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The highest demands on communication are within the context of intimate relationships. This is true for neurotypical couples, for whom it can be a tricky terrain to navigate but at least there is usually a common understanding of what is expected. In a couple where one partner is autistic, the minefield of unwritten and unspoken ‘rules of engagement’ offers traps, obstacles and misunderstandings galore within the relationship.
The most common and pervasive problems that couples present with in the counselling room result from communication or, rather, miscommunication. It is inevitable that there are misunderstandings on both sides. The autistic (AS) partner can make incorrect assumptions about what their partner meant or intended and the non-autistic (NT) partner will attribute intentions to his/her partner’s behaviour which simply are not there. Over the years, such misunderstandings become compounded and attributions of character are assumed; ‘she is so fussy, always blames me, is impatient, is longwinded and confusing, nags, deliberately makes things difficult, changes her mind all the time’ and so on, whereas he ‘is unfeeling, uncommunicative, selfish, unsociable, has to be told what to do all the time, doesn’t do what he’s asked, does his own thing, explodes with fury for no reason’.
The work in the counselling room is often to do with unpicking these misunderstandings and challenging those assumed character traits. This can be very difficult for both sides. The NT partner needs to gain a real and proper understanding of the very different way that his/her partner’s mind works. It can be hugely demanding for an NT to truly accept that when his/her spouse or partner acted in a certain way, that there was no deliberate offence intended. The NT partner has to get to the place where they can understand and see from their partner’s viewpoint in order to accept in good faith that their spouse did not mean to cause offence. This in the face of what to most NTs would be seen as obviously offensive or deliberately neglectful behaviour.
The problems for the AS partner are equally challenging. He can learn responses which would be helpful but either the NT partner dismisses them as meaningless because they feel that they’ve just been taught to do that parrot fashion, or the AS partner doesn’t know when or how to apply them and ends up irritating their partner yet again. It is vital that the NT partner accepts that their AS partner may need direction and that that does not diminish the veracity or value of the directed behaviour. One NT wife was adamant that it meant nothing to her for her AS husband to say he loved her if he was only doing that because he had been told to. A response to this is that he would not say it at all if it were not true. His difficulty is in understanding that we emotionally needy NTs need to be told this more than once; that we need to hear expressions of affection quite often in order to be assured that our partner still cares for us and that we are still deserving of their affection. This can be baffling to the partner with AS since from his perspective nothing has changed over the years so why should it be questioned now? The AS partner also will have difficulty in noticing when the moment is right to say such things and will often hold back for fear of getting it wrong. Far from being the unfeeling, cold person the NT sees, the AS partner will typically be constantly anxious that yet again they might have caused offence for no discernible reason.
Where there is a real desire to heal the relationship, to rebuild and to understand the other, then counselling where the therapist has a thorough appreciation of both autistic and neurotypical people, how they behave and think, then relationships can be reformed and rebuilt on strong foundations.