Arguing with someone when you are both right????

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I saw the question posted about arguing with someone when they are wrong but sometimes do you argue with someone when you are saying the exact same thing? Ds was diagnosed with Asperger's and dh shows a lot of traits and will be going in for an eval soon but I don't understand sometimes why we think the same and yet argue. We had some mechnical problems with a furnace and I noticed something that could have been the cause and told dh. He started arguing that that same thing was the problem. I calmly explained that I agreed and that was most likely the cause and he raised his voice, rolled his eyes, and continued to argue that the switch was the cause? I again calmly said it was the switch and asked him why he was arguing with me when we were saying the same thing. He stood there and continued arguing that it was the switch and we were saying the same thing. ????? I just ended it and said ok and left it at that. Both dh and ds do that and I don't see the point? Is it because what I am saying is not being processed the same? When we have arguments a lot of time we are saying the same thing and I can't get it through to them that we are. Any suggestions or thoughts to help me better understand would be appreciated!

I couldn't begin to tell you why that happens, but I know I had that problem with my dad when I was a teenager. We would get into the most heated arguments that ultimately boiled down to semantics - we weren't disagreeing on what the issue was, we were arguing over how to accurately describe it. That had been going on for years before I began to recognize what was happening. I never really figured out a solution, except to just drop it, because he was never going to get what I was saying anyway. Now I don't even open my mouth, I just smile and nod and let him think I'm agreeing with him.

I had this happen with one of my aspie friends in msn. We were both talking and I said someone was stupid because she wouldn't believe the truth after being shown proof and he said that was denial and I said people are still stupid for not believing the truth when it's obvious and clear and we had an argument. After going through something, stupidity from my own friend was the last thing I needed and then he said we are both right. I told him so why argue with me. He said he didn't and it was an opinion. I told him so why correct me than saying his opinion if we are both right. Well that got resolved thank goodness.

It seems pretty clear to me - you're on your soapbox proclaiming your opinion on the situation, but you expected him to stay silent on his own opinion because it differed with your own. Few things in this world have an absolute value, in my experience and opinion - while there may be agreed upon characteristics, it is all still reliant on the subjective nature of our ability to observe. Calling someone stupid because they don't agree and maintain different ideas that your own doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, to be honest. Agree to disagree, or argue your point - reducing oneself to the point of insults doesn't seem to do much (to me) in that situation.


M.

I think you misunderstood. I didn't know it was his opinion. The way he said it, it sounded like he was correcting me. I told him I can call people whatever I want for things. I was just bothered he try and change a word for me when it was my own thought. Then we were arguing over the word stupid and I told him you can have high intelligence and still be stupid. I am stupid sometimes, and he was saying you have to have low intelligence to be stupid.

IMO I think people are dumb when they refuse to believe the truth when it's clear in front of their faces it is. Even when they are shown proof.

My husband and I do the same thing except he's the NT and I'm the one with AS and I'm also the one who realizes first (usually almost right away) that we're saying the same thing in different ways but he refuses to accept it and the argument changes from whatever we were arguing about to arguing about whether we were saying the same thing or not.

I asked him if he ever had those kinds of disagreements with anyone before and he swears I'm the first person. So I'm guessing it's definitely got something to do with the different way the asperger's brain works. But that's about as far as I've gotten in figuring the phenomenon out.

But you were offering your opinion, SG, just as he was. If you felt corrected, then telling him that it was your opinion would have clarified the situation just as easily as his comment did if not moreso. Yes, you can call people whatever you want; the consequence is that people may not continue to want to be around you if you are insulting or abusive. And when it comes to semantics, that is a slippery argument that rarely has a harmonious answer - people have too many personal meanings attached to their vocabulary. And you're welcome to your opinion about the intelligence of others, but I believe that to think your opinion (here in general form, not you specifically) is the truth leads to more issues, and in general is a foolish proposition.


M.

I could say the EXACT same thing of many of my relationships... Only, I didn't know about AS at the time. My only conclusion was that I somehow had to be wrong, whether by default or even when I admitted to being wrong.... things never moved forward until I retracted SOMETHING.

That's pretty much how I resolve those squabbles. I finally give up and say, "yes, you're right. I agree with you," in as pleasant and non-argumentative tone as I can muster. And then I feel awful, like I can only have a marriage if I'm willing to give up who I am and what I believe. I realize that's an extreme statement, but so often the compromises of marriage feel like that to me: like I'm the only one who ever has to give up my mental integrity. And I don't know if this is an AS thing or a woman thing or just a human thing in general, but I feel like the "political culture" of our household is that if my husband and I have a different thought on something, I am the one who is wrong and who must either change to conform to his world or keep my differing beliefs to myself. There are some topics I don't dare ever bring up, not even just to point out a news article that mentions the topics because I have learned the pattern: if I mention X in any context whatsoever, he will start explaining "the truth" of the matter to me and I will end up in tears.

On, perhaps, a lighter tone, my use of the word "argumentative" above reminds me of my 7th grade math teacher. She used to keep me after class to pick at me about everything I was doing wrong while I struggled to defend myself. One day she told me I was argumentative.

I said, "I can't be argumentative. I don't even know what that word means!"

So she went to a shelf and got a dictionary and looked the word up and proceeded (in a rather argumentative tone, if I say so myself) to read the definition to me in order to prove to me that I was, indeed, argumentative.

Looking back, I think it may well have been a case of two female aspies butting heads. That's a conflict anyone would want to stay well clear away from! I do appreciate her (now!) for takign the time to try to help me, even if the way I perceived it at the time was as a constant attack being levelled at me. I realize now that she didn't need to waste her time on me and that she must have seen something worthwhile in me or she wouldn't have bothered to get on my case like that. I wish I could thank her for caring when so few people in my life did and apologize for having been an argumentative pain in the arse!

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Last edited by millie on 09 Feb 2010, 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

He was taking the word literally like I would. I hate when 'stupid' is used as an insult an rarely use it in that way.

Not too common, but it has happened. Saying the same thing in slightly different words - it does not always work.

More common for me [but still frare, pleasant when it happens] is debating with someone who disagrees but is willing to hear what I have to say and vice versa. But it has been known to degenerate into a fight.