I knew something had to change when I found myself sitting at my desk, exhausted to the bone and so angry I’d barely spoken for two days, doing something I never imagined. As I sipped my coffee, I opened Google and started to type: divorce lawyers for women.
As I scrolled down the endless list of faces and phone numbers, smiling women in suits who were promising me a stable and happy future if I signed those papers and paid their eye-watering fees, I imagined what life would look like without my husband Dean*. It would be calmer and easier, perhaps — but definitely more boring too. Because everything I loved about him when we met in our 20s is breaking us apart now we’re married with a young child.
My husband is autistic. He’s still on the waiting list for adult diagnosis, but the more we’ve learned about the condition by supporting our neurodivergent child the more obvious it is to us both. His quirks and eccentricities — his ability to hyperfocus on his art, his staggering memory — are qualities I found so attractive about him when we were young and free of all responsibilities. As a self-confessed extrovert I had no problem partnering with someone who couldn’t ever take the lead in social situations; in fact, I never even wanted him to. After lots of therapy myself I know I’ve always desired a lot of control in my life; as he knows he’s lacking in executive function, he’s always handed it over willingly.
When we had nothing to worry about but ourselves, his self-focus didn’t matter. I knew he wasn’t trying to be cruel or cold, it’s just that he engaged in the world differently to me. We complemented each other. Sometimes I’d think of us as a single entity: I was the eyes and the ears of the partnership; he was the deep thinker. Together we could do anything.
Until we couldn’t. Once we became parents, everything changed. Drained by caretaking for a young child and overwhelmed by the mental load of family life, I’ve stopped having as much energy to support him too. I’ve scaffolded his life for years and while I was once willing and able to do that with love and empathy, my resources are running out. Fast.
I’ve realised that I’m expecting things from him, as a neurotypical person, that he simply can’t give. I want him to be able to notice when I’m struggling and just take over without me always having to ask. I want to be able to rely on him to back me up in stressful situations, not worry about whether he’s coping as well as my child.
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After one awful week, something snapped. I’d done everything, from cleaning the house to preparing food, to carrying the social load. As he took time out to recover from feeling overstimulated by a busy calendar, I was left clearing up the mess. But I was dealing with my own stressors. Where was my respite? I was furious. I felt underappreciated, unseen and alone in my relationship. Is divorce the only option?
I feel like an awful wife even asking that question. I knew exactly who he was when I married him, so who was I to suddenly change what I needed from him now? But for the first time in more than 10 years together I felt like Dean and I weren’t on the same team. Hell, he wasn’t even on the pitch.
Apparently, I’m not alone in struggling to sustain a neurodivergent/neurotypical partnership. Perhaps because of better understanding of neurodiversity, or greater rates of diagnosis, couples therapist Ashley Parker says she’s had a huge increase in the number of clients coming to her with this dynamic in recent years. Her first step is to provide reassurance for both partners. “This isn’t about a lack of love or a values misalignment, but simply living in a system that isn’t really built to hold both of them,” she says.
Parker often witnesses grief in relationships, over lost hopes about how the partnership would operate — something I really relate to. “The terms of their relationship changed with the arrival of more responsibility and I think naming that and speaking about it can really help to reconnect a couple,” she says. But she also warns that my wish that Dean “should just know” what I need is a fantasy that exists among most couples, not just those grappling with a neurotypical and neurodivergent partnership. Have I been holding onto a dream that a neurotypical partner would just understand me better? Perhaps that’s my version of the ‘grass is greener’ myth.
For all couples, regular basic check-ins with your partner on what your needs are and how your energy might be spent each week can help you support one another even when reading the room might be particularly difficult for one partner.
Parker also provides lots of practical advice for ND/NT couples who may require extra support to understand each other’s needs. First is recognising the exhaustion I’m feeling, again common for the neurotypical partners in these couples. “This is quite often not on the neurodivergent partner’s radar as they don’t naturally assess what needs doing. What helps is making the invisible (what lives in your head) visible. Mapping out the invisible tasks can be so eye opening and really help to make some changes”.
This is something that I’ve tried in the past but have given up on as it feels like another task on my plate. But, importantly, Parker says this isn’t just a job for me. “Quite often the invisible labour of an autistic person isn’t obvious either,” she explains — giving me pause for thought. “It can be really helpful to help both partners see that they are most likely facing invisible battles that neither one of them are aware of.”
There’s also advice on how I can respect Dean’s needs without abandoning my own. “The need for recharge is very real, but it quite often feels like an abandonment for the neurotypical partner, no matter how much they can understand it intellectually,” Parker says. Yes! Tick tick tick! She advises agreeing to planned time slots for recharge well before his battery has run dry. “This prevents the collapse that otherwise comes and that sense of withdrawal from him,” she explains. I start to have hope that our marriage might be salvageable. Maybe there is a life we can live together that doesn’t depend on me feeling overburdened and permanently wrung out.
Clinical psychologist Dr Jo Mueller co-founder of The Neurodiversity Practice and works with individuals and families as they navigate diagnosis and life challenges with autism and ADHD. She says different neurodivergent needs can cause conflict and accusations of blame in both directions, creating what is known as the “double empathy problem”: a breakdown in mutual understanding between partners with very different ways of communicating and processing the world. This makes a lot of sense. As our relationship has become more fractured, I’ve often felt like we’re in two different relationships.
She also highlights what she describes as a “double burnout risk” — both him, and me. “Neurodivergent partners may be more likely to try to return to familiar things that previously helped them manage even when they no longer fit and can be seen as withdrawal,” Dr Mueller says. Meanwhile, issues that may have recurred throughout life for an ND person, such as challenges with executive function [planning, focus, flexibility, and emotional regulation], and rejection sensitivity which can show up as anger or sadness and a sense of failure as a parent, can reach a fever pitch with young children at home and lead to high levels of dysregulation in the home.
But when I think about my future, I do see Dean in it. Not only because we have a child together, but because he’s still the first person I want to tell about the best and worst things that happen to me. The love we have for each other is still there. We’re just struggling to access it while we’re so emotionally misaligned, both trying to survive the endless juggle of work, parenting, family and social lives, from one day to the next.
Having spoken to Parker and Dr Mueller, as well as to close friends about their perspective (on both sides), I’ve realised that I’ve been blaming Dean for a two-way failure of understanding and vow to show him more information about the ‘double empathy problem’, so we can start to talk about communication in a more proactive way.
I also hold on closely to what Parker describes as witnessing a moment of hope for couples like us who begin therapy in her clinic. “Quite often there’s a sense of ‘this is who I am and I can’t change’ and ‘they can’t help who they are’, but both have strengths and qualities that attracted them to each other that need to be unearthed under the rubble of all of their differences.”
How to reconnect if you’re in an NT/ND relationship: Advice from clinical psychologist Dr Jo Mueller
- Use assertive communication skills to clearly and calmly communicate needs to each other
- Recognise with one another explicitly when things are going well to feed positive connection
- Sit down and map each other’s individual needs together, including everything from communication styles to physical and emotional needs as well as sensory requirements.
- Set up a form of “energy accounting” so you can avoid a cycle of burnout. Make sure each partner supports the other to schedule both the rest breaks and also the back-up they need from the other, in advance.
- As far as possible, agree to clear and predictable plans for you and your family ahead of time.
- Divide household tasks clearly and fairly, using tools such as the Fair Play game.
- Focus on your individual strengths so you are both aware of what each brings to the partnership.
- Obtain mental health support for each partner individually, so that depression, anxiety or emotional regulation is less of an issue with the couple.
- Provide explicit guidance with parenting so that the parent who finds it more instinctive doesn’t simply absorb the load.
