No Boundaries (continued...from cally's thread).

[NotATLDave]

Here's the continuation of the post from cally's thread. Why Would a Married Man Do This? by cally.

My bag of inflammatory topics is almost empty so I might be leaving the board again soon.


My "thought of the day" is this...

Always, always be skeptical of your feelings and use due diligence to trace the true origins of them before behaving on them

[cinemanymph]

Always, always be skeptical of your feelings and use due diligence to trace the true origins of them before behaving on them

I am taking your thought provoking quote under consideration. It is certain to raise the hackles of those who sucessfully follow their gut instincts.

Cinema-who hasn't met an instinct she hasn't second guessed.

[NotATLDave]

I am taking your thought provoking quote under consideration. It is certain to raise the hackles of those who sucessfully follow their gut instincts.

You are talking to the king of "gut instinct". I have asbergers syndrome...a condition which makes it difficult for me to process information logically. My life is similar to a Labrador retriever whose been wearing a shock collar his whole life but is getting pretty good at obedience.

[Lillieperl]

Wow... I've been reading a lot about Asberger's syndrome. People with this condition used to be lumped in with people with autism, didn't they? Until Asberger carved out a more precise definition? Is it my correct understanding that one of the characteristics of this condition is the need to observe other people closely and "copy" their behavior in social situations? Your example of going to the bar is a good one... observe how people open the conversation, how they reply, make eye contact, etc. This kind of throws a different light on your bar experience.

When I was a kid, my parents never had anyone over, they had no friends, never entertained, never had birthday parties for me, etc. As I got older, I really started to notice my complete social ineptitude. So when I was in high school, I started observing the other girls (I went to a Catholic girls' high school) and seeing how they acted. I started to imitate them... stuff that you think ought to come naturally, but actually you have to learn it somewhere. I picked out one girl on the bus as my subject, and I made a point of talking to her, complimenting her (if I could honestly find something to compliment), making eye contact (who knew you were supposed to do that?). It felt really neat when she started to open up to me and like me. I didn't fake anything; I just pushed myself beyond my comfort zone.

When I was a junior, we moved yet again and I was the new kid in another Catholic girls' high school 1,000 miles from the previous one. But now I had my new skills to practice. It was miraculous. The following year, I was elected Senior Class President. And even better, a handful of those "girls" are still my friends to this day, 40 years later (in fact, I exchanged emails with one of them today).

Sometimes (but less and less), I still feel like I'm acting out a foreign language when I go into a social situation and have to introduce myself and my companion, and shake hands, etc. I have a shelf full of etiquette books that I've read many times to make sure I don't embarrass myself too much.

I get where you're coming from, Dave.

[DRJL]

Hi Dave,
You posted that your C thinks the BB takes intimacy away from the M? Is that correct? I think I agree with him or her, if intimate thoughts (not only the intimate sexual ones) are shared here but not with your SO. Anything that I've thought about as result of this BB, I've been making an effort to share with my SO. Sometimes, okay lots of times, it hasn't been easy, but it's been good when I've screwed up my courage.

Are you the primary talker and your W the primary listener and responder in your R? Those are the roles my SO and I have. I'm the listener, responder. I prefer my role. Intimate conversations, as a listener, have always been important to me. But I'm making an effort to talk more, important stuff not fluff. It really isn't easy for me. Wine helps . A good listener on the other end helps too. You should see the two of us struggling with changing our conversational roles . Okay, I'm rambling. Why am I writing this? I guess I was wondering if this sounds familiar to you?

[NotATLDave]

You posted that your C thinks the BB takes intimacy away from the M? Is that correct?

Pretty much correct. I agree with her too but don't follow it to the letter of the law...I'm here right now. If you've followed my posts, I spend a lot of time talking about *me* and try to avoid talking about my W like others do. Most everything I post here has been shared already with my W and C. I repeat a lot of it because I'm trying to share the "sensations" of success so others will be ready for the changes that start to happen. Defusing causes really weird things to happen. One would think that a big dose of C would make you walk hand in hand into the sunset with stupid smiles on your face, but in reality, it's a mixture of really good things and really weird, seemingly counterproductive things. I think I covered the "weird" in my last big thread. As long as you are learning from your experiences, sharing what you've learned, and staying focused on using this knowledge for the betterment of your R, then there are very few things you can do wrong.

You posted that your C thinks the BB takes intimacy away from the M? Is that correct?

Me?!!!...a talker?!!! Are you kidding?

Seriously. My poor W and the heavy cross she bears by having to listen to me go on and on and on....just like my posts. She claims that I say things 3 times. But that I say things from three different angles for 3 different audiences. The first is the simple, high-level, abstract statement, the second is more literal and detailed, and the third is an example. My job requires me to speak to mixed groups of technical, non-technical, sales, and educator type people. The Asbergers prevents me from reading non-verbal cues therefore, I can never tell if people are understanding me...that's why I blast away. Oddly, I've been incredibly successful...I'm not sure why.

But back to your question. My W is definitely a listener and has a communication style that's almost as bad as mine in the opposite direction. She will say something like "mary had a little lamb" while thinking "four score and seven years ago"...then actually think I heard the Gettysberg address. That's why our C told us to use the "active listening" techniques when you really want to be "heard". It's hilarious when we do it because we can't keep a straight face (I think it reminds us of how goofy it was when we had to demonstrate it to the C). But despite the chuckles and irreverence, it's really helped ensure us that we've been heard on certain points. We go into active-listening mode usually when my W says "you aren''t listening to me". I usually say "I'm listening but maybe I'm not hearing you, I think you just said.....". Or I do the "timeout" symbol with my hands and we go into that mode.

My goal is to "draw her out" better by being a better listener and putting longer pauses into my conversations. Part of the flaw in our marital system comes from my energy. It overwhelms her and has prevented her from finding her own voice. The problem is that I think she's still in a habit of tuning me out by retreating to the TV. This causes our intimacy to crash which makes me anxious. Then I think sex will bring us back on track but as I discovered last week...all the sex in the world isn't going to satisfy one's need for intimacy.

Now I'm rambling.

[Lillieperl]

Dave wrote

My poor W and the heavy cross she bears by having to listen to me go on and on and on....just like my posts. She claims that I say things 3 times.

My bf says the same thing about me, that I go on and on (like on this BB). But in my 27 years of doing grant and direct mail writing, I KNOW that people don't get it the first time, even if they are listening (reading) intently. It's just the nature of the listening process. I don't know about the influence of Asberger's, but I know that people will sit and nod and smile and agree while you're talking and not have the faintest idea what you're saying.

I consider myself a very good communicator-- speaking and listening-- but it's the nature of the listening process to hear first the things that resonate with what you already know and believe and simply not hear the new stuff. I see this happen over and over again at the organizations where I work when new projects are being developed. Most of the time there's nothing malicious in it-- people want to hear and understand. HeII, if it were that easy to grasp something upon one exposure to it, why would we put people through 16 years of school followed by four or more years of college? How many times in school did you think you "got it" and then found out on the test that you just didn't, even after studying.

They say that when Columbus' ships landed in... can't remember... Hispanola? Santo Domingo? (How many times did I hear it in school? ), the natives on the beach couldn't see his ships. They visually took in the objects, but their brains had no frame of reference, having never seen anything like the ships before, so their thought process simply discarded the information. Of course, this is speculation, but it is thought provoking, and leads to the further idea that when we encounter something completely new, we will look for someway to "hook" it into what's already in our brain, and if we can't find anything, we discard it. Kind of like when you hear a foreign language you listen hard for something that sounds like a language you know, but some languages are SO foreign-sounding to us (whatever our native or acquired languages) that they truly sound like gibberish to our ears. Then we'll listen for inflection or laughter or SOMETHING we can relate to.

[Greeneyedlass]

Lillie,

I agree with you. I have a habit myself of doing things three ways when explaining to people (at least in person). I'm often put in a teacher/trainer role at work...so I have become accustomed to teaching visual/audible/tactile people.

GEL

[cinemanymph]

My knowledge of Aspbergers Syndrome is limited to a program I saw on TV featuring a child who could grow orchids. He knew the scientific names of hundreds of orchids and had an incredible green thumb for the extremely fussy plants. He could quote authors on the subject at length. If he was taken outside of his realm of expertise, he grew increasingly uncomfortable. Can you elaborate on how you process emotional cues?

It doesn't surprise me that you are successful. Your posts seem to be well thought out. Your determination to improve your M is commendable. The information that you post here is most valuable to those choosing to bungee jump into intimacy. Thank you for putting up road signs for those of us who haven't started the trip yet.

[DRJL]

She claims that I say things 3 times. But that I say things from three different angles for 3 different audiences. The first is the simple, high-level, abstract statement, the second is more literal and detailed, and the third is an example.

This is good teaching. You hit three different ways of understanding. It works well in a classroom. Although it sometimes irritates those who understood the concept when you first presented the abstract way.

putting longer pauses into my conversations.

Yeah. We struggle with him letting the pauses go longer and I struggle with trying to share my thoughts more quickly.

So you really want your W to share her thoughts with you? When she does do you feel the intimacy more? See, I've been complimented on being a good conversationalist when I've barely said a word. I've mostly just listened. People have said they feel very close to me when truthfully they barely know me, but I know alot about them. So I guess I'm wondering if my sharing more of my thoughts will only lead to a greater sense of intimacy for me (not a bad thing at all!) But will he feel more intimate too? (I'm practicing. I intend to talk with him about this.)

I think I was using sex to try to increase the intimacy I felt and it wasn't working. I got excited when SSM said that some people experience intimacy via sex (rather than sex being the result of intimacy.) I thought "Oh, goody!" Easier for me than the talking more! Guess maybe I don't get off so easy afterall.

Using Nopkin's machine analogy: We were two whatchamcallits with warps in complementary directions. Rubbing against each other increased our warps. Machine looked like it was working fine as a whole, but the two whatchamcallits were scratching their heads saying "something doesn't feel right." Okay, mutilated that one sufficiently.