Empathy (Again)

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I know that this topic has been aired several times. I had an interesting conversation with my wife last night. This is a rarity because, she has been very angry since discovering that my daughter and I had AS.

We got around to talking about empathy and, of course, my lack of empathy. In my research into my own AS, I have concluded that I lack empathy because I do not pick up non-vocal cues that convey how a person is feeling. Note: once I understand how a person is feeling I have a very strong, perhaps overly strong, sympathetic response.

My wife is convinced that empathy is more than this and a fundamental part of humanity that I lack. (OK! So now I am sub-human.) She reckons that empathy is nothing to do with reading cues. She strongly believes it is another sense. Just as real as seeing or hearing, whereby feelings are mutually transmitted across groups of people. What she is describing seems to be a form of telepathy that NTs take for granted as a normal part of their existence. Sorry! I just don’t get this. If there is an empathy sense, I just do not have it. Could my wife’s account be correct? Am I searching for the wrong solutions to my issues? If she is correct. I am wasting my time trying to find a way around my weakness.

It's funny how people with AS are often accused of lacking in empty, and yet we seem to at least understand it much better than NTs in general.

Egads, Aspies do NOT lack empathy, and I know people personally who, for what they lack of reading and responding to social cues, they make up for in ethics and morals.

The difference between animals and humans is that humans can process the emotions they pick up and decide what they want to do about them. The kind of thing your wife is describing, as far as I can understand, is usually referred to as "mob mentality," which usually reduces the thought processes to the lowest common denominator. A pep rally or a frat party is an example of this.

I used to think it would be wonderful to be swept up in a crowd's emotions, but it isn't. A group may wind up doing all kinds of things that individuals would never, ever do otherwise.

That's my two cents' worth. Feel free to get a second opinion. (I'm serious about that)

There is a serious logical gap in your wife's reaction to the "discovery" of AS in your daughter and yourself.

You had AS when you met; you had AS as she got to know you; you had AS when she decided to marry you and you've had AS for your whole marriage. The only thing that's changed is now she has a two word name; Asperger's Syndrom, for all the aspie traits in the man she married and bedded.

Why be angry about it now?

No; uh uh. Her anger is not about empathy; whatever she thinks that is.

Does she think you knew you had AS all along and didn't tell her? (Even though AS is exactly what she's been living with the whole of your relationship?)

If she married a deaf man, would she not notice that he can't hear until she's told that he was diagonosed with deafness?

I wouldn't try to understand anything about empathy through your wife's reflection. It may be seriously distorted.

From what I can tell, her version of empathy is called "mind reading". She is upset that you don't intuitively know how she feels. She probably feels unloved, neglected, etc. But I don't really see how it is your fault. She married you, knowing how you are. Perhaps she hoped that you would change and, especially now that you have been diagnosed, she sees it as there is "no hope"? I'm not sure.

What you somehow need to get her to understand is that, even if you can't read her mind or body language, you still care about her. You are not lacking in humanity or sub-human. You have a social learning disorder and you relate to the world differently. Her way of thinking is no less valid, but she needs to learn to see past the "you seem cold and emotionless" part.

Can you get her any books on autism? Maybe reading the information from somewhere would help her gain some insights.

And that suggests that the NT wife lacks empathy with her AS husband.

I rather suspect that NT empathy is just NT to NT empathy - they lack empathy with Aspies.

And Aspie "lack of empathy" is more just a lack of Aspie to NT empathy - we have Aspie to Aspie empathy (which is why so many Aspies feel at home here).

In other words ... people are empathic with people like themselves, and have difficulty understanding people who are different to themselves. The majority find the minority hard to understand ... and blame the minority, rather than see it as a normal limitation of everyone, themselves included.

I think you are wasting your time trying to understand what she is trying to tell you. I have personally found that it does not matter if you try to talk about it. You either get it or you don't. I, personally do not get it, but thats who I am. I don't worry anymore about this so-called empathic sub-level of emotional communication between people. And no, it does not make you a sub-human if you have less empathy than normal people.

My question was aimed at the empathy bit rather than my wife's anger. It was just a surprise that she actually had a conversation with me.

True. My problem is that I have difficulty picking up emotions in the first place and so cannot make the correct reasoning or judgment.

Yes, that is the point. Is this valid? I don't understand because it doesn't happen to me. I can't imagine what it is that she expects me to experience.

My wife does feel unloved and neglected. And, yes, now that she knows I have AS she also knows that I will not get better. She previously hoped that I would improve with time. She is also angry at me because I passed my AS genes to my youngest daughter. I am self diagnosed. I realised I had AS when we found out our daughter had AS. We are so alike in many ways.

I have been trying all of the text book stuff to make her feel loved but I just can't get the timing right. She needs me to make her feel loved only when she needs to feel loved and not at other times. I will never know the right time unless she tells me and, in her current frame of mind, that is not going to happen. When I get the timing wrong she complains that I am trying too hard and that irritates her.

She has been reading allot about Asperger’s, mainly because of my daughter rather than me. Unfortunately, she reads things too literally, e.g. her interpretation of "People with AS have difficulty regulating emotions." as "People with AS have no emotions." In my case this is certainly not the case. It never has been. Suddenly I am considered emotionless and unfeeling. It is as though here reading has taken away understanding.

This is true. I do seem to be intuitively understand how my AS daughter feels much more than my NT wife does. I would not consider this bond as mind reading. I reckon that I recognise non-verbal cues and reactions in my daughter that would be similar to my own in certain situations. My wife dismisses the connection between my daughter and me as not being the same as empathy. I don't know any other Aspies and so I can't comment if I share empathy with others outside my family.

Before I realised I had AS, less than a year ago, I had no idea that I was anything but a normal person.

They (at least some) apparently do. I can read body language when not engaged in it directly, and this is partly true. I watch as they (unconsciously) volley nonverbal signals and there is a mutual (emotional) unconscious connection. I think this is simply practice confined within a homogeneous cluster of people, who through a like environment, develop a like theory of mind. These may have a non verbal gift too. Some people are experts on reading body language.

Once she realizes these things are 'instone', I hope there is an acceptance of it for you two.

It seems odd how your wife insists on defining you as lacking an essential ingredient. If she's right, how come she hasn't divorced you? I think she'd do well to admit that she doesn't know whether you can deliver what she wants or not. Why not get her to tell you exactly what it is that she wants you to do that you aren't doing, and leave it to experiment to discover whether you can do it or not?

It seems to me that she's getting some put-downs in here, labelling you as incapable of the required behaviour like that.....and like you said, she insinuated that you're sub-human. In doing so she is working against the result she seems to want so much. I think if I were you I'd ask her if she's given up on you. Because if she hasn't, then she should be held to that attutude, and made to treat the problem with a bit more positivity. If she has, you probably need to stay out of each other's way.

Um, that's not the literal meaning of it. In fact difficulty regulating emotions means precisely the opposite - that when you're feeling a strong emotion you're swept away by it instead of being able to control it.

My big advice for anyone who feels unloved by an autistic person they're close to is to learn how that person naturally shows love. For example I often show love by choosing to be near someone even when I don't feel like actually interacting with them. Maybe you could try explaining to her that it's like AS people speak a different nonverbal language, and tell her specific ways you tend to show specific feelings. Kind of like moving to a different culture - for example a person from Italy may feel that a German is cold and distant towards them because Germans expect more personal space than Italians.

Anyway, empathy is not another sense. It's unconscious processing of a variety of cues from multiple senses, and the only conscious bit the person gets is an 'echo' of the feeling their brain thinks the other person is projecting. So NTs may look at someone and feel 'anger' coming off the person, and have no idea that subconsciously they were analyzing the furrowed brow, the tense body posture, the clipped, emphatic pronunciation of words, and so forth. NTs can actually learn to notice these things consciously, and it makes them better at reading people (that's what lie detection experts like Paul Ekman do). But they don't have to consciously process it because the unconscious processing usually works - except when they meet someone whose nonverbal communication is different from what they've learnt to expect, like an AS person or someone from another culture.

I have more empathy than others. When I notice somebody is acting a bit strangely in the street, I just think, ''maybe he's tired, or maybe she's recently lost her job, or maybe a relative of his is ill, or maybe she is pregnant, or maybe he is going through some really tough times, or maybe she is cold or hot....'' and etc, and I also think that this person is a stranger, I don't know them, so I'm not going to stare at them and judge them then single them out for anything. Some NTs don't seem to think that of somebody looking a little strange, who they don't even know. They always jump to the ridiculous conclusions that the person is a weirdo and that's that.

It's REALLY annoying when people say Aspies lack empathy and NTs don't.

i've gone very deeply into this topic. i realise i have no credibility by being a random forum poster, but i will give you these two pieces of info in case they help.

1. the most accurate description of empathy is COGNITIVE EMPATHY and AFFECTIVE EMPATHY. cognitive empathy basically means the ability to read social cues. and affective empathy means the ability to feel what another person is feeling. this definition is from simon baron cohen, one of the top minds on empathy today. what we are missing is just the cognitive empathy part. our affective empathy is the same as anyone else's. but it all gets really confused when our cognitive empathy is off; we become socially miscalibrated and it looks like we don't have affective empathy.

the autism professionals generally think we are missing affective empathy. i firmly disagree and most others here do too. cognitive empathy is our problem and that is all.currently the professional autism community has no way to teach cognitive empathy however

2. there are methods and they will be becoming known in the future. so even though the psychiatry industry indicates there is no hope and we "can't get better", this cognitiive empathy problem is solveable, and its not too hard to do.

be careful; it may be that your wife is considering leaving you. try to give her hope that things will improve with time. i am posting this because i am firmly convinced that this change will happen. aspie honor.

The difference is simple. NT's learn to "read" other's emotions and thoughts subconsciously. They ARE reading body language and facial expressions in ways that we don't (subconsciously) so it isn't "telepathy" it's just that they don't have to consciously process them, but we DO. We have to actually THINK about what we're seeing, and it doesn't come automatically. We have to consciously learn what to look for.

Even doctors tend to call it "mind reading," but it really isn't mind reading at all. It's not that mysterious. It's just that it comes so automatically to most people they tend to think of it in those terms.

OK, I get what you're talking about now. I still think you do have empathy; it's just not the type of empathy NTs are supposed to have. I can understand why your wife would be frustrated but it's no reason for her to be angry at you. You two need counseling and she needs to learn more about aspergers.

I surely hope she doesn't give up; you seem like someone who would definitely be worth the effort.

Thanks all for the good advice. There are so many subjects here that I will not quote each.

My main aim was to get some thoughts on empathy but many of you have touched on my relationship, which is, of course, very important to me. So, I will address this first and let you have some further information. I can be far too open for my own good.

ToughDiamond: My wife has given up on me and I am keeping an enforced distance between us now. She has not divorced me because our daughters still love and need their father. If we were to separate, she would have no choice but to take them back to the UK and I would rarely see them. My eldest NT daughter is 14 now and has reached an age of growing independence and a realisation that her dad is just an ordinary person with flaws. She still loves and values her dad though. My youngest AS daughter is 10 and is still in awe of her very special dad. My wife has given me five years before reassessing the situation. After which my AS daughter will be old enough not to need her dad so much.

Also, my wife has reached menopause. There is a daemon that now occupies my wife’s body. The wife that I fell in love with is still there and does appear through on rare occasions. This change and sudden rejection often leading to divorce is not uncommon. My AS has contributed greatly to my rejection. I don’t know how long this phase will last or who my wife will be when the transformation is complete. I am holding onto the hope that a wonderful butterfly will emerge from its pupae that will have a space for me in her heart but I am preparing myself for the worst in five years. Throughout this time, I intend to make best efforts to learn about myself and do what I can to become a better person, through my new found knowledge of how AS affects me. My wife may not be noticing many of my efforts yet but there have been some interesting results in other aspects of my life, which are making my efforts worthwhile: possibly the subject of a future thread.

Anyway back to the intended subject, empathy. MrXxx and guywithAS: I fully agree with your views on “cognitive empathy” and “affective empathy” and how NT's learn to "read" other's emotions and thoughts subconsciously. In my earlier post I refer to affective empathy as sympathy. I have lots of “affective empathy” but I have very little “cognitive empathy”. I have also been doing allot of reading on body language. I understand the theory but I just do not see it in real time, particularly in busy situations, even if I deliberately look for it. I must be too busy trying to reason about all of the things happening about me to notice everything. However. I must see the body language, because, now that I can understand it, I sometimes realise, minutes or even hours later, what it is that I have missed, far to late to do anything about it. I do find this frustrating.

Lucywlf: Thank you for your kind words of encouragement. We have tried counceling. My wife was reluctant at first and did not cooperate. She no longer wishes to continue. I don't see the point in continuing alone.