Alexithymia, Mind-blindness & Sexual Dysfunction in ASD-NT Marriages Pt.3 of 3

Guest Blogger: Autism Effect on Marriage

Used with Permission

The Role of Alexithymia & Mind-blindness in Marital Sexual Dysfunction

As discussed, alexithymia is a limitation of emotional awareness. A person with alexithymia struggles to verbalize emotional experience, has a more limited emotional language vocabulary, is challenged in pairing body sensations related to emotions, and deeply struggles to identify emotions in others. He does not have nuanced language for how he feels; therefore he cannot know how his wife feels, even when she verbalizes it with complex vocabulary.

Mind-blindness, otherwise referred to as “lacking theory of mind,” is related to alexithymia from a similarity standpoint. The autistic husband has difficulty imagining the perspective of his wife, and cannot intuit her thoughts, feelings, preferences or opinions. When combined with alexithymia, there is a deep deficit in all manner of correctly guessing and understanding his wife’s needs, emotions, feelings, desires, preferences, use of abstract language and non-verbal cues. Obviously, these difficulties extend into contributing toward sexual dysfunction and discord in a neurodiverse marriage.

Referencing the above scenarios of Sexual Discard & Sexual Obsession, how does Alexithymia and Mind-blindness manifest in physical intimacy problems?

Hyposexuality & Sexual Discard:

• The ASD husband may miss cues from his wife that she desires sex. His mind-blindness fails to see that his wife still has sexual needs that did not disappear alongside his waning interest. Her hinting or attempts at seduction may go unnoticed or seem slightly puzzling.

• He may never have experienced a longing for intimacy with anyone, despite previous enjoyment with his wife. Due to his alexithymia, her longing for sex with him is not an understood feeling or sensation.

• Since sex is a physical act, the alexithymic partner may not understand the neurotypical wife’s expectation for emotional connection. He fails to recognize that a lack of caring words, eye contact, or checking-in with her verbally during sex is important.

• An autistic husband without sexual experience may not realize his lack of skill. (He may have a poor innate sense of motor-planning – not uncommon with autism – hindering his coordination during intercourse.) With mind-blindness, he may not realize that his awkward movements aren’t pleasurable to his wife. He may have confusion and frustration as to why his efforts to help her orgasm aren’t successful. He may conclude (on his own) that she’s incapable, or even disinterested. His alexithymia does not understand all the nuances necessary for his wife to be comfortable enough to experience orgasm, and he may not understand that he is directly hindering her ability to do so.

• Even if orgasm is important to him, the ASD husband may not prioritize it in the same way for his wife. He may view it as happenstance, or optional to put time and effort into cultivating. He cannot guess that her needs exist outside of his own, due to mind-blindness. Due to alexithymia, he may not recognize her desire and frustration at lack of sexual outlet.

• Her responses are difficult to make sense of during sex. Not every woman wants to instruct a play-by-play of what does and doesn’t feel good. He might rely on guessing, and then feel very criticized if she doesn’t enjoy it. Porn exposure distorts his perception of reasonable expectations, and his own ability to orgasm may be quite straightforward. He’s unable to see that her experience is different, or read her non-verbal cues due to alexithymia.

• If an autistic husband regularly struggles to maintain arousal or sexual interest, he may not realize it is humiliating for his wife. She may naturally wonder if it is an issue of her lacking desirability, and the autistic husband may reinforce her insecurity. Due to both mind-blindness and alexithymia, he does not sense her need for reassurance. He may consider her suggestion a feasible explanation, especially since he doesn’t want to be to blame.

• He may fail to realize that his “honest to a fault” habit (in all areas of life, but especially with intimacy) is very impactful to his wife. If he comments on her body, especially very vulnerable parts of her, in ways that are received in a critical way – this can dramatically impact her sexual response and emotional wellness. His alexithymia creates difficulty in both understanding why she’s feeling hurt, alongside not grasping that a quick “sorry,” is not going to assuage insecurity at a deeper level.

• Somatic symptoms are common when distress is happening internally for an autistic individual. He struggles to identify why his stomach hurts, or a headache always occurs when there is an expectation of sex. He genuinely feels sick, or tired, but alexithymia prevents making the correlation between anxiety, somatic symptoms and avoidance of sex. He insists that he is sick, not avoiding.

• Due to alexithymia, the ASD husband may not recognize his true sexual orientation. It may not be until his wife suggests that his lack of physical desire is perhaps due to a non-heterosexual orientation, that he considers the possibility of asexuality or homosexuality.

Hypersexuality & Sexual Obsession:

• The neurotypical wife’s need for pairing emotional connection and physical intimacy may be lost on an autistic husband. With mind-blindness, he struggles to understand why an emotional sense of safety is important for his wife. She may feel it is an act of self-betrayal to be physically intimate with her husband when he ignores her emotional needs. He does not require emotional connection prior to sex, so her request for it is easily dismissed since it isn’t his own perspective.

• If porn is a habit or special interest, the ASD husband may believe it to be an accurate portrayal of female responsiveness and sexual desires of a neurotypical wife. He may expect that she respond instantaneously to a mere touch, or be theatrically passionate from the most minor effort on his part. He may be confused on how to initiate conversation about special sexual interests, and neglect the importance of consent before introducing atypical activities into the marriage bed. He may assume, due to mind-blindness, that she is equally experiencing sexual pleasure parallel to his own sensation.

• When an autistic spouse is hypersexual and experiences arousal, his mind-blindness may prevent him from understanding that she is not similarly aroused. He may view his arousal as her job to relieve at every interval, especially if his definition of sexual partnership is especially literal. If she is feeling used, and describes this to him, it may not be a feeling he can access inside his own emotional experience due to alexithymia.

• An ASD man may consider all affection to be a lead-in to sex. Hugs or kisses or touching have an expectation of intercourse immediately following. He is frustrated or confused when his wife asks for “just a hug.” His mind-blindness fails to see that she might be interested in cuddling without sex. He’s unable to understand that physical bonding that is emotionally important to his wife outside of the sexual act. For him, sex might be an event that begins and ends in specific fashion.

• His mind-blindness may prevent any understanding of why sex is NOT transactional for his wife, and he may fail to see why renewing basic participation in family life does not “earn” him sex.

• Groping without consent or in socially-inappropriate contexts is not uncommon. An ASD man may feel entitled to his wife’s body, and view it as touchable at all times and never off-limits. Due to mind-blindness, he may not notice her non-verbal cues of dislike or disgust. If she verbalizes how encroaching or disrespectful this feels, his alexithymia may limit his ability to perceive the depth of her reaction.

• Porn is a self-focused withholding of intimacy in a sexless marriage, and an alexithymic ASD husband may dismiss the sense of betrayal a wife feels. The pervasive rejection and visceral reaction to discovering that he prefers to watch strangers, instead of experiencing connection with her, is powerfully devastating. His alexithymic response can add to her trauma. He may not acknowledge her distinction between not having sex, and not having sex because he sexually deprives her in favor of porn.

What feelings might the neurotypical wife experience in a sexually-disordered marriage, where she is either discarded and ignored, or used as a sex doll to fulfill one-sided expectations?

With sexual discard, she usually feels deprived beyond measure, emptied of value, devoid of desirability, and thwarted from accessing the sole outlet for a primary need. She feels cheated of satisfaction and affection. She grieves the loss of emotional intimacy paired with physical intimacy. She feels sentenced to a prison of no sex, or terrible sex, and of blame and shame. She feels powerless to stop the betrayal and sexual abandonment. She’s humiliated by the rejection, and carries it as a degrading secret. She feels victimized by his unilateral decision to exclude her from any hope of physical intimacy. She feels voiceless at the lack of conversation nor accountability for improving their physical intimacy. She’s terribly disappointed that sex requires so much ignoring of his awkwardness. She feels so defeated that he requires reminders and explicit instructions just for sex to happen, and even then he rarely follows through. She feels gutted at missing out on the shared joy of physically loving one another, as perhaps she now only associates fury, heartbreak or revulsion at the thought of sex with him.

With sexual obsession, the neurotypical wife feels oppressed by her husband’s sexual expectations. She feels an ever-present responsibility to either satisfy him, or face the pouting, anger or punishment. She may struggle to feel emotionally safe in her own bed, knowing the expectations that come along with laying next to him. She feels dread at being sick, knowing he will have very little accommodation for her limitations. Sometimes she feels like a sex worker. No care for her emotional needs, just for her body to be present and available. She feels ashamed when he oversteps social boundaries in public, touching her as if she’s an object instead of a person. She feels worried her kids will pick up his phone and see the texting between him and a random girl wearing a bikini, on Instagram. She feels fear over anyone in the family using his computer, worried that impressionable children might see pornographic images. She feels hypervigilant in wondering how much she should resist checking his phone, trying to balance not managing him, but wondering if she’s being betrayed. If he’s a serial cheater, she wonders if “trusting him again” may physically risk her body. She never feels safe or as if her personhood matters to him.

The unfortunate reaction to neurotypical women expressing her feelings and needs to an alexithymic, mind-blind ASD spouse is that she is often met with minimizing, dismissal, invalidation, denial, silence, or argument. His inclination may be to resist considering her perspective, since it differs from his own. However, alexithymia, mind-blindness and autism are not excuses for a neurotypical wife’s needs to remain unmet. If an autistic husband is informed of a need, then it is his personal responsibility to cooperatively problem-solve with his wife. Skills can be built when one is willing to learn, and the act of prioritizing each other’s feelings as real and worthy of attention is necessary for mutuality in marriage. Physical intimacy and emotional consideration are reasonable expectations of marital relationships.