Please can you show me more affection?

[Brit]

If you were asked by your partner to "please show me more affection", would this be a clear request to you? Would you understand how to act upon it?

 

[Els]

No I wouldn't understand. I'd need to ask what they want in realistic terms.
Is it about body contact? Words? Attention? More talks? More facial expressions? When, how much? Constantly? I don't know. "More affection" isn't clear to me either. Good luck.

 

[Brit]

Thank you Els

What if I asked, please could you:
- not raise your voice/shout at me
- don't ignore me when you're upset about something unrelated to me
- plan to see me in advance
- let me know when you're busy so I can understand your silence

Are those requests clear? Or also ambiguous?

 

[Els]

Way more clear !!!

 

[Brit]

Thank you

 

[Els]

Now just a remark, but if I'm upset about something that doesn't concern the person, I might just be unable to communicate and have to stay isolated, but it's not a chosen behaviour or a willingness to ignore the other one, it's not relational. I might just litterally be unable to cope with my upset + relating to an other at the same time, but it's not that I would be directing my upset towards the other one or consciously ignoring. I might not even be aware that I'm doing that, but now I realize I do that all the time because I need it. Until now I thought everybody was doing that actually I'm surprised lol. I think it would be helpful to understand why (s)he does that and what happens, it might be a need and incapacity rather than a chosen behaviour (?).

 

[Aspychata]

Thank you Els

What if I asked, please could you:
- not raise your voice/shout at me
- don't ignore me when you're upset about something unrelated to me
- plan to see me in advance
- let me know when you're busy so I can understand your silence

Are those requests clear? Or also ambiguous?

Even in NT relationships- l have read these happen.

Sounds like you are saying: treat me with more respect.

But l am going to come at this from a different angle. Take the biggest one on your list that upsets you and work on that first. For me- do not shout at me. Depending how often it happens also. Can you state: when you yell, l am going to start walking away, if on the phone, l will hang up. My friend went thru this, and she called him on it. He also showed up unannounced and she didn't like that either.

 

[Matthias]

If you were asked by your partner to "please show me more affection", would this be a clear request to you? Would you understand how to act upon it?

The problem is many autistic people suppress their emotions because they're afraid and unwilling to cope with their feelings. I think it's a clear request but if you're asking about an autistic partner he/she may not be ready to act on it without receiving therapy. The good news is the problem is solvable but the bad news is many autistic people are stubborn and don't want to change. To see how I overcame that problem, see my blog post on alexithymia (by clicking on my username, then Profile Page, and selecting Blog Entries).

 

[Brit]

thank you @Els, @Aspychata and @Matthias. @Aspychata especially, I have listened to a lot of your advice over the years... @Els, I do definitely understand the limitations of simply being clear with 'instructions', but I can't mind read so I just want to be sure that my thoughts are at least clear.

This is really an internal list because as Els pointed out "please be more affection with me" is so very vague. In NT thinking I guess it's also purposely vague, to allow for room for manoeuvre, but then when I sat down for minute to consider what "more affection" meant to me.. that's what came to mind.

When the time is right I might mention one thing from the list.... definitely one at a time.

 

[Thinx]

The problem is many autistic people suppress their emotions because they're afraid and unwilling to cope with their feelings. I think it's a clear request but if you're asking about an autistic partner he/she may not be ready to act on it without receiving therapy. The good news is the problem is solvable but the bad news is many autistic people are stubborn and don't want to change. To see how I overcame that problem, see my blog post on alexithymia (by clicking on my username, then Profile Page, and selecting Blog Entries).

I don't agree at all that many people with autism are stubborn and don't want to change. That's pretty offensive, isn't it? Many of us here have done years of therapy and made many and varied efforts to change, not always with the effects we'd hope, depending on the issues we try to change, as some need working around, and are not subject to simple change via CBT, whatever this poster's personal experience may have been.

 

[Major Tom]

Affection can have many meanings, but you could try touching, hugging, holding hands, etc. Also, asking how a person's day went, maybe cooking a nice meal or going out to eat. There are so many forms of affection. It's probably best just to ask in plain words "what kind of affection do you mean?"

 

[Matthias]

I don't agree at all that many people with autism are stubborn and don't want to change. That's pretty offensive, isn't it? Many of us here have done years of therapy and made many and varied efforts to change, not always with the effects we'd hope, depending on the issues we try to change, as some need working around, and are not subject to simple change via CBT, whatever this poster's personal experience may have been.

Going to therapy doesn't indicate a person isn't stubborn. A stubborn person might undergo years of therapy for the purpose of coping with problems he believes other person are causing him. That's NOT going to work. Two major impediments to therapy are denial and projection. Denial is when you think there's nothing wrong with you. Projection is blaming other people for your problems. To start benefiting from therapy, a person first needs to admit he has a problem (accept he has a mental illness, admit his symptoms, acknowledge his behavior is abnormal and unacceptable, and quit making excuses for them). People who refuse to acknowledge their problems and make excuses for them are stubborn. While they may say they want to change (just like many say they want to lose wait), if they aren't willing to make the effort, it's fair to say they don't really want to change.

 

[Thinx]

Going to therapy doesn't indicate a person isn't stubborn. A stubborn person might undergo years of therapy for the purpose of coping with problems he believes other person are causing him. That's NOT going to work. Two major impediments to therapy are denial and projection. Denial is when you think there's nothing wrong with you. Projection is blaming other people for your problems. To start benefiting from therapy, a person first needs to admit he has a problem (accept he has a mental illness, admit his symptoms, acknowledge his behavior is abnormal and unacceptable, and quit making excuses for them). People who refuse to acknowledge their problems and make excuses for them are stubborn. While they may say they want to change (just like many say they want to lose wait), if they aren't willing to make the effort, it's fair to say they don't really want to change.

You've already told us you have no qualifications in this area and derived your ideas from CBT videos and a book by a discredited and unqualified person. Now you are quoting psychodynamic terms, but you unfortunately haven't grasped the basic issue of the difference between mental illness and genetic brain difference. Denial is when you think reading a Wikipedia article makes you an expert. Projection is when you blame others for calling you out on it.

 

[Matthias]

You've already told us you have no qualifications in this area and derived your ideas from CBT videos and a book by a discredited and unqualified person.

The information I posted on this forum is the result of years of research and careful observation. While the videos I mentioned earlier pointed me in the right direction, it was the logical implications of what I learned, backed by hundreds of scientific studies, that formed the basis for the information I've provided. The observations in the book you're referring to have never been discredited and are backed by science. Only the author's hypothesis, which I also reject, has been discredited.