I am writing about my relationship with my autistic son, and there are important events that concern my wife. Fortunately, we didn't have much strife about my son's condition, so I don't have many sensitive stories to worry about. When I read how Ms. Swenson wrote about her experience, I was struck by the way it appears that she is a bit righteous in her reaction versus her husbands. She assumed he was not feeling a lot of emotions, and therefore something was wrong with him. Perhaps he was just better at handling and processing his emotions, and he didn't need to have a breakdown like she did. She portrays him as unfeeling because he held himself together and looked "unfazed." She says his lack of emotion was a big problem for her. Well, that's on her. It's not his problem until she goes out of her way to make it his problem with a lot of judgment and condemnation. And because he didn't react like she wanted or expected, there was something obviously wrong with him. Perhaps the problem was with her expectation, not his reaction.

My opinion, if you want to write about emotions between spouses, don't portray it as "i was right, and she was wrong." If you had an issue with your spouses reactions, take responsibility for your own responses rather than blaming your spouse for their foibles and looking for others to agreement with you.

Ms. Swenson is clearly convinced she reacted properly and her husband did not, and she would like the reader to agree with that idea. Her husband may have seen no value in a meltdown that wasn't going to solve their problem and didn't have one. Perhaps he felt it was better to remain strong so that the family didn't fall apart? That doesn't make him unfeeling; it makes him strong and wise.