Need to stop being defensive, "cold" and playing the victim

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I need some helpful advice and kindness. I'm a 35-year-old diagnosed Aspie, been married for 10 years.

I keep repeating this situation where I frequently and unwittingly irritate or offend someone (often my wife, an NT), that person reacts with frustration (and eventually anger), then I feel affronted and attacked out of nowhere, and become defensive and argue back. Thus failing to understand what I've done wrong and so never improving, just infuriating the people closest to me. Does that happen to anyone else?

I've read about mind blindness in autism. I feel very blind sometimes. But with a lifelong habit of upsetting people by accident, I've become overly sensitive to it. If I discover I've made a mistake yet again, I feel shocked and my emotions shut down, I'm told I become very "cold". I always say "but that's not what I intended", but this doesn't achieve much, I've still hurt them. I can't respond with anything except anger and frustration myself. How do I break through those defensive feelings and tap into my empathy and loving nature?

I've ended up feeling very sorry for myself, and have incorporated this victim mentality into my personality. I don't want to be like this! How do people accept and come to terms with their never-ending stupid mistakes without generally feeling like a failure as a person?

Yeah, that's a tough one. I am becoming more cold as I get older. It seems that I am unable to satisfy those around me and I am pretty withdrawn because of it.
I have no suggestions.

I have this problem too. I usually do it to my parents. And even though they get mad at first, they of course quickly get over it. However, it's a much worse problem when I do it to people outside my family, especially people whom I barely know. As I have written in multiple posts in this forum, I had made this new friend whom I immediately clicked with like I have rarely clicked with other people my age . However, my Asperger's-related quirks and flaws soon irritated and offended him. He eventually became frustrated and angered to the point that he has cut off contact with me. I fully realize that I came on too strong to him, which I shouldn't have done. However, it was an unintentional result of him coming on strong to me when we first met in person and even before we met. Even with my inappropriate behavior toward my friend, the complete change in his behavior toward me is both puzzling and shocking. And after my friend cut off contact with me, I dug a hole for myself by continuing to come on strong in my attempts to reconcile with him. Now I don't know if I will ever be able to make up with my friend, but I do hold out hope. I don't even know how this whole thing happened. I wasn't trying to intentionally offend him. I was just trying to be nice and friendly to him in response to how nice and friendly that he was to me when we first met. But I guess that, like you, my ability to make never-ending stupid, but still unintentional, mistakes may be incorrigible.

androbot, perhaps our coldness is partly a consequence of getting older or other changes in life. But I still want to believe it's possible to compensate for that. After all, many people are "cold" and many aren't, at all ages.

futuresoldier, thanks for sharing your experience. Sometimes I also think of reconnecting with old school friends, but those attempts have not led to anything. It's been explained to me that these kind of one-sided relationships are not healthy anyway.
Unfortunately it seems it's just quite hard to make and keep friends as an adult, it takes a very careful balance and effort from both sides to keep things going.
I think I will always be mind-blind and therefore make mistakes with my relationships, but my hope is that with time and effort I should at least learn my wife's mind better (remember how she's​ felt in the past, and get better at noticing the signs in the present) and so make fewer and fewer mistakes with her. And even NTs make mistakes like these sometimes.

It's the "being defensive" issue I really need to get some traction on. I've been told repeatedly: Much more than the initial mistake, it's my reaction to the situation that is really upsetting​.

Your professionally diangosised I recommend you seek consuling with a proper medical professional who understands your condition and can help each other understand one another.

The thing is she and you have to work together right now it doesn't sound like that's happening. What needs to happen is you all need professional help. I hope they are able to help you guys

Yes, I'm fully aware from first-hand experience that it's quite hard to make and keep friends as an adult. However, I really want and even need close guy friends, so I have to take some risks and become more socially assertive. This is one reason why I've been so focused on trying to find some way to make up with my new friend, even though part of me is afraid that it is futile to continue to do so. I guess that before my friend cut off contact with me, neither of us had found a very careful balance and effort to keep things going between us. This phenomenon was likely only made worse by my Asperger's.

And I of course also want and need a girlfriend who would eventually become my wife.

I put a lot of effort into analyzing situations before I respond to them. I try to get "status checks" on the person I'm interacting with. For example, I will ask people how they are doing, or what is new with them, so I can understand their current state of mind and I try to imagine what I would feel like if I were in their situation. Of course this isn't fail safe but it is important to make an effort.

When I do unintentionally offend someone and they become upset, I do find myself also becoming a little upset, because every situation as multiple interpretations, and they have interpreted the situation in a manner inconsistent with my character. For example, I had upset my cousin once, and then I became upset because she thought my character was such that I would intentionally upset her.

I think it's important to realize that, in situations like these, people tend to operate on "knee jerk" reactions. If you didn't actually intend to upset your wife, then I think it's important to verbally communicate that to her.

But the other person may not always understand or care that your offensive behavior was unintentional. This is especially the case if you have done it multiple times. In a situation like that, it is best to have open and honest communication with the other person. A lack of communication is a major cause of conflict between two people.

I was like that when I was in school. I gradually got better as I got older & made more progress in life.

Chronos, that's a good tip about status checks.

I do always make it clear I meant no offense, but that does not undo the hurt my wife feels. In fact if I try to explain what I actually meant, it comes across as defensiveness, i.e. "I haven't don't anything wrong, your feelings aren't valid". She knows very well it's unintentional, she's extremely perceptive and empathic. But her position is it could have been avoided if I had been paying more attention, listened more carefully, remembered better, made an effort to be more considerate, etc. and to a large extent I agree with that. I need to improve myself, but HOW!?


Nick, thanks for the contribution. How did you get better? What changed? What advice would you give to your past self?

I think being in an environment where people accepted me more & I wasn't criticized as much made me feel like I had less need to be defensive. I also posted alot about things in forums trying to self-analyze & sort things out. Finding others who understood & related alittle & better understanding why I had the problems I had helped improve my self-esteem. I guess I realize that I make lots of mistakes but it's not completely my fault sense I don't realize what I'm doing wrong in the heat of the moment. I still feel bad when I realize I hurt others but I apologize for the misunderstandings & if they don't accept it that's their problem. I still have moments where I get defensive but that's really only with my girlfriend & she's on the spectrum too & is pretty understanding.

Whenever I unintentionally offend people, I usually also feel bad that I have hurt them. I also usually try to apologize to the people in question. Unfortunately, they don't always accept my apology, which makes both the situation and me even worse. I guess my apologies sometimes come across as being defensive, when they're not necessarily that. But I really don't know what else to say to the people whom I have unintentionally offended.

I'm married as well, and definitely in a similar situation to yours. One thing that helps me is trying to figure out what topics are prone to frequent misunderstandings, or trying to find a pattern, what happens before my husband gets upset about something. For me, the problem is not my message but 'the way I said it' was not thoughtful or caring enough. We also tried couples therapy for a few weeks and that helped smooth out some communication issues, and he now realizes that I'm not going out of my way to hurt his feelings or something, I'm just pretty blunt.

Hope you guys work it out...

people fight, people have misunderstandings, people experience breakdowns in communication. it's all normal, and it doesn't even necessarily have to do with asperger's. everyone goes through this, and it's healthy, because if you didn't go through it, it would show that neither of you care.

what matters is once this happens, and you recognize it, take time to calm down and communicate these feelings with your wife. when 2 people are level headed and able to talk openly about these things without shouting or being defensive, that's when you two can grow and learn from it.