met a tragic, painful end, or it was the result of some sudden, pre-mature event leaving the mourner in shock.
It doesn't rationally stick for me, and therefore I have a great deal of difficulty feigning the normally empathy-driven expressions of condolence and comfort in such instances.

In some ways, though, that makes it easier than an understanding of empathy as pure discernment of this vs that emotion in others through their real-time cues. I know general NT ways of reacting and can pre-emptively "plan" how best to respond to their reactions when they come. ("What just happened? How might an NT, based on my observation, be feeling about what just happened? How might an NT, based on my observation, want me to respond based on how they're feeling?")

I am not oblivious to other people's emotions but I can't feel what they feel just because they want me to. If there's some practical assistance they require then they should tell me what it is otherwise I don't know what they want from me.

trappedinhell: No problems. I don't have a religion myself, including spiritual stuff. I am a devout agnostic.

ToughDiamond: I am holding on to this hope and diong my best to adapt.

Janissy: I so hope you are right in my case. The sudden change brought on by the menopause happend only shortly before descovering I had AS: not good timing. Anyway, however things turn out, I will have learned to be a better person. I hope I can make it through the next few years. I'm trying to understand and adapt but I am not having a good time with this. The past 12 months have been hell for both of us.

AbleBaker: If only my wife would tell me what she wanted from me there would be no problem. Unfortunately, she believes that if I really loved her, I would know what she wants. Ths is not going to happen however much she or I want it to.

Your wife is delusional. Sorry.

BassMan_720 - I just re-read your posts, and didn't realise how much we have in common. Sorry, this does not have a happy ending, so you might want to skip this post.

re: menopause
I have always attributed my divorce to my church - which is another story. But after reading your post and thinking of the timing, there are distinct parallels. I have no idea when my wife went through the menopause - probably evidence of me not noticing things. But she was in her mid 40s when we divorced (she is older than me) and her red hair went grey around the same time. Not overnight, but the difference is noticeable. Maybe coincidence, but it must have been around the same time.

re: empathy
This leads to the biggest thing for me - bigger than everything else: we did not talk of anything serious.It's one of the reasons I think I must have aspergers: if someone does not talk to me I don't know how they are feeling. I care, but I need to know. NTs must either all be the same, or must all be good at reading clues, or must not care. We would talk about unimportant things, but if I ever got onto important topics (like our church) there would be silence. I have noticed that in every relationship I have ever had (not that there have been many). They don't talk. And then they get annoyed if I ask how they are feeling, like I am supposed to know, and talking must cost them money or something because they don't like doing it. For me, talking was the single biggest issue - if we could have talked we could have solved our problems. If there is no talk there is no hope. I put this under the heading "empathy" because I can see it from my ex wife's point of view. She must have expected me to react differently, to say different things. From her point of view my perceived lack of empathy must have been the biggest fault, because if only I had said the right things I'm sure she would have started talking. And then everything could have been resolved.

re: five year ultimatum, and children's ages
When our youngest daughter was 10 (or thereabouts) we had pretty much agreed that we would get divorced when the children left home. As usual we did not talk about it properly, it was just something we knew and I think mentioned, like just to clarify what we both knew. We never argued, so there was no reason to rush. Of course life by this point was pretty bad. It is horrible to know that the person you love is happier when away from you. I used to buy her gifts or flowers every day, and (for as long as it was possible without lying) tell her I loved her, but it was not enough. Religious differences were the big thing. The final straw came when the youngest was 12, 5 years earlier than planned (see below).

re: the role of Aspergers
it was my wife who decided I must have Aspergers. She is a nurse, and was reading an article on the subject and everything fell into place. Looking back, this would be around the time we both accepted that divorce was inevitable. I don't know if there is a strict cause and effect, but if so it would have been significant because it made her give up hope: I would never change. It also let her off the hook: she was not a cold person, it was obviously me. To be fair, I had come to the same conclusion regarding the church: there was no hope. We were in a very intense religion, and she had become more and more religious over the years while I had become less and less. She was literally married to the church and not me (our church had an unusual marriage ceremony). Aspergers would have given her the mental excuse she needed.

what happened next
Once we had accepted that divorce was inevitable, and there was no hope of the other person ever changing, life was not happy. I must stress that I did not want divorce, but even more than that I did not want to make her unhappy. Making her unhappy was unbearable. And I hated being this miserable, unnatural person in front of the children - the real me was not like that! I did not want them to grow up miserable like me! But we were just going to muddle through for another 7 or 8 years until the youngest left home. I coped by telling myself that my wife was just not a tactile person. Not everybody is. The final straw came when I saw photos of her at the office party, sitting on the boss's knee, laughing, with her arms around his neck. She had never ever been like that with me. I realized that the happy person I once fell in love with was still there, but just not with me. Being with me destroyed her spirit. I suggested we bring the divorce forwards. She was very enthusiastic about the idea. I cried a lot. So did my youngest. My wife didn't.

It's not all bad news
We are better friends now. I live very close by and see the children at least every day. My ex wife is genuinely happy to see me, now that I only come across to help out or give her money. So life is better. And to be fair to her, because I know she must sound like a monster, she nearly always made more money than me, so it was not about bleeding me dry. We were just very different people who should never have married. Some people were meant to be friends, not lovers.

We had the most amicable divorce in history - the lawyer could not believe it. Nothing to disagree over, no bad words. Just relief that a nineteen year mistake was over. The worst part of it was seeing my daughter cry. That only lasted an hour, but if I had known what that hour would be like I would have rather stayed miserable for another four years. But it passed, and we are still very close.

If it wasn't for our location this would be a very happy ending. But we live hundreds of miles from anywhere, so in order to be with the children I cannot get a decent job. Any career skills I once had (I work in computing) are over ten years out of date, and being aspie in a tiny village means meeting someone new here is not going to happen. The dating sites are so empty in this region it is not even funny. But I did meet a wonderful woman who lives five hundred miles away, and if I can only learn some skills that will let me get a job nearer her then everyone will live happily ever after. (There are no jobs up here and there are other reasons she cannot move)

There is always hope. It does get better. Or so I tell myself every day.

My empathy is really lacking. I have troubles putting myself in other peoples proverbial shoes. It got me in a ton of trouble and several arrests as a kid.