Episode 99
Neurodiverse Relationships
Today’s listener question comes from a partner in a neurodiverse couple, asking us to talk about navigating differences when one partner has neurological differences like Autism or ADHD, and the other is “neurotypical.”
Oh boy do we have thoughts and feelings about this! We end up spending a lot of time sharing how neurodiversity impacts our own lives, helping us discover that it’s not about one partner being different, but about accepting the reality that we’re different from each other. Inside of that, we find a lot of unspoken expectations, fears, and hurts, but…we also find a whole lot of amazing opportunities.
Quotes:
Are you expecting that what closeness feels like to you is the same as what it feels like to me?
We can't have unspoken expectations and think we're going to meet each other in the same place.
How do we have a conversation that’s less about “you’re different,” and more about “we’re different?
Not the same doesn't mean…rejection…it means not the same.
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
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Transcript
Welcome to the Why Does My Partner podcast.
Rebecca:I'm Jules.
Rebecca:I'm Vicki.
Rebecca:And I'm Rebecca.
Rebecca:We're your hosts.
Rebecca:We're also couples therapists and messy humans bumbling
Rebecca:through our own relationships
Vickey:every day.
Vickey:We met at a training and our secret sauce is that we and our
Vickey:partners became fast friends.
Vickey:Between us we have more than 40 years of experience holding hard
Vickey:relational questions with our clients.
Vickey:We're going to bring those questions here.
Jules:And together we're going to take a stab at answering those questions.
Jules:This podcast is not a substitute for couples therapy.
Jules:If something you hear in this podcast stirs something deep within you about
Jules:your relationship, reach out to a
Vickey:Welcome back, I'm Jules,
Rebecca:I'm Vicki, and I'm Rebecca.
Rebecca:And today's question comes from a listener who says, Hello, I am
Rebecca:in a neurodiverse relationship.
Rebecca:I'm diagnosed with ASD and ADHD and my partner is neurotypical.
Rebecca:Can you do a podcast addressing communication challenges
Rebecca:in relationships like ours?
Rebecca:My partner wants to work on our relationship by talking and talking
Rebecca:and needs physical affection all the time, whereas I do not.
Rebecca:Why does my partner take these differences personally?
Vickey:Before we answer, I'd like to give the partner props that the partner
Vickey:wants to work on the relationship at all.
Vickey:I feel like a lot of our questions are, like, one wants to work on it
Vickey:and one may not have that perception.
Vickey:Like, we don't know that the other one does.
Vickey:And so, awesome that there's a desire.
Vickey:And just like, bummer that there's a difference between
Vickey:the desires of the work, I mean.
Jules:Of how the work happens, not between the desires, right?
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:Because the person who's asking the question is also desiring to
Jules:make this better and different.
Jules:It's just how is different between these two folks.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:That's a big, that's the big challenge, right?
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:Is that how am I processing information?
Jules:What feels too much for my system, what feels too much for your system,
Jules:it's, it's going to be different.
Jules:Right.
Rebecca:Because we're going to have, you know, especially in
Rebecca:neurotypical relationships or relationships where one partner is
Rebecca:neurotypical and the other is more, um.
Rebecca:is not, wait, what am I saying?
Rebecca:In a relationship where someone is neurotypical and
Rebecca:someone is more neurodiverse.
Rebecca:That's what I'm trying to say.
Rebecca:Um, what we're, what we're going to find in those relationships
Rebecca:is that there are just really different ways of perceiving, right?
Rebecca:Because like for somebody, um, Who has, like, like, there's, there's
Rebecca:something called, like, monotropism.
Rebecca:Have you heard of this?
Rebecca:Oh, definitely.
Rebecca:Monotropism is like, it's a form, it's, it's a way of getting, like, hyper
Rebecca:focus, focused and fixated on one thing.
Rebecca:Right?
Rebecca:Like, I don't know, um, perhaps, uh, keeping a pantry really organized.
Rebecca:But, um.
Jules:Okay.
Jules:That is also true.
Jules:Also, I don't hyper fixate on neurobiological interest of the moment.
Jules:I could spend, I could spend 20 hours in a single week.
Jules:No, no, I could, I could spend 20 hours in a single week.
Jules:Like.
Jules:Obsessively looking at research on hippocampal function in teeny tiny little
Jules:areas of like, what exactly are the cells in this area of the hippocampus?
Jules:How are they processing information and what information is coming to them?
Jules:And what is the anatomy of that?
Jules:Wait, who's talking to that part?
Jules:Where does that come from?
Jules:That's not,
Rebecca:Oh my gosh, that type of focus, that type of focus, right?
Rebecca:It like, it's a drive.
Rebecca:It gets you places.
Rebecca:It's amazing.
Rebecca:It's, it's like super.
Rebecca:And also, it means that there's caloric energy that's not going somewhere else.
Rebecca:Yes.
Jules:Oh my god.
Jules:I mean when I get into a space like that, I will like not answer emails all week.
Jules:I have no idea what anybody's saying.
Jules:I like put it down to be with my kid.
Jules:I put it down to like make dinner, but.
Jules:I'll procrastinate about all sorts of other things because I'll get into
Jules:the space of like, no, I cannot let this go until I understand what's
Jules:happening with the spatial orientation of this area of the hippocampus.
Jules:Right.
Jules:Wow.
Jules:Like that's like, that's what my brain does.
Jules:Totally.
Jules:I just always thought I just, I've honestly, so I've never been
Jules:diagnosed with anything cause I've never gone through an assessment.
Jules:Um, my husband and I actually keep talking about.
Jules:That because my daughter's recently gone through assessment and he's
Jules:like, Hey, would you be willing to go through an assessment?
Jules:Cause I think maybe there's some differences happening.
Jules:So I'm in the process of like figuring out when can I actually
Jules:make that happen and stuff?
Jules:Cause I'm, I'm accepting of that possibility.
Jules:And like, sure, I'll get an assessment and find out, you know, what's, what's
Jules:happening and maybe more information about working with my brain in a way
Jules:that really works for our family.
Jules:And he is, he has ADHD and dyslexia and our daughter has It's for
Jules:different neurodiverse diagnoses.
Jules:So we have, we have quite a lot of that in our house.
Jules:And I think that does make it different though than this question.
Jules:It does.
Jules:Because everybody in
Rebecca:our home is neurodiverse.
Rebecca:Right.
Rebecca:In my home, it's a little bit more like there's, there's at least half of us
Rebecca:that are more neurodiverse than others.
Rebecca:But I actually, you know, now that I think about it, I think, I think everybody has
Rebecca:some kind of processing difference in my home, but they're all differences.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Rebecca:Right?
Rebecca:And so it could be really easy to take it all personally, because we're all kind of
Rebecca:focused in and noticing different things.
Rebecca:And that's the piece about this, is that inside of having all of these differences,
Rebecca:we also carry a lot of expectations around, oh, it's You're saying this
Rebecca:right like around what what relationships are going to be or how people are
Rebecca:going to show up or how we work on our relationships or how much touch there
Rebecca:is or how much we talk about or Mm hmm
Jules:how people should function what should be easy
Rebecca:right and and we have ideas based on a lot of like neurotypical
Rebecca:models Or not even neurotypical models, Hollywood models, let's just call it that.
Jules:Right?
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:I mean, where I, I should expect you to want to be close
Jules:to me in this particular way.
Jules:The way
Rebecca:that looks in Hallmark movies.
Jules:Yes.
Jules:It could be.
Jules:It could be.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:It depends.
Jules:It depends on what we're wanting.
Jules:Some people want it to look like Hallmark movies and sometimes people want it to
Jules:look, you know, different than that.
Jules:More like a 1950s typical.
Jules:They want it to look like Don Traper, you know, to use
Jules:another Hollywood style example.
Jules:So, so there are plenty of people who have expectations going in about
Jules:how we're going to do this, how we're going to have repair conversations,
Jules:how we're going to be close.
Jules:What closeness even feels like to you should be what it feels like to me.
Jules:That's what we
Rebecca:go into.
Rebecca:But there's grief there, right?
Rebecca:Like we have to focus in on that grief because, because there is no one way,
Rebecca:like put any two people together and there's no, like if we can't have unspoken
Rebecca:expectations and think we're going to meet each other in the same place.
Jules:Exactly.
Jules:Cause different stuff is gonna, right.
Jules:That's a great
Vickey:way to phrase it though.
Vickey:Let's repeat that.
Vickey:We can't have unspoken expectations and still, and still meet
Vickey:each other at the same place.
Vickey:Yeah.
Vickey:Which is what I want.
Vickey:I was about to say everyone wants, and then I realized I
Vickey:can't speak for everyone else.
Vickey:But I really do want that.
Vickey:I want to not have to speak about it.
Vickey:Of course you want that.
Vickey:It would just magically happen.
Vickey:It would be so much easier.
Jules:Right?
Jules:Of course you want that.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:That's not a thing.
Jules:But of course you want that.
Vickey:It's not a thing.
Vickey:Thanks for reality.
Rebecca:But it makes sense.
Rebecca:It really does make sense that that's what's wanted.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Rebecca:Because it would take a lot less energy if we could be met in that way.
Vickey:Mm hmm.
Vickey:Yeah.
Vickey:Well, it also, maybe this is just me and who knows what in my
Vickey:history, um, that feels like love.
Vickey:Mm hmm.
Vickey:That like, it just magically happens and I don't have to ask for it or talk
Jules:about it.
Jules:Oh, for you, that's love Uhhuh , huh?
Jules:I think so.
Jules:Interesting.
Vickey:But that was, that's new to me too right now.
Vickey:So there's that.
Vickey:Mm-Hmm.
Vickey:. Jules: Mm-Hmm.
Vickey:. Yeah.
Vickey:And so if, if I have to ask for it, it's not love.
Vickey:Or if I have to say what I need, it's not love.
Vickey:it's not
Vickey:as much love.
Vickey:It's still love, but it's not as
Rebecca:much.
Rebecca:Right.
Rebecca:So there's an expectation built in around that, right?
Rebecca:Whereas like maybe, maybe I grew up in a home where the stuff inside
Rebecca:of me says, well, if we're talking a lot, if we're talking about
Rebecca:our relationship, that's love.
Rebecca:And if we're not talking about it, then that is not loving.
Jules:Right.
Jules:And for somebody else, it may be, if we have to talk about it
Jules:a lot, you're not seeing me as I need to be seen because I actually
Jules:don't want to talk about it a lot.
Jules:So you're not being loved.
Jules:And I'm not saying, um, that that's always the thought.
Jules:I'm just saying that it can be perceived that way.
Jules:And we're saying, we're saying, why is your partner taking it personally?
Jules:Well, my guess is the personal bit is something around this.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:Like, Oh, there's a longing to have it be more similar than it is between
Jules:me about how you process information.
Jules:And rather than saying, you know what, that is not true for our marriage.
Jules:We have bigger differences than I was hoping for.
Jules:And that's just the truth of who I married.
Jules:And that's the truth of me.
Jules:And it's not, it's, it's not like, um, I want to be careful actually about
Jules:saying like, Oh, let's, I don't, I don't know what diagnosis I might come back
Jules:with, but let's say I come back and then my, it's not like I'm asking Adam,
Jules:Oh, could you accept me where I am?
Jules:I'm saying, could we all accept us where we are and that we process
Jules:this information differently because whatever's going on, like.
Jules:His ADHD is maybe different than how mine would show up,
Rebecca:right?
Rebecca:Because there's different kinds.
Rebecca:There's the kind that get more, um, more hyper.
Rebecca:And then there's kinds that get, that, that seem on the inside,
Rebecca:like they're less attentive.
Rebecca:Right?
Rebecca:Right.
Rebecca:But there's different, there's different kinds of foci, foci.
Rebecca:And so part of it is about what's happening for you.
Rebecca:How do you experience the world?
Rebecca:And here's what's happening for me and how I experience the world.
Rebecca:And here's what my needs are.
Rebecca:And how do we have a conversation about this that doesn't feel too much.
Jules:Right, and it's less about I accept you're different, more
Jules:about I accept we are different.
Rebecca:And by the way, I think neurodiverse couples
Rebecca:have a leg up here because they might need to talk about this.
Rebecca:And neuro, um, neurotypical couples where both people are more
Rebecca:neurotypical still have differences.
Rebecca:They just aren't really talking
Vickey:about them.
Vickey:I was just going to say that.
Vickey:So not to minimize or change the question here, but like I finally realized and I
Vickey:said it to Gabe literally yesterday that when I get overwhelmed and I, you guys
Vickey:know this, I don't know if our audience does, when I get very overwhelmed and
Vickey:unintegrated, my brain goes into shutdown.
Vickey:And when he gets very overwhelmed, he goes in to fix it or figure it out.
Vickey:Which can make him very awesome.
Vickey:Like I do love that part and it drives him bonkers that my brain shuts down.
Vickey:Like it is very, very challenging for him.
Vickey:He's getting better at it.
Vickey:And we articulate it now, Rebecca, like you're saying, we actually
Vickey:have conversations now and sometimes he will look at me very
Vickey:calmly and say, you can do this.
Vickey:Stay with me.
Vickey:Don't shut down.
Vickey:And one time I looked at him very nicely and I said, no, I cannot.
Vickey:So do I need to take a timeout?
Vickey:Like, do I need to actually leave the room because I cannot engage right now.
Vickey:My brain will not do it.
Vickey:So it doesn't always have to be about neurodiversity.
Vickey:That's just about, um, when we get too overwhelmed by something,
Vickey:we function differently.
Vickey:Yeah.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:You know, I,
Vickey:I'm not, everyone's having
Jules:those conversations.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:So I think it does require conversations.
Jules:I think it also, it really helps when the communication difficulties
Jules:are super, super normal.
Jules:And it helps to know a little bit about what you need to ask
Jules:for to support your own system.
Jules:And that may require some journaling and some reflection space and, and
Jules:even if you need, you know, somebody to bounce that off with going and seeing
Jules:somebody on your own a little bit of here's, here's the needs that I have.
Jules:And.
Jules:And then bringing that together and finding creative solutions.
Jules:So I'm thinking about a couple I actually just finished,
Jules:uh, doing an intensive with.
Jules:And this, in this situation, there was a need for, um, a really, really different
Jules:way of bringing up difficult stuff.
Jules:For one, the rejection sensitivity was so intense.
Jules:Um, that even bringing up that there was maybe a problem or maybe even a
Jules:difference in how they wanted something in the house to go was so bloody.
Jules:It was too much for them to be able to do a conversation, but they didn't
Jules:want to not have the conversation.
Jules:So face to face was problems.
Jules:They decided to write each other letters.
Jules:For the first, like, four to five exchanges back and forth before they
Jules:started bringing it into real time.
Jules:I love that.
Jules:Mm hmm.
Jules:And that actually helped because they could read it, freak
Jules:out, calm down, write back.
Jules:Mm hmm.
Jules:Right?
Jules:And the freak out was way less.
Jules:And if it was face to face, eye contact was too much and
Jules:the body language was too much.
Jules:So I'm just, I'm just noticing like, Ooh, we could get kind of creative with
Rebecca:how.
Rebecca:Yeah, we could get really creative with the how.
Rebecca:And I think that that's part of like really, uh, falling in
Rebecca:love with your neurodiversity.
Rebecca:And loving, like, what is so special about who you are and loving your
Rebecca:partner is that you start learning, really, how do, how do I attend to me?
Rebecca:What do I need to do?
Rebecca:Like, if I want to stay inside this conversation, are there things,
Rebecca:like, if I stim in certain ways, is that going to help me stay?
Rebecca:If I, um, you know, do I need to decompress and be alone for
Rebecca:a certain amount of time first?
Rebecca:Like, what are the things and how does that affect timing?
Rebecca:And how does that affect the grief of maybe, like, the way things are
Rebecca:different or the fact that maybe like touch doesn't feel so great for me or
Rebecca:it feels really good for you or we have, we have these differences and we need
Rebecca:to make spaces to grieve what's not the same and also trying to understand
Rebecca:not the same doesn't mean that we're necessarily moving towards rejection.
Rebecca:It means not the same.
Rebecca:Right.
Rebecca:Right.
Rebecca:And inside of some neurotypical spaces and even some really, I'm sorry, neurodiverse
Rebecca:spaces and also neurotypical spaces, uh, rejection is definitely something that I
Rebecca:think a lot of us are really sensitive to.
Rebecca:Mm hmm.
Rebecca:And so that might be playing into why.
Rebecca:Why we or our partners might be taking things personally is because
Rebecca:we're sensitive to this, this idea of, or something about rejection.
Jules:Mm hmm.
Jules:So it's a, it's a complex space you're entering into and what I'm
Jules:hearing you say, Rebecca, is, is.
Jules:Is, is a kind of map of the how to do the, what's the principle
Jules:underneath that's going to hold us.
Jules:And that's actually relatively simple.
Jules:It really is.
Jules:Which is, there is a big difference here.
Jules:Let's face that together.
Jules:And read what we need to, and also create what we need to, to answer this
Jules:truth about there being a difference
Rebecca:here.
Rebecca:Am I getting it?
Rebecca:You're totally getting it.
Rebecca:So that we can find us.
Rebecca:So that we can, right?
Rebecca:Because it's not about you or me.
Rebecca:It's about us.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Rebecca:Right?
Rebecca:And so we have to learn the other.
Rebecca:We have to learn the other.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:Yeah.
Jules:All right.
Jules:Good place to land it for today.
Rebecca:Yeah.
Rebecca:I think so.
Rebecca:All right.
Rebecca:Take care of yourselves.
Rebecca:See y'all
Jules:soon.
Jules:Bye bye.
Jules:That wraps up this week's episode.
Jules:Join us again next week for another Why Does My Partner?
Rebecca:We hope that you continue to listen wherever you get your audio
Rebecca:and that you'll follow the show.
Vickey:To go deeper, join us at one of our workshops.
Vickey:You'll find our next date at whydoesmypartner.
Vickey:com.
Jules:Did you know you can ask us your questions?
Vickey:Your questions are
Rebecca:relational gold.
Rebecca:Go to why does my partner.
Rebecca:com to either write in or record your question for a future
Jules:episode.
Jules:And here's some gratitudes.
Jules:Thanks to Al Hoberman, our sound editor and podcast production
Vickey:magic maker.
Vickey:Thanks to every one of you who has joined us for our workshops in the past.
Vickey:We've learned so much from all of you
Rebecca:and thanks to everyone who's reviewed the show and Apple podcasts.
Rebecca:Your reviews help others to find the show.
Jules:Take care of each other best you can.
Jules:See you next time.
Jules:Mhm.