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Administrative Professionals Day is coming up and my husband's workplace is planning some sort of slideshow or video to thank/show appreciation for the support staff in the office. The people organizing this have reached out to my husband to ask him to write a little appreciation blurb for the staff that he works with. These are people that help my husband out daily/constantly. He is endlessly grateful to these people. So all in all, not a hard assignment, right? Wrong.

My H came downstairs this morning (we are both working from home today) and begged me to help him write this 3 sentence paragraph with him because he's been putting it off all week and needs to get it done. This kind of thing is his worst nightmare. He's a very smart guy and a good writer, but the man would would rather write a 7 page technical report than a single paragraph expressing his emotions. It's not that he doesn't have emotions, he definitely does. He just really struggles to identify and talk about anything other than "mad, sad, frustrated or stressed." Talking about other people's feelings can be difficult for him too - he is able to sit there and nod in agreement or express empathy when someone is talking about their feelings but loses his words or gets nervous when it is his turn to share.

This has always been an issue for him. We had joked about it pre-D-day. It really became apparent post D-day though - MC and IC was a struggle at times. It was also a problem because his A came on the heels of him having a lot of overwhelming stressful/negative feelings due to various life events that he never really worked through properly. In short, he felt like garbage and instead of coping in a mature and healthy way, the A was a really shitty, selfish, attempt to emotionally self-regulate. As a result, we spent a lot of time working on identifying and expressing his feelings post-A. It's still something that he has to work at though - in a way that would never have occurred to me had I not witnessed it with my own eyes.

This morning after I had quickly dictated some sort of blurb for him expressing appreciation for his various staff members, he thanked me, gave me a sheepish smile and jokingly wondered aloud, "I wonder if I have some sort of disorder or something." Out of interest, I googled "difficulty identifying and expressing emotions" and came up with articles about Alexithymia. It's not a disorder or anything, a "sub-clinical finding" and my husband probably wouldn't be considered a severe or even moderate case or anything, but a lot of it (certainly not all of it) fits. Obviously it doesn't change anything and I'm not looking to pathologize him, but its interesting to see it written out in plain terms. Does anyone else here have any experience with Alexethymia or a person that exhibits these sorts of traits?

ETA: Before anyone asks, he's nowhere near the autism spectrum and isn't a sociopath or anything like that. He is extroverted and has no difficulty making friends.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 9:58 PM, Friday, April 22nd]

That's so interesting. Definitely not my family though... H and kids are like emotional whirling dervishes. Picture cartoon Tasmanian devils.

Picture cartoon Tasmanian devils.

You're describing my 4 year old . We like to joke that she's never had a feeling that she didn't feel 10/10 strongly about. The weird thing is, we've always considered her to be more like HIM in that manner. The highs are high and the lows are low with those two.

Like I said, it's not that he doesn't have the feelings. Honestly, its hard to miss when he's worried or stressed (or excited) about something. His difficulty is with verbalizing it. It all comes out physically for him - like when he's stressed he his leg shakes and his hair stands straight up because he's touched it like a million times. When we were in school, I used to refuse to sit anywhere in his vicinity during exams because I found it so distracting.

The other weird thing he does (and I have no idea if this is related) is that his body physically shuts down when he's emotionally flooded or overwhelmed, and he falls asleep. Like it can happen out of nowhere almost like a narcolept (he's not a narcolept). Again, if I hadn't witnessed it occur (both pre/post D-day) I wouldn't have believed it. It's like his body is trying to protect him from experiencing whatever he's experiencing. Our MC brought it up in our second session, "Whenever you speak about X I notice that you keep yawning..." Apparently it's a thing - fight, flight, or sleep.

My STBXWH has alexithymia, probably partly as a result of severe FOO trauma (regular physical beatings from his stepfather as a child, which caused him to dissociate), and maybe partly because of neurodivergence (everyone in our family is either autistic and/or has ADHD).

The result is that he cannot even identify feelings other than love, sadness, or anger. And even with those feelings they have to be BIG to be felt, and he can't describe them or identify causes at all. When asked how he feels about XYZ, his response is always "I don't know." When asked why he did ABC, his response is always "I don't know." When confronted with the way that I feel about something that he has done, his response is to either stare at me blankly, or to become angry or sad himself; he can't talk with me about my feelings because he literally has no ability to say anything in that situation.

I believe the alexithymia is one of the reasons he has acted out sexually throughout our marriage. It is also a huge barrier to our emotional intimacy, because I need intimate conversation in order to feel connected and he has never been able to do that beyond talking about events that happened to him. (Which is not the same as talking about how one feels about events that have happened, or talking about the emotional causes of one's actions.)

It's kind of like being married to a zombie. For me, it's been a barren wasteland, emotionally. He can't grow or change because he doesn't even have the normal starting place that most people do, since he can't recognize or identify or express his emotions.

Interesting...

I can actually see this in my H. He admits that he can sometimes lack empathy. He doesn't always see how deeply his words and actions can affect others. He doesn't seem to get upset when I'm upset. He just kind of stares at me like he really doesn't understand the issue. He's always had difficulty engaging in conversations about emotions. He can't seem to express exactly how he feels, nor can he grasp exactly how I feel, internalize it and discuss how to make it better and move forward. He tends to pick on my words or phrasing instead of seeing the deeper meaning of what I'm trying to express. When he tries to express his feelings back, he will often stumble around and say, "Well, I, um...never mind." It can be like pulling teeth to have a meaningful back-and-forth exchange about feeling or emotions with him.

My H might possibly be on the autism spectrum. Our son was diagnosed with autism when he was 3. From my own research and many years of working with kids on the spectrum, I firmly believe there is a genetic link. My H was adopted at birth so we have no real medical or family history. From the way his parents described him as a child, I believe my H has several characteristics of autism. Thanks for sharing this information. I'm going to look into it further.

Hi! So yes, Alexithymia is a very real thing, and I do experience it. Be forewarned, this will be long, but I hope you get something out of it.

As part of my self-discovery journey post infidelity, I went down more than a few rabbit holes regarding mental health. First I began exploring my sensory processing issues after describing some childhood events to my therapist that apparently are not just "normal" reactions kids have to tags, food textures etc. Which then lead me to exploring ADHD. Which then led me to Autism. I am now proudly self-diagnosed autistic, and being a part of neurodivergent communities, especially those surrounding ADHD and Autism in women, has been incredibly eye-opening and affirming. Self diagnosis is widely accepted in the autism community considering that assessments can be difficult to come by, and prohibitively expensive. And also given that SO many people go undiagnosed if they are considered "high-functioning" enough, especially if they are women, or fall into any other underrepresented categories.

It's all a spectrum, so no two people will act exactly alike, but if you spend enough time in neurodivergent spaces, you'll find a considerable amount of overlap. It's why the diagnostic criteria, while helpful, are not really the only things you should be looking at. I found the shared experiences with others to be FAR more affirming than any list of diagnostic criteria ever was, mostly because the criteria reads as a list of deficits, whereas discussing similarities with peers felt much more like all of us letting each other in on each other's quirks, and even celebrating them. In the beginning I had multiple moments a day of "OMG! I'm not the only person who does that??"

That being said, Alexithymia was one of the aspects of the spectrum that really resonated with me, especially when I saw it described by other autists, rather than just reading the clinical definition. It's not that I don't feel emotions. I feel them very, very intensely. But when asked to name what emotion I'm feeling, it's like my brain shuts off. Like a switch was flipped and now I'm at a complete loss for words.

Not because I am not acutely aware that I'm feeling something. But because I feel very limited by the request to define that feeling in such simple terms as a single word. Like it's not possible to capture all of the nuance of the very specific feeling I'm feeling, and limiting it to one word feels incorrect or wrong. I often use pretty complex metaphors to explain a feeling, but still have a significant amount of trouble actually identifying the feeling.

As you said is the case with your husband, I can identify the feelings of stress, frustration, anger, or sadness pretty easily. Anything more nuanced than that, and I struggle. Even positive feelings are very difficult for me to identify, in part because one simple word doesn't seem to do it justice. Also, I find emotions to be very overwhelming, because no matter what the feeling, I feel it very intensely and deeply, not just emotionally, but physically.

For example, I describe the feeling of being anxious as feeling "buzzy," because I literally feel like my body is vibrating. Like when I found out my brother was in the hospital, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it, I felt completely, overwhelmingly "buzzy," like I couldn't sit still.

But that feeling is actually not that far off from when I'm incredibly happy - when I'm giddy, I also could absolutely shake with happiness. I guess it's like the emotions are brimming over and they have nowhere to go?

And I will cry over just about any emotion if it is felt strongly enough - extreme happiness, sadness, frustration, anger, appreciation, nostalgia etc. I once cried of embarrassment because I kept falling over in a yoga class - I was 31 years old, and had to excuse myself from class over it. And even though I don't even *want* to cry in these situations, the tears just come up anyway. Like the only way for my emotions to escape is through my eyes. And I can only identify that emotion from that yoga class as embarrassment now, in retrospect. At the time I probably would have told you I was frustrated. Because that's how difficult I find it to define my emotions, especially in the moment.

I would say frustration is my most easily identified emotion, probably because it's the thing I feel most frequently. I actually got in the habit of pulling up an emotion wheel/chart when I'm in therapy because my therapist has asked so many times, and it frustrates the living hell out of me to not be able to give an answer. And I do absolutely everything I can to avoid frustration, hence the pulling up of an emotion wheel.

There is an app for it too that's supposed to help identify emotions, I don't think I'm allowed to mention specific apps or sites, but if you google it I'm sure it would come up.

Basically, there are 4 categories of emotions:
High Energy/Unpleasant
High Energy/Pleasant
Low Energy/Unpleasant
Low Energy/Pleasant

Then there are a bunch of different emotions that fit into each category. And once you pick one, it also shows you the other emotions that are right near that one. And once you pick the emotion, it asks what you're doing, and if you're able to identify the cause of that emotion. It then asks if you would like to stay in that emotion, or change it, and if you want to change it, it gives suggestions on how to do that.

I'll admit, I'm pretty bad about using the app regularly. But if I've ever gotten really bad and just couldn't get out of a thought loop, it has helped. Though I can get into a place where absolutely none of the emotions feel "right" to me, and then I am frustrated that I'm being "forced" to pick one, because nothing seems to encapsulate what I'm feeling correctly, so then I'll just give up and exit the app.

I would say that it's worth looking into neurodivergent spaces to see if anything resonates. Not all autistics identify as low/no empathy. Many (myself included) identify as hyper empathetic. There's just a big difference between cognitive empathy vs. affective empathy. For example, I often feel other people's feelings to an extreme degree, like, physically feel them in my body, and I work hard to not let those bleed over into my own reactions to things. In fact, because of this, I'm incredibly adept at identifying other people's emotions, while being terrible at naming my own.

A lot of people would say that is a trauma response, and I'm not denying that either. But my ability to pick up on the tiniest nuances in other people's behavior is uncanny at times (I've often been accused of spying on people, or of being "psychic") and this is something I simply don't have any recollection of ever NOT being good at it, like it has always been a part of who I am. And it is a commonly shared experience among many of the women I've spoken to in neurodivergent spaces, so while I think it can certainly be exacerbated by trauma, I don't think it's exclusive to that - some of us are just born that way. I don't believe in psychic powers, but I do believe in being very attuned to behavior and having very finely tuned pattern recognition, and some people are just better at that than others.

When push comes to shove, truly ALL behavior is on a spectrum, and every person is going to react differently given their own makeup, upbringing etc. My ex husband (the raging sex addict with BPD who I also firmly believe to be on the spectrum) had similar issues with Alexithymia, but he chose to act out and emotionally regulate in VERY different ways than I did. It really angered him that while I had a hard time identifying my own emotions, I was still able to connect with people on an emotional level, whereas he struggled heavily in that arena.

I do think I felt an affinity towards him because we were able to understand each other in ways that others who did not have these similar experiences could not. Like, while I didn't have the same social issues he had, I could see why/how he had difficulties and could relate, so I was more empathetic to his struggles. Even though neither of us knew we were neurodivergent at the time, it's my understanding that it's common for people with these identities/tendencies to flock to each other, even if they don't know why. He always said I understood him better than anyone ever had. I agree with him, I did. It also meant I tuned in to his bullshit pretty easily, and he did NOT like being that exposed and vulnerable, which lead to all of the craziness that was my marriage.

My 0.02 cents is that your husband may benefit from looking further into Alexithymia in general. If I understand correctly, it's not just autism related, but is also tied to depression and anxiety. In any case, diving into my own mental health and finding spaces where I could relate to others who experienced similar issues has been incredibly freeing. I've learned a lot about myself in the process.

I believe the alexithymia is one of the reasons he has acted out sexually throughout our marriage. It is also a huge barrier to our emotional intimacy, because I need intimate conversation in order to feel connected and he has never been able to do that beyond talking about events that happened to him.

TheWorldYouWant - This sounds really difficult to navigate. I can only imagine how lonely it must feel to be in a marriage were you are unable to meaningfully communicate about your feelings. Particularly after D-Day when these communications are so important.

HeHadADoubleLife - Thank you so much for sharing your experience.

It's not that I don't feel emotions. I feel them very, very intensely. But when asked to name what emotion I'm feeling, it's like my brain shuts off. Like a switch was flipped and now I'm at a complete loss for words.

This sounds very much like my husband. To be honest, it can be frustrating sometimes but I've also gotten really good over the years at interpreting his feelings when he's searching for words and I will sum up my interpretation and be like "is that right?" and he's pretty good at saying, "no, not really, it's more...." or being like "yes, that's correct." It seems to work for us, for the most part but it definitely drove our MC nuts. Are you able to recognize it when someone else suggests the words?

Its really interesting to hear someone else talk about it from their end. Because "talking about feelings" was always a stereotypical "female trait, I kind of always summed up his trouble in this arena to being a combination of natural human difference and being male (and not having been socialized to discuss feelings growing up). I tend to be pretty good at picking up on other people's feelings so we kind of averaged one another out.

Out of interest, I had my husband complete an online screener for Alexithymia over the weekend and sure enough, he had a score that definitely put him on the higher end of the scale. Of note, he scored quite high on "difficulty describing feelings" and "externally oriented thinking". He was pretty moderate on "restricted imaginative processes and "vicarious interpretation of feelings" actually pretty low on the others - most notably "difficulty identifying feelings", which was interesting to me.

First I've heard of it. Took a screener. I score high.

About to take a drive, but I'll be back in this thread.

Edit to add: Even from my first post I described myself as "emotionally cool". Cold is an overstatement. I have a hard time talking about and naming my feelings. I also was raised to believe that feelings aren't as important as objective evidence and outcomes. So I have spent much more of my effort maximizing objective outcomes than fuzzy things like personal happiness.

I often upset people without knowing why but have improved on that front. It does take conscious effort for me to anticipate the feelings of others especially with respect to criticism.

I write a decent thank you note but they often don't feel genuine to me. More of a thing I do out of expectation than a self motivated show of appreciation. But if I do appreciate something it's easy for me to verbalize.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 1:55 AM, Tuesday, April 26th]

Wow. This is not my natural state, but my FOO experiences seem to have taught it to me.

I was able to get back to knowing what I feel when a therapist taught me to keep it simple. When I find myself going around in circles, I've learned to ask myself, 'What are you feeling?' The answer has to be one of sad, mad, sca(re)d, glad, or ashamed. In the past 5-10 years, I've started to recognize some nuances, but usually I have to start with one of the 5 words I listed.

W still wants me to share more feelings. I just don't get what she means....

Thanks for doing and sharing the research, emergent8.

First I've heard of it. Took a screener. I score high.

Interesting. I read an article that said that 1/10 people fall somewhere on the spectrum of it. I took a screener too and was decidedly low - the only scale where I had any traits at all was "externally oriented thinking".

When I find myself going around in circles, I've learned to ask myself, 'What are you feeling?' The answer has to be one of sad, mad, sca(re)d, glad, or ashamed. In the past 5-10 years, I've started to recognize some nuances, but usually I have to start with one of the 5 words I listed.

Have you ever heard of/seen the Feelings Wheel (easily googled)? How often do you describe your feelings using one of the exterior terms? For me - all the time. My husband - basically never - he sticks to the interior.

I've also gotten really good over the years at interpreting his feelings when he's searching for words and I will sum up my interpretation and be like "is that right?" and he's pretty good at saying, "no, not really, it's more...." or being like "yes, that's correct."

Are you able to recognize it when someone else suggests the words?

Yup, this is it. I think this is the reason that my therapist and I can get into stand offs, because therapists aren't supposed to lead you in any direction or tell you how you're feeling, but I usually need the suggestion - especially when put on the spot. She has said to me before that I have a way with words when I'm just going with the flow and saying whatever comes to mind, but that I kind of freeze up when asked about feelings directly. It's kind of like a deer in the headlights, I guess.

It's not that I don't have feelings, or even that I don't "know" what they are, I just feel like simple words can be an inadequate way to describe them. And it's also not that I don't want to discuss them. I'll discuss feelings all day long. It's just that the only way I can successfully talk about them is to describe them through metaphor - often very abstract metaphors that I have come up with, not even common ones (this is a commonality a lot of autists talk about, btw).

Of note, he scored quite high on "difficulty describing feelings" and "externally oriented thinking".

actually pretty low on the others - most notably "difficulty identifying feelings", which was interesting to me.

This actually makes perfect sense to me. I'm very much aware of my feelings, and I *know* what they are deep down, but just have difficulty verbalizing them. It's kind of like when you know what a word means, because you learned it in context, but you don't know the actual definition. So like, you could use it in a sentence perfectly, but you wouldn't be able to recite the dictionary's definition of it, or even really explain it all that well to someone else. But you still know it.

In that same way, my brain and my body know what I'm feeling. I might not be able to tell you what that feeling is in one or two simple words, but I know the feeling.

Or sometimes I know I'm feeling something, but I haven't quite worked out all the nuances of it yet, so I'm not saying it out loud until I've "figured it out." I often feel like that meme of the guy who looks like he hasn't slept in 3 days standing in front of the crime board with all of the pictures connected by red string. Don't mind me, just over here trying to "solve" the whodunnit of "which fucking feeling is this? Or is it many feelings wound up together that won't make sense until I unravel all of them? Who knows, certainly not me, but I won't sleep until I figure it out!"

And some people get frustrated with you when you won't just "spit it out," so to speak, so you eventually learn that only some people are safe to talk with about feelings.

Obviously I know my therapist is a safe person to talk to, it's moreso that I feel like I'm letting her down by not being able to successfully identify the correct feeling. But at the same time, it feels incorrect to name a feeling unless I'm absolutely positive that it's accurate. Hence the hemming and hawing over it, the "nooooo, it's kinda like that, but it's really more like _____insert really random metaphor that only makes sense to me here_____." Almost always followed by a, "Does that make sense?" Haha.

And FWIW, I get that it's frustrating when you can't get answers out of someone. I've been there done that with the ex, and I hear you, it gets very frustrating feeling like you're pulling teeth to get answers from someone. But also I have been told time and time again, not just by my ex husband, but by other partners, and even friends, that I am also incredibly difficult to read. Friends and I have laughed it off as a bad case of resting bitch face, but honestly, I can be over the moon excited about something, and apparently it just doesn't register on my face.

I consistently reassure people that I'm not mad, that I'm not "making a face," that whatever they've interpreted the look on my face to mean, I promise I was either completely zoning out, or I was just thinking about something intently. I used to get really frustrated by it - the constant questioning - but I have to trust that since many different people have told me this, it must be true. I apparently give off some sort of vibe or look that other people interpret to mean that I'm mad or sad when I'm not, so I've just gotten used to explaining myself. As well as smiling way more than I would naturally, because it seems to make people more comfortable and less likely to assume that I'm pissed off.

The funny thing is, I was always the one doing exactly what you described for my ex husband. Slowly coaxing the feelings out of him by talking around, over and through it. Calmly helping interpret the feelings for him. I think a big reason I did that is because I wish someone had done that for me. I think I got really good at doing it, because I had to learn to do it all on my own for myself, and now it's an unconscious practice that I do all the time, for myself AND for others. Emergent, do you relate to that at all? At least for me, I feel like my struggle with being consistently misunderstood led me to over function in that area - I'm always trying to understand others motivations, why they do what they do, and be sympathetic to that, so I give far too much benefit of the doubt.

In my experience people with this issue can fluctuate between two extremes as their default state - either they become obsessed with feelings and trying to "figure them out" (me), or they kind of shut themselves off to feelings and push them away because they're just too overwhelming. You mentioned that your daughter has big feelings, and that you and your husband have always thought she takes after him in that way. Would you say your husband is usually good at helping her deal with those feelings? Or do they overwhelm him/shut him down?

I would actually say that my default mode is "figuring out the feelings" and wanting to talk through them, however I'm really good at shutting them down when necessary. I'm really, really good at compartmentalizing when feeling my feelings and figuring them out will be helpful, vs. when I just need to set them aside and power through. For example, I've always been the "mom friend" who is good in a crisis. It's like there is a constant re-prioritizing going on in my brain. You know how being a mom is like being an EMT, and every second of every day you're basically just triaging every situation to figure out what needs your attention first? Like that, but with every moment of my life since I can remember.

It's interesting to me that people with Alexithymia seem to either be incredibly emotionally intelligent, or very deficient in it. My EQ is off the charts. Has your husband taken any EQ tests before?

And if anyone is keeping track, there are at least 2 convoluted metaphors in there. Even when I set out to be succinct, I am incapable. Arrrgghghghhg

My WS has been diagnosed with both alexithymia and schizoid personality disorder and I definitely feel that the combination has contributed to his A and current mental/emotional state. Inability to recognize emotion coupled with isolationist tendencies have had a disastrous affect on our M (which he is now in the process of leaving). I am not placing blame solely on his shoulders or using the disorders as justification for our current situation - I own that I have contributed to the state of our M through my own behaviors and choices.

WS has extreme difficulty identifying and expressing emotion and has a very different emotional range than experienced by myself or our children. He once told me that his default feelings are happy, disappointed, or flat. He doesn’t seem able to recognize feelings of sadness or anger, even when his body gives physiological cues (crying, heightened heart rate, etc.). All in all, it has made it very difficult for WS to empathize with others around him.

When WS was in IC, he spent a lot of time working on identifying emotions and stating them out loud, as well as learning "typical" reactions to emotions exhibited by others. With continued practice, I noticed a big difference in his receptivity and perception of his own feelings and those of others. He became more patient and understanding, especially toward our children and myself. Unfortunately, WS stopped going to IC on his own and has backslid into old destructive patterns.

Alexithymia and related disorders are best managed with consistent, ongoing CBT. That said, they can also make interpersonal relationships difficult. Especially marriage.