Neurodiverse relationships have specific challenges which make the couple more vulnerable to misinterpretations in each other’s social and emotional cueing. When reactions to distress occur, negative feedback loops (fight-flight, avoid modes) escalate rapidly. The instinctual survival strategies that might work to get average couples back into a calm state or approach mode, ( like bargaining, pleading, hints, passive-aggressive games, sulking, pursuing, protesting, clinging, withdrawing) - don’t work with neurodiverse couples. In fact they are likely to make things worse rapidly. Each partner misinterprets their partner’s reactive or unresponsive behaviour as negative intentions and begin to attack or defend.
When the normal process of mis-atunement occurs in a neurodiverse relationship, there is less chance of the couple automatically repairing themselves to a calm, approach mode. The relationship distress becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. The more we feel unsupported, the more stressed we feel, the more anxious and rigid we become in our thinking and reactions, the more the relationship is unlikely to be repaired, the more unsafe we feel, the more stressed we feel. The negative pattern takes on a life of its own. Both partners report feeling “traumatised” by this process. Paradoxically, this stress usually dials up the neurodiverse traits and differences that are problematic in the relationship.(e.g. anxiety, cognitive rigidity, difficulties with perspective taking)
For example, due to differences in interoception, theory of mind and contextual processing, one partner may not intuitively understand their partner’s needs or desires. When this partner’s expectations are thwarted and they begin to notice distress, they will often use a survival strategy to protect themselves or pull for connection. (This might look like pleading, bargaining, arguing, threatening, fighting or withdrawing, shutting down, avoiding. )
Their partner may not naturally or easily perceive and understand other people’s needs and expectations unless they receive concrete, clear and specific communication, that makes sense to them. They may also be overwhelmed easily by emotion and not understand the hidden emotional agendas of other people.
Interoception is an area of current interest and research, that explains the spectrum of internal sensory experiences that occur in humans. Internal sensory experiences send messages to the brain to regulate the body and help us control things like thirst, temperature, hunger, fatigue, and also more complex sensations such as emotion. A lot of this is subconscious. At one end of the spectrum are people who suffer alexithymia - an inability to recognise and articulate complex internal sensations and the related emotion.
When people have difficulty identifying and making sense of their own internal world, it is understandable that they will have even more trouble identifying and making sense of the internal world of another person. These people often default to using higher logic to analyse the world - many excel in their field. At the other end of the spectrum, are people who have a highly attuned radar to other’s needs and feelings and rely on “felt states” in their communication. They may express a lot of emotion and will sometimes want to communicate with their partner to process their own emotion.
As one partner becomes more upset and tries harder to convince or persuade their partner that they have got things wrong, don’t understand or have hurt their feelings. The other partner cannot make sense of their partner’s emotional distress (it is not logical to them) and goes into anxiety, overwhelm, avoidance or sometimes a “meltdown”. In an effort to make sense of the situation, people interpret that their partner is intentionally uncaring, selfish, lazy etc… This interpretation becomes their dominant narrative/voice/thoughts and makes them feel more distressed and hopeless and their partner feel ashamed and confused and defensive.
The survival strategies quickly reinforce the neurodiverse couple in flight-fight or reactive mode (sympathetic arousal) and often to avoidance and shutdown mode (parasympathetic dorsal vagal) leading to hopelessness and depression The more withdrawn, confused, ashamed, immobilised one partner becomes, the more disappointed, anxious, angry, upset, the other becomes – both partner’s brains and nervous systems are on alert and looking for trouble and danger - usually in each other. They are not remembering each other’s positive attributes or talking to the best in them. They cannot listen to each other’s viewpoints or vulnerabilities, or creatively problem solve. Couples talk about continually “walking on eggshells” and having “armour on”. They become sabotaged by what the Gottmans call “negative override”.
Paradoxically, what neurodiverse couples need is more time in approach mode (calm balanced nervous system, reflective not reactive) to creatively problem solve their differences. With understanding, support and professional assistance, it is possible to move away from flight-fight-avoid modes to approach mode. This paves the way for a rich and vibrant relationship that accepts and embraces differences.
