I'm not sure that your ex was an ass, but he seemed to put you down a lot.
I make pictures in my mind too and it took me quite a while to realize that not everyone could. My husband is dyslexic and he can't spell well and I decided to try to teach him because I am a really good speller. I showed him a word spelled correctly and said, just picture it in your mind this way. I found out that he can't. He can sort of picture other things though. For example, he can read Kanji pretty well, so he must be picturing it.