Is the Inner Monologue Gap a Relationship Dealbreaker?

I have an ever-present internal monologue. Even as I wrote that sentence, I “spoke” it back to myself in my mind to see how it sounded. Then I “spoke” it back while being self-aware of “speaking” it back. For a few moments, a sort of infinite regress was initiated. Then, still comically self-aware that I was speaking to myself to myself speaking, I moved along to the next sentence. And now here we are (me and all the voices in my head) at last at the end of this paragraph.

Moment to moment, this is how I experience reality.

I only recently became aware that some people report going through life without any such internal monologue. It was a mind-boggling realization. Even after having read about this phenomenon and listened to a number of interviews with people who have no internal monologue, it still strikes me as utterly bizarre. It gives me an unsettling sense that a huge portion of the population is living in a reality I simply cannot comprehend, let alone relate to.

Initially, I found comfort in knowing that the people closest to me shared my experience of reality. My wife certainly has an internal monologue. I have confirmed this with her, but I really did not need to ask. It is the most obvious thing in the world, a central aspect of how she describes events in her day. I also had a long discussion about internal monologues with my friend Devon on our podcast. He, too, shares my mental life. 

For several months, I settled into the simplistic assumption that people naturally coalesce into groups depending on whether or not they have an internal monologue. The self-talkers (like me!) are the writers, the book-lovers, the psychologists, the lawyers, the philosophers. And the non-self-talkers (the aliens, really!) are all the visual artists, the engineers, the doctors, the mathematicians. On either side of the divide, we all go about our business, offering different things to society but never fully engaging with one another—certainly never forming close friendships or romantic partnerships. Imagine marrying someone who had an entirely different mental experience? It would be a disaster!