Are you neurodivergent and in a relationship with someone neurotypical where you’re struggling to connect? Do you often feel confused by your partner’s reactions? Would you like you and your partner to understand each other better but you aren’t sure how?

All couples will at times misunderstand each other, struggle to communicate, and hurt one another. They’ll be surprised by their partner’s behaviours and reactions, think they were doing what their partner wanted, and wish their partner was more supportive and empathetic. When partners are very different from one another, which is a common feature of neurodivergent relationships, these challenges can be frequent and impactful.

But having differences, even when they create challenges, doesn’t mean that a relationship can’t be successful. Many couples have healthy and enjoyable methods of incorporating what sets them apart from each other into their relationship.

Navigating your differences you have is often easier when you’re both open to learning new skills and potentially changing how you think about each other.

When partners are willing and able to learn from and teach one another, communicate, set aside assumptions, and adapt how they treat each other to make their partner feel loved and supported, the relationship can be enriching and enjoyable. This can require more effort if you’re neurodivergent, but if you and your partner make the time to understand each other, you can have a strong and rewarding connection.

This article is a companion piece to last month’s article on neurodivergent relationships that was largely from the perspective of the neurotypical partner. It contains information on communication, conflict resolution, adaptation, managing expectations, and making life with your partner enjoyable, which can be very useful and provides a great deal of context for this article, so I strongly recommend reading the earlier article as well. You can find it here.    

Techniques for improving your relationship

What are some of the greatest challenges you face in your relationship? Do you think they’re caused by your neurodivergency? How do you and your partner typically approach and react to the differences in your perspectives and lived experiences?

Being neurodivergent in a relationship with someone neurotypical can seem uniquely difficult. You could wonder if they fully understand the challenges you face and accept your limitations. Even if you’ve explained what is difficult for you, you could still feel that their understanding is only superficial and they might not fully appreciate the extra work your neurodivergency creates for you.

It’s also more likely for people with a neurodivergency to have a number of differences between themselves and their partner: how they want to spend their free time, what they’re comfortable doing, how they express and respond to emotions, their priorities, and much more. These can lead to misunderstandings and potentially create friction between you and your partner.

But the ways you’re different from each other also has the potential to enrich the relationship through providing plenty of opportunities to learn from each other and be constant reminders to stay curious about each other and never stop communicating.

One of the most impactful ways that the majority of couples, regardless of their neurotypes, can improve their relationship is through communication.

Communicating with your partner refers to the everyday conversations you have with each other, as well as how you speak to each other during conversations that can be difficult and have the potential to become emotional, especially when you disagree.

Communication is essential to having a healthy relationship. When you and your partner share your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, hopes, fears, favourite songs, new jokes, gossip, and anything else you want them to know about, you can have a strong and rewarding friendship established on an in-depth understanding of each other’s inner worlds.

Healthy communication also involves being curious about each other. The opposite of curiosity is making assumptions, which can cause negative feelings and make partners less willing to share their thoughts with each other. So when you’re talking with your partner, be curious about them and they should do the same for you. Ask each other clarifying questions when you don’t understand each other and be willing to patiently explain what you’re trying to tell them, even if you think it should be obvious.

All couples need to practice regular communication, and neurodivergent relationships can especially benefit from it because since there are more likely to be differences between you and your partner that would benefit from additional context you can provide.

When communication is lacking – partners too rarely make time for each other and/or when they do talk, they aren’t honest with each other – they won’t have a strong connection and they’re likely to struggle in other areas of the relationship as well. But through addressing challenges in communicating and replacing them with healthy habits that help you and your partner to feel close to each other, many of the difficulties in your relationship can become less severe and easier to address.

Because communication skills are so vital to healthy relationships, yet some people struggle being open and sharing their emotions, you may wish to improve your communication skills before addressing other challenges in the relationship. Trying to make too many changes at the same time is often very difficult and can cause one or both of you to give up.

You can also consider how you treat your partner and what you expect from them in the following areas of your relationship. Adopting new ways of communicating and reframing your thoughts towards your partner in key areas of your relationship can be especially valuable for people in a neurodiverse relationship because of the additional misunderstandings that can take place if you don’t know how to approach them in healthy ways.

1) Learn how to make each other feel loved

It’s important for couples to know how to make each other feel loved. This can be done in many ways: telling them how you feel, surprising them with gifts, listening while they talk at length about their interests, physical affection, and much more.

But not all people recognise the same things as being loving; a hug as soon as they get home form work could be a special custom for some couples while others prefer to be given time to unwind when they get home so being left alone is loving because it shows that their partner understands their needs and preferences.

Knowing how to make each other feel loved is easy for some couples, especially if they’re very similar so they share what makes them feel loved. If you and your partner have different personalities and preferences, you could struggle to recognise their attempts to show their love while struggling in your attempts as well.

Being neurodivergent can add complexity to showing and receiving love and affection. You could fail to recognise your partner’s indirect attempts to get your attention or dislike some of the ways they want to connect, such as cuddling. You can also feel that you’re trying to show your partner that you care and create closeness but can’t seem to get it right and you don’t understand what you’re doing wrong.

But if you can have healthy and informative discussions about each other and your relationship, you can both share what makes you feel loved and connected.

When having these conversations, it’s important not to be accusatory by claiming that you already try the things your partner says you aren’t doing or telling your partner that you’ve done things for your partner in the past and they didn’t respond. You could also be unsure that you could naturally do some of the things they would like, such as cuddling if you dislike psychical contact.

It’s important to bring up any concerns you have with your partner, but these don’t have to be hostile or lead to damaging fights. You could try finding compromises wherever possible and experiment with different ways to make incorporating new practices into your relationship, such as dramatically stating when you want attention, giving each other feedback, or anything else you think would make discovering how to connect an enjoyable experience.

It’s likely that not all of the things they suggest will come naturally, but if each of you can do some of them, the relationship can be more rewarding, especially if you recognise that you’re both trying new things for each other.

2) Understand each other’s challenges

It’s important for couples to be aware of each other’s challenges so they can be supportive and try to make life easier for their partner.

Because neurodivergency can create additional and unusual challenges, there’s a higher potential for your partner not to fully be aware of or understand all the challenges you face or things you find difficult.

However, if you haven’t told your partner about your challenges and made sure they understood, they might not fully appreciate what they are.

Since people have different communication styles and what they understand is informed by what they already know, take time to explain to your partner what you find difficult, things that intimidate you, and areas you consider to be your weaknesses, especially those you wish they were more patient and compassionate about. Also share what they could do that would help you feel safe, accepted, and reassured that they care about you.

It’s important for partners to know what is hard for each other, especially when there are things that might not register as issues for the majority of people because they’re caused by neurodivergency, so share them.

This could be telling your partner how exhausting you find parties so they could go with someone else or ask how they could make group settings easier for you. Or if you get thrown off when you’re working on something and they start talking to you, let them know how this impacts you instead of just getting frustrated and assuming they know their impact and don’t care.

Your partner will also have their own challenges and preferences they would like to be recognised and respected as much as possible, so they can share theirs with you as well.

By discovering what is challenging for each of you, you can aim to avoid these types of situations whenever possible and be more patient and sympathetic when they do occur.

You could try to find-light hearted ways of incorporating having to recover from challenges into your relationships, such as announcing that you’re exhausted by a funny smell on the bus home so you have to unwind on the couch instead of being a responsive partner for the next hour. When challenges and the reactions they cause are acknowledged, they can be much less impactful.

3) Challenge yet respect each other’s comfort zones

In most relationships, particularly between people who are very different, it’s natural, even heathy, that they will want each other to do things that are new and potentially challenging for them. This is known as leaving your comfort zone.

Trying new things, especially with your partner’s support and encouragement, can be healthy and help you grow. They can range from commonplace experiences like watching a movie you wouldn’t have chosen on your own to experiences that facilitate growth, such as joining a sport club that becomes a great source of joy.

Being willing to leave your comfort zone is often necessary for partners to enjoy spending their time together. Having fun as a couple can be easier when you both like doing the same things, but when partners are different from each other, it becomes more important to be willing to leave your comfort zone.

Leaving your comfort zone can be difficult if you’re neurodivergent, especially if you tend to already feel challenged in many different situations, such as feeling overstimulated or struggling to decipher others, so the additional demands of leaving your comfort zone could easily feel like too much.

Additionally, it’s common for neurodivergent people to leave their comfort zone quite often without it being recognised because what makes the situation involve leaving their comfort zone isn’t recognised as difficult, like not confirming that the stove is off before locking up or going to a restaurant with overly harsh lighting. So you’re already challenging yourself but your partner doesn’t realise.

If you feel that your partner is too often asking you to leave your comfort zone, especially if you’re already challenging yourself, this can bring tension to the relationship; both from you feeling that your partner is making unfair demands and your partner believing that you aren’t willing to try things you aren’t interested in so you’re being selfish.

But these types of situations can be largely avoided and their impact lessened if you both communicate and don’t make assumptions about each other. You can acknowledge that you’re not willing to challenge yourself to do something your partner is interested and explain why you don’t feel capable of this.

Instead of assuming they should know how difficult this would be for you, believe that they have no idea so your goal is to inform them. When you don’t feel comfortable doing what they would like, consider possible compromises, such as ordering delivery from their favourite restaurant because you’re not up to going out.

Your partner should also be willing to leave their comfort zone to do things you enjoy so your relationship involves exposing each other to new experiences.

If you and your partner are willing to leave your comfort zones for each other as often as you can and you explain yourself when you don’t feel capable of doing what the other would enjoy, you can reduce how often you feel disappointed with the other and be more compassionate. You can also better appreciate when you each leave your comfort zones for the other, which can make you feel closer and better friends.

4) Reframe things you dislike or find confusing about your partner as positive

In the majority of relationships, there are at least some things that one partner does that makes no sense to the other. These can be sources of tension and frustration if you don’t understand them.

If you and your partner have different personalities and preferences, especially if these often interfere with each other, you can come to view them as character flaws and inconveniences. You could be frustrated that you have to rush your partner to be on time, get irritated with them because they feel the need to remind you of things you said you’d do, arguing over how to spend your free time, and much more.

They could also have the same feelings about the habits and preferences you have, which can lead to misunderstandings, friction, and potentially unhealthy fights.

If you find yourself often irritated by things your partner does, consider how these have the potential to serve your partner. They might not be good at being punctual, but could this carefree attitude help them feel calm? Or they might be more preoccupied with remembering appointments than you are but does this give them a greater sense of security? If they’re much more spontaneous than you are, does this make life more exciting and enjoyable for them?

Your partner should also be willing to do the same for your habits and traits that they find confusing. They might not appreciate how important it is for you to double-check things but they recognise that it’s important for you to feel reassured.

Discuss the things you find strange about one another so you can each explain what these mean to you, instead of making assumptions or inventing your own stories that might not be accurate. You don’t have to try to convince each other to adopt your perspective, but recognise how it helps your partner and agree to disagree while doing your best to accept that this is one of the ways you’re different, and these differences don’t have to bring too much negativity to the relationship.

5) Adopt a light-hearted view of your differences and the misunderstandings they can cause

It’s easy, and at times tempting, to tell yourself that the differences between you and your partner and their inability to always understand you are a threat to your relationship and will make it harder, if not impossible, to be happy together. When they aren’t compassionate enough to your challenges and don’t remember important things you told them, you can tell yourself that this is a sign they don’t care enough.

This can be true in some instances, but if your partner really does love and care for you, it’s more likely that these misunderstandings are largely due to differences. They probably didn’t realise how important something was to you because it wouldn’t have been important to them, and was therefore forgettable. But if they would have realised how important it was to you, they would have remembered.

Differences between couples can create more work – needing to explain your perspective, encouraging your partner to try the things you like, having different norms and expectations – but this doesn’t have to be exhausting or unpleasant.

Your differences can even make the relationship more enjoyable by instigating plenty of communication, curiosity, determination to learn about each other, and motivation to maintain your connection, as long as you can avoid a negative view of these differences. You don’t have to always enjoy explaining yourself or be glad that you have to ask your partner clarifying questions, but if you can do this without being accusatory or hostile, they don’t have to harm the relationship.

One of the ways some neurodiverse couples like to approach their differences that helps them stay light-hearted towards them is by thinking of themselves as belonging to different cultures.

When people from different cultures make social mistakes, fail to understand others and are confused by reactions to their behaviours, they’re often met with patience, compassion, and a willingness to explain the context. Additionally, when someone is in a foreign country, they’re aware that their norms likely won’t be the same as everyone else’s and that they may struggle to be understood so they’re more willing to ask clarifying questions and explain themselves.

By thinking of your misunderstandings, unaligned expectations, and different comfort zones as cultural differences, they can take on a much more harmless, even entertaining nature, lower expectations of how easily you’ll understand each other and give helpful context to your differences.

Instead of thinking that you and your partner should be able to more easily understand each other, you can have less friction in your relationship if you internalise the reality that you’ll likely always have to spend more time than most other couples explaining yourselves and other things to each other. But not only does this not have to be exhausting, it can even be fun. If you like teaching and learning from each other, there can be lots of opportunities to do this.  

You can’t stop having misunderstandings, times where you feel unappreciated, or making mistakes in how to best approach each other. It’s inevitable that couples will make assumptions about each other, be hurtful (with and without meaning to), and wish that their partner could be more supportive and empathetic to their struggles.

The goal isn’t to have a frictionless relationship, but to reduce the frequency and severity of damaging fights and try to keep misunderstandings and mistakes from growing into incidents that need to be recovered from.

Through learning techniques to better understand each other and be more accepting of what makes you and your partner different from one another, you have the potential to remove a great deal of the negativity from your relationship and increase the positivity.

If incorporating these techniques into your relationship feels too challenging, you could consider working with a mental health professional. They can help you and your partner recognise unhelpful ways you think of and act towards each other, teach you effective methods for improving how you respond to one another, and provide ongoing guidance as you and your partner work to change some of your habits in your relationship.

Professional help certainly isn’t needed to improve relationships, especially if both partners are motivated to make healthy changes, but a professional can make the process quicker and more efficient.

The efforts you need to invest to understand each other and make one another feel loved could be higher than those a neurotypical would need, but all couples have to apply themselves to stay informed of who their partner is growing into while doing their best to keep differences healthy and enriching to the relationship instead of dividing them. Those who don’t do this likely don’t have as fulfilling of a relationship as they could have.

Being neurodivergent in a relationship with someone who is neurotypical can feel like it creates an at times impossible number of differences that cause misunderstandings.

Navigating these differences and keeping them from impacting your relationship can take more effort than what might be needed by other couples, but your differences also have the potential to make your relationship more enriching and rewarding.

You can expose each other to new ideas, encourage each other to try new things, and have plenty to talk about because of your different perspectives and experiences.

When you’re comfortable having potentially challenging discussions to learn more about each other without making assumptions, you can reduce misunderstandings and make discoveries that help you hurt each other less in the future. You and your partner won’t be able to stop having misunderstandings, but you can decrease their frequency and severity.

When you and your partner understand how your neurodivergency affects daily life for you and how it can impact the relationship but you both remain open, friendly and curious when challenges arise, your relationship can be much more rewarding.