Communication Challenges in Neurodiverse Partnerships

well welcome again okay so we're gonna move along here we go um okay so before I jump into our overview I want to start us off by saying there are so many positive features that do exist in neuro-diverse relationships so that's where partners brains are wired differently so from the couples that I work with in my therapy practice I know how strong and healthy and successful relationships and couples can be who are in a neuro-diverse partnership so while there are all these strengths our goal tonight is to talk about one of the most common things that gets brought in to therapy into neuro-diverse couples therapy which is around communication so my goal is to really give you an overview of the most frequently experienced difficulties and I think most importantly to talk about concrete strategies that can really help strengthen communication within your relationship so as as a bit of a caveat I will say that not all of these may apply to you and your specific dynamic but I hope some of the skills that I'm talking about will help you identify areas that might be kind of stressful or challenging in your relationship and also give you some tools that you can use as soon as you walk out of this webinar to further strengthen communication with your partner so as a little bit of an overview so we're gonna first start with why communication is so important then we're going to go into identifying really specific challenges that exist and that are oftentimes unique to neuro-diverse relationships and then lastly we're going to explore concrete strategies to address these concerns so again I really want people to walk away with some tools that they can use in their relationship okay so people often think that good communication is only for people who want to stay together and I don't believe that's true I think strong communication skills are really vital for any stage of a relationship so people come in to couples therapy for lots of different reasons and with lots of different goals so I'm gonna go through four that I commonly see so oftentimes couples come in because they want to really strengthen and work on their partnership so they see that there are some areas of stress and they want to be able to identify them because they want to maintain this relationship or this marriage I am going to use marriage relationship partnership I'm going to use those somewhat interchangeably so please choose the one that fits you best so the next thing that I do sometimes see is that a couple is in the process of separating but they need help in being able to effectively co-parent or maybe Traverse dissolving their marriage or going through a divorce so yes communication is really vital to be able to do that in a way that's going to be effective and it's going to be the most you know useful and helpful moving forward especially if there are children I also have couples that you know have been going through a really stressful or hard time but certainly love each other very much and they're not really sure where their relationship would go or should go but they're coming into therapy with the goal of trying to strengthen and most specifically communication to help them figure out what that next outcome is going to be of their relationship and then lastly I think sometimes when couples are setting goals they have slightly different goals for their relationship so one person wants to continue it and strengthen it and another person is either unsure or is considering divorce so you know I think if we're looking at these differing goals we know that couples come in with lots of different reasons why they really want to work on communication I think for me I'm looking at it as communication is pivotal in determining which direction a relationship goes then so we're talking about these skills today and they really apply no matter what your goal is okay so why is communication so important why why are we giving this webinar right now so the most important thing is assuring that both partners needs are being met so this includes really figuring out what your needs are and what your partner's needs are so so often as related to communication or having conversations neuro-diverse partners needs are different so one person might need to talk about something more one person might want to talk for longer one person might not need to talk quite as much about something but really learning and understanding what you need from communication and what your partner needs is quite quite important so once we've identified what those needs are then we have to figure out how they're fulfilled so are those communication needs always fulfilled in your relationship so sometimes for spouses of someone on the spectrum they may have a higher need for communication or conversation and maybe some of those needs are filled by a good friend or a family member so oftentimes communication needs are fulfilled within the partnership but sometimes they're fulfilled in a different way so I think thinking about are there other resources in your life are there friends or family for you or your partner who when you want to talk about something maybe especially if it's a special interest is there someone else in your life that you can also get some of those needs in that room so lastly and I think most importantly throughout this relationship we're gonna really talk about how do we assure that both partners are armed for successful communication so we want to be set up for success and not continue to repeat some of the maladaptive patterns that maybe are happening in you and your partner's communication so I want to be able to talk about tools and ways for people to come into it really in their best light with their best communication strategies so that that communication can be successful as possible okay alrighty so now we're moving on to some common communication challenges so often a couple will come into my office and say that it feels like they're speaking different languages so this can be really frustrating for both partners so if you're not able to clearly express yourself or you're not feeling heard in your relationship and you feel like there are some challenges with communication and it's just not going very smoothly it can certainly cause a tremendous amount of stress on a relationship so while partners aren't actually speaking different languages they are coming to communication from pretty different lenses so none of these lenses are right or wrong or good or bad they're just different and so if we take a different lens and have a different style of communicating because our brains are wired differently that can certainly be useful in a lot of ways that can help expand perspectives it can help give you a new way to think about something maybe from a lens that you hadn't considered before but I think it can also cause a lot of frustration it can cause a lot of butting of heads in a marriage or in a partnership and those different approaches can make it a bit more difficult so I'm gonna go through four different kinds of lenses and perspectives that I often see couples come in with so certainly these are not all of them that exist and I'm only going to be giving kind of brief descriptions of them and I'm going to give an example for each one also just to kind of give you a sense of what some of these lenses might look like Natalie I'm going to interrupt for a quick second do you want to launch the poll about this line now or when you're done you know what I'm gonna let me describe these pieces and then I think it'll help people um choose the one that best fits them once they understand them a little bit more thoroughly okay okay mm mm all right great also I do see some stuff coming in through chat and I'm not clicking on that right now so I just want to acknowledge that I do see stuff coming in and we'll make sure that there's plenty of time at the end for questions okay sounds good wonderful okay so again I'm going to go through these four different lenses and give you guys a little bit more information on what that might actually look like and what some examples of these might be okay so this concept of logical versus emotional so sometimes partners come into conversation using either a logical brain or an emotional brain and so using a logical brain might mean that someone is using more logic and intellect to make decisions so it means they're taking kind of that logical passage so it's driven by a lens that's likely looking for the quickest easiest probably clear solution in a situation so it might not necessarily be taking into account the emotional piece of the person that they're in conversation with or that they're interacting with so it's it's logical it makes a lot of sense but it's not taking that emotional piece into account and then so occasionally other partners then will come in with a bit of a more emotional brain so that means that they are thinking about what their experience is of something or what someone else's experience is so they're making decisions and engaging in conversation that's more driven by emotions so I think neither of these are right or wrong they're both quite important when we're thinking about lenses of moving forward in some sort of communication but they can be quite a dichotomous in the way that we're looking at something and certainly caused a lot of stress if someone's thinking more logically and another partner is thinking more emotionally about it so I'm gonna give an example of what this might look like for a couple so I was working and I will this a little aside so all of my examples are de-identified and I've changed the names of things the folks that I'm using in the examples so a couple that I worked with like to have regular dinners together so Julia who was on the spectrum liked to follow recipes pretty exactly so she liked to be really logical and exact and she knew that if she followed step by step things just turned out better so her husband Mike who was neurotypical like to help her cook um he didn't really like to follow the recipes he liked to do his own thing but he enjoyed connecting with her and chatting and having this experience of cooking together so this was actually quite frustrating in their conversations and in their communication because for Julia she was coming at it from a logical brain she was trying to make these really like nice well-executed meals for her family and Mike was coming at it from more of an emotional brain so he just wanted to spend time with her and enjoy her company and was thinking about it more of how it was for him emotionally so again night I was right or wrong neither was good or bad but it was quite frustrating for Julia to have Mike not be able to see her lens and logically just follow the recipes so that they were a bit better and it was frustrating for Mike because he was perceiving Julia as being angry and not wanting him to help and his whole purpose of connecting wasn't actually working so this was something that we were able to then identify that one of them was coming into it with illogical brain one was coming into it's an emotional brain and once we identified that we were able to talk some about how those lenses differ and we'll talk a little bit about some of the strategies for that later in this webinar but really how do we then forward having this piece of information about lenses I think anytime we're thinking about neuro-diverse couples work one of the most important things is that we're talking about neurodiversity we're talking about the fact that people's brains are wired differently they're coming out of it from different lenses and it's not an excuse and it's not making someone good in someone bad it means that both partners have equal responsibilities in a relationship to think about the way that they're looking at it and the way that their partners are looking at it and to be able to work on that collaboratively alright so I'm going to move along to concrete versus abstract so because of some of the difficulties of Asperger's with perspective shifting and sometimes theory of mind folks on the spectrum can have a tendency to see things from a bit more concrete or maybe even black-and-white perspective so this can be frustrating for partners if someone is being concrete and maybe seeing things as right or wrong and someone who's a bit more abstract and they're thinking or their lens is seeing a little bit more of the subtle nuances or the gray area so you know again these these views can help expand the way partners are seeing a solution but it can certainly be frustrating if someone is seeing something as very concrete and not necessarily seeing why or that gray area of why something might be happening and able to think about it a bit more abstractly so an example of this is I was working with a couple who had to go to a family reunion so Susan asked her husband Jared who is on the spectrum to make sure that his suit was pressed and dry-cleaned before they went to the reunion it was her family's reunion so concretely he did this he did all of the steps he took his suit he got it pressed it looked wonderful but he showed up at the reunion and he left his jacket on the entire time he left the jacket on because it was cold where the reunion was and so concretely he did the thing that she had asked and requested because it was her family but also concretely it was cold and he left his jacket on and so Susan had these nuanced reasons of wanting him to look a particular way at her family gathering and it asked him to press the suit so that he was well presented and was quite frustrated that he then didn't take his jacket off so it in couples work we were able to identify that sometimes brands work a little bit more concretely and see things a bit more dichotomously and sometimes other people's brains are looking at things in a more abstract way okay so our next one is absolutist and so this idea and this concept of making absolutist statements can really come from either partners so a neuro-diverse partner or a neurotypical partner and that's why I don't have versus anything because it really can be either one so if we think about some of the challenges for individuals on the spectrum again to kind of go back to some of the concrete thinking with perspective shifting with that concrete thinking with sometimes even expressive communication individuals on the spectrum can sound a bit more absolutist or firm in their communication sometimes so this might be language like this is the way we must do it or this is the right way to do something however just as frequently I see neurotypical partners who maybe have asked something a bunch of times or made several requests of something and then their language shifts to be quite absolutist as well so it might be you have to do it this way and they're getting feedback or instructions to do some sort of task in pretty absolutist terms so this lens of communication can feel quite challenging and destructive especially if both partners are doing it to some extent so a good example of this is a couple who was pretty new newly married the husband was on the spectrum and his wife had made a request that he would start helping more with chores at home so he would start taking over changing their sheets on their bed once a week and so this was the task that he was asked to do and his wife said to him and he reported in therapy that his wife said that he was absolutely never allowed to use the flannel sheets and so this this guy who I called John became really confused and quite angry at his wife one day when it was January and he saw the flannel sheets on the bed because he was told that he was never allowed to use the final sheets and she happened to change the sheets that week so he became quite upset and confused and we debriefed it in therapy and the wife shared that you know he was grabbing whatever sheets were on top whatever sheets he could find he would grab them and was putting the flannel sheets on all year round so she would go to bed in July and the flannel sheets would be on in July in New York City's pretty high and so this was something that she'd asked multiple times please only use the flannel sheets when it's winter please only use them from November to March and he continued to use them and so eventually she became at absolutist in her language and said never used the flannel sheets so I think this is a good example of how it can really come from either partner but that lens can be a tricky one when it's coming up in in couples communication so our last one here is around avoidant versus insistent so sometimes in communication one partner and and this can be the partner on the spectrum or they're not Asperger counterpart can be a bit more insistent that a conversation happen so at a certain time or in a certain way and their partner might be a bit more avoidant because they don't know what direction the conversation will go within maybe they're not paired to have a conversation at that time but these differing lenses can cause a lot of stress because really if we go back to that idea of how do we meet partner's needs neither other needs are being met if one person is more insistent that a conversation occurs and the other is trying to avoid it because they don't know where it's gonna go or they're having a tough day then those lenses of communication can cause a lot of stress so an example of this is Michael and Lynn who are both on that spectrum come to arguments from these different lenses so Michael often gets stuck on arguments or difficult conversations and can be really insistent and will insist that he and Lynn talk about a conversation until they come to some resolution even if that means one of them is quite dysregulated or maybe even to a point where they feel like they could potentially have a meltdown and so Lynn often becomes really avoidant in these interactions because she's afraid that a topic might evoke some sort of argument or it might evoke a longer conversation and so Lynn constantly describes this concept of walking on eggshells when something needs to be addressed because her style is more avoidant and less likely to engage especially if she thinks Michaels going to be insistent but they must complete a conversation or have a resolution in the moment so so these are the four concepts that I'm introducing as some of the different lenses that people can come into so I think Joanne does have a poll that she's gonna launch now that will give us a chance for the folks that are watching I know we said 2/3 are in relationships so this can be a relationship that you're in currently or for other folks this can be past relationships and you can check as many as apply but do you see any of these reflected in your relationship so the numbers are shifting quite a bit seems as though all of them are quite popular in common all right let's see so it seems as though Boyden versus insistent and receives the most followed biological versus emotional and then you have concrete versus abstract and that solutionist all right great so so some of these styles of communication and these lenses that partners come in are resonating with folks so I'm glad to hear that so the next thing we're going to transition to while thinking still about these different lenses is some of the most common challenges that I am hearing in my clinical practice so again this doesn't mean that you're going to identify with every single one of them they might not all be relevant in your partnership but my goal is to help folks identify areas that could be stressful or maybe you are struggling with in some way and to offer some strategies to really improve communication in these areas so we're gonna go through timing processing mind-reading and defensiveness and so my goal for each of these is I'm going to share a little bit about what I mean by each of these and then I'm gonna go into what are some concrete skills that again you could use as soon as you're done with this webinar in your relationship and in your communication and then I'm going to share an example from my work of a time where these sorts of challenges came up and in some cases kind of how we came to a resolution okay so we're gonna we're gonna start with timing so our most important question with timing is when are these conversations happening so the goal of this challenge is really to explore the timing of communication or conversations between partners so is it at the end of a really long day alternatively is it first thing in the morning when you're rushing around trying to get out of a house to go to work is there enough transition time after arriving home so often for individuals on the spectrum it's quite useful to have some sort of routine when you get home to decompress and to transition so is it happening as soon as someone's walking in the door there is some sort of conversation that's being sparked alternatively it is the partner on the spectrum being asked to task shift away from some preferred activity so are they in the process of reading a book that they really enjoy are they online are they doing some activity that they quite enjoy and being asked to stop and engage in some sort of conversation so when we're looking at this we're really thinking about when it winter conversations happening and again we're thinking about this challenge as a way then to set it up for more success okay so when we think about timing I'm gonna go through a couple of different skills or strategies that can support timing a bit better and really allow us to address this this challenge so are there ways to actually schedule communication so I think this works especially well for more serious conversations so some clients find it helpful to allow their Asperger partner to have a little bit of transition time upon arriving home from work and then that doesn't mean that you don't say hello but you know have a greeting and then some transition or decompression time once you arrive home to know maybe change your clothes or settle in or get a bite to eat before jumping into whether it's a more serious conversation or just kind of the demands of connection and communication in those moments so I have another couple who found it quite useful to connect once a week for more like logistic kinds of of communication that throughout the week when the neurotypical spouse would say you need to call a plumber tomorrow or you need to do this or you need to take the kids to sports practice that was quite stressful and wasn't well-timed communication and so for this particular couple a strategy that they used is on Saturday mornings they grab a cup of coffee together they both look at their calendars for the week and make a plan for who's going to do the pre-planned tasks now certainly things come up during the week I gave the example of a plumber so my guess is if you need a plumber you're probably not pre-planning it but to plan things and schedule them as much as possible if you're able to so if there is something more serious to talk about can you carve out some time to do say I'd like to talk to you at this time to speak about this particular thing okay so the next piece of this if we're thinking about timing is also how to effectively take breaks when a conversation isn't going well so if a conversation isn't going smoothly are there ways that you're able to step away anywhere from a few minutes to even a few hours to really be able to take a few moments to calm down and re-engage in the conversation so when we think about this we often need to think about how do we know when people need breaks right if we knew that some I really needed a break and then would be able to circle back to the conversation and be more effective conversation probably wouldn't get quite as stressful so in couples work or in a conversation with your partner it can be quite useful to help think about what are some cues that both you and your partner can identify if you maybe need a few minutes away so oftentimes the person on the spectrum might say I start to experience a particular feeling when I really need a break or I'm getting really upset um or often I see their neurotypical partner say you know I noticed that you often stand up when you start to get upset or you start walking around the room or they might notice some particular behavior that's happening where they can identify taking a break at that moment might be useful so you know I think this idea is quite helpful but I've also seen a lot of couples struggle with this technique so when you're having those conversations of when might be a good time to have a break you're doing that at a time when you're not in stressful communication you're doing it over dinner or you know on a commercial break from a TV show you're doing it at a time when the stakes are pretty low and there's not a lot of stress and so with those cues in a way that I often suggest people not take it personally is you know that communication is going to be a lot more effective and a lot smoother if you have that break and then can circle back and re-engage so sometimes I suggest people use a code word or some sort of strategy to identify when one or the other partner needs the break so when I see partners really struggle with this sometimes it's if somebody's getting up and just walking out of the room so that can results in a partner on the spectrum feeling like they're not being taken seriously or they're having some sort of react maybe they've had in the past where someone isn't valuing what they're saying and is walking away for a non Asperger partner they might feel like their partner's not listening or doesn't care and is walking out of the conversation so I usually encourage some sort of code words some fun word that that you guys both know means we just need a few minutes one of us is gonna walk out of the room and you make some sort of strategy for what that looks like so that you can walk away and then circle back later and continue that conversation or resume resume that so a good example of this is a couple that I was working with where they were having big blowout arguments and the partner who was on the spectrum would storm out of their apartment and would leave and he never would say when he was coming back and so his spouse would call and text him every few minutes for as long as he was gone and so his usefulness and purposefulness of walking out of their apartment was really to take a break and to cool down and to be able to come back and have a better more effective conversation with his wife but getting inundated with text messages and phone calls was really kind of an up and come up even more and getting him even more stressed out so not only was a code word created for them but there was some parameters set around what a break might look like so for this particular couple it was an hour he felt like he could really kind of cool down from a difficult conversation in about an hour and she could agree that for one full hour she wouldn't text and she wouldn't call and she would just let him decompress so she wasn't going to take it personally and he wasn't going to take it personally and they were going to just take a few minutes to give themselves a break so then they could circle back and have a more effective conversation okay so I'm gonna go through an example of what this might look like related to timing and this one is specifically related to partners arriving home after a long day at work so Jill is a neurotypical spouse and so when Kris walks into the apartment if you look at the left side of the screen she wants to hear about she wants to share about her day she wants to hear about Chris's today so she begins chatting right when he arrives home telling him stories of what's happened at work for her so then Jill perceives Chris is being really disengaged he's not participating in the conversation he almost seems annoyed and so then Jill leaves that conversation and that communication feeling really rejected and ignored so Chris who's on the spectrum had a long day at work and is arriving home and really needs some time to decompress so he's unable to effectively process the input coming in from Jill as she's chatting with him upon arrival he's trying to do his after work routine which helps him have some transition time upon arriving home and helps him feel a bit more grounded to start his evening so he's recognizing that Joe is upset and annoyed with him but he's not totally sure why or what he did and then at the end of that interaction Chris is feeling really overwhelmed and frustrated and for him this might result in exploding or shutting down so as we can see timing is really crucial to think about when we're having these conversations when we start them and if we need to step away from them for a few minutes okay so next we're going to move along to processing okay so a hallmark of autism is having some difficulties with social communication so for thinking about processing we're thinking also about reading those social cues so in neuro-diverse relationships a partner on the autism spectrum is being asked to read some of the subtle cues of their partner so is their partner upset with them or had a really crummy day are they really like sad and upset about something but being perceived as mad so sometimes if we're not being really clear and intentional in our communication there can be some difficulty in reading what those cues are I think the concept of short-term memory is also something that neuro-diverse individuals can struggle with so it certainly doesn't mean that they don't care or that they're not paying attention but really rather how they're processing information and forming memories and being able to come back to it so this is something that probably has been addressed at some point or maybe you even see in your relationship so if we're thinking about processing this really is thinking about expressive communication so how someone is expressing themselves and receptive communication so how they're receiving information from their partner do they need a couple of extra beats to think about a response or to process what you're saying are they trying to be really thoughtful and sometimes feel like there's a word salad jumble in their brain and they need a few minutes to sort it out before they're really expressing what they want to say that timing of how long it might take someone to respond can show up in some of these processing differences and there are diverse couples our topics coming out of nowhere so did something just happen or was it just talked about and a neurotypical spouse is feeling like they're bringing it up again and their partner has no idea what they're talking about and then I think this other idea of and this desire for immediate resolution kind of goes back to that distant lens does someone have a desire to talk about something in a moment and come to an immediate resolution are they expecting their partner to be able to process something and talk about it even if it's just being sprung on them so these are some of the general challenges that I often see related to processing okay so now we're going to go through three different skills for how we can be more effective in understanding recognizing and addressing processing so heads up so giving an advanced notice of bigger topics or discussions so this will yield significantly better results even if it seems quite apparent or quite apparent to the partner who is known asperger so this allows time to process ahead of time to really prepare for conversations so partners might have a better result if they send their partner on the spectrum a text or an email ahead of time to alert them to do either having a conversation in general or potentially if this is something that's okay in your relationship what sort of topic you'd like to talk about so a heads up that tonight when we're you know after you get home and have settled in I'd like to have a conversation with you about finding a new school for our daughter so giving some advance notice and a heads up so this will allow someone to have the time to really process that and think about it before they come into the conversation I think this works especially well if communication is a bit slower if expressive communication or receptive communication is slightly slower for the person on the spectrum because they're really being thoughtful about their words in the way that their their phrasing something and thinking about it giving them that a bit of lead time to consider it can be really useful so a caveat to this is not everything we need to talk to our spouses about is something we can anticipate and plan for ahead of time so this is something that can't always work but for conversations that we know are coming up or that we know we need to have it can be a useful tool okay so our next one is write it down so this means taking notes so especially if there is a task that a partner on the spectrum is being asked to come back to later this can be something that can help with processing it can help with short-term memory so I encourage focus on the spectrum if those are areas that you sometimes have difficulties with to write things down or take notes when it's a more serious conversation and so I think when we're thinking about writing those notes oftentimes that means outlining what the steps are to complete a follow-up task so it's not saying I use the example earlier of changing someone's child's school so it's not saying you need to call the new school you need to call new schools and try to get our daughter into a new school maybe it's let's make a list of schools that we want to look into and you can find the information online or you can call and have a preliminary conversation or there are some tasks step-by-step tasks that can really be identified to help someone remember and be able to come back to it so while writing it down is so helpful in communication in your marriage or in your partnership it's also just a really useful to fool probably at work or in some other areas of life now that we all have smart devices it's quite it can be quite easy to use the notes section to be able to take notes on something that we might want to follow up with so our next skill is reminders and so this can go in in both ways this can go from either partner so it can be that the spouse on the spectrum is making a note in their calendar or in their reminders to follow up on something that was too talked about in a conversation but it also alternatively could be that their spouse is helping with the reminders so maybe that means leaving a note on the kitchen counter or a place that someone walks daily maybe on the refrigerator it could also be a text reminder if that's something that you agree on to help prompt someone to remember that this is an important thing to follow up on so if we're writing it down and putting in reminders then we have a higher likelihood of that communication being able to be a bit more effective and to be able to follow through with whatever was talked about okay so I'm gonna go into an example so first I just I'm gonna give you kind of a way to imagine or envision this and then I'll jump into a an example so imagine that you've been thinking about something all day long so maybe even for the entire week so it's it's a really big deal it's really upsetting to you it's been on your mind constantly and you bring it up with your spouse and it's clear that it is totally out of the blue to them that they haven't given it any thought and because of that they have a really poor reaction and so this thing that you've put so much thought and effort into they don't have a great reaction to it and they're not processing it well they're not reacting to a while and then it almost feels even worse so my example of this is a woman named Sarah who's on the spectrum and it's about her wife Rebecca so and Rebecca's neurotypical so Rebecca was going through a medical scare so she been going to attend his amount of doctor's appointments she was constantly talked about her appointments talking about what was happening medically she had a really big test coming up a big scary tack medical test that she had to do and Rebecca had been talking about this tests day after day week after week as it was as they were getting closer to it and so she really needed support and she assumed that Sarah would join her because she could because Rebecca had been talking about it so frequently so the night before this appointment Rebecca casually asked Sarah what time she was meeting her the following day now Sarah cares deeply for her wife she loves her she's been really scared by this whole process also but knows that her wife isn't really capable good hands to the doctor's she found top doctors to work with Rebecca but she had never considered that Rebecca might want her to come to this appointment Rebecca always went to the appointments alone and then would call her afterwards and tell her about it Rebecca was not clear and concrete in her communication of what she expected and unfortunately in this situation Sarah was caught off guard she she had a big meeting the next day she didn't have time to call and schedule or call and cancel it so she really didn't have a very good reaction so Sarah felt totally blindsided by the request to take the day off Rebecca felt not cared for or supported and it ended up a really challenging argument for both of them so neither one was right or wrong it was really the way that they were processing and looking at this differently that Sarah was seeing it one way Rebecca was seeing it another they weren't clearly communicating about the ways that they were seeing it and had different expectations and assumptions for their partner okay so next we're gonna go into mind-reading all right so with mind-reading have you been together for many years and you expect your partner to instinctively know what you're thinking or you need does it feel like you've clearly communicated something maybe multiple times but your partner still feels like they're totally in the dark do you assume that your partner will know something because it's common sense or the typical thing to do so this phenomenon of mind-reading is a really good example of why it's so important to be very very clear in what you need what you want and what your intentions are inner diverse relationships so this is something that is a pretty common challenge especially in couples who have been married or have been together for a really long time because oftentimes we anticipate or expect but once we've known someone or been with them for a very long time that they're going to know or get us or just instinctively like we said know something okay so this idea of support versus strategy is one of my favorite things to talk about neuro-diverse couples work so if we're thinking about this concept of absolutism that we talked about earlier and/or this logical brain you know it can be difficult for foreigner a diverse partner to not just jump directly into giving strategy to resolve an issue so their brain is likely to see a clearer path to a decision or a logical response and they might jump into this idea of what's a strategy that you can do to get through whatever challenge that you're having so for a neurotypical partner they might be coming to commute to some conversation because they need support from their partner maybe they've already made a decision maybe they just need to vent about something but having a clear conversation about really what is needed in the moment can be quite useful so I suggest that people use this concept as kind of basic language in a relationship so if a partner if a partner who's not on the spectrum is sharing a story and your partner on the spectrum their tendency is to give it a strategy to give some sort of solution of this is what you should do or this is the logical way to resolve it my suggestion is that you actually pull back and say to your partner do you want support or a strategy this can help for someone on the spectrum to kind of organize their thinking around what's going to be the most useful in the moment you know is your partner looking for support are they looking for empathy and compat and compassion and for you just to listen to them sharing something or are they looking for a strategy are they looking for ideas a plan kind of a logical way to get through something that's really stressful so to be able to actually identify this and address it is so helpful because it's allowing a partner on the spectrum to organize their thinking in a way that otherwise their brain might not be hardwired to do so our next skill with mind-reading is around psychical education and so what do I mean by that so it's often worked on in couples counseling because it can help set expectations for what you can reasonably expect from your partner and then also how to communicate how to better communicate the things that you need rather than just relying on your partner to know intuitively so the cycle education piece is often one that I'm doing with a neurotypical partner where we are saying what can you reasonably expect and that certainly doesn't mean that that your neuro-diverse partner can't be the most incredible partner ever but it really means can you expect your partner to just intuitively know things if your partner's brain is wired differently than you they're gonna be thinking about things differently they're going to be experiencing things differently and they're gonna have a different lens and so when we think about reasonable expectations we're really we're considering this idea of if we're not clear in concrete we can't expect someone to just know what we need the psychoeducation piece for a neurotypical partner is also helps offer techniques to better express yourself so that means how do you use more concrete language or how do you actually say something out loud when you think it's really clear and obvious that can often be quite useful in communication because your partner is not trying your partner on the spectrum isn't trying to guess or figure out what you're talking about or mind-read they just know right we know that this concept of mine reading while some people and we see people on movies doing this it's really not a skill that any of us have so doing psychoeducation doesn't set you up to expect that someone will be able to do that and then you're disappointed when they can't but it really helps set expectations and then teach skills to better communicate which is really around using more concrete direct language when you're able to okay so now we're going to go into a mind-reading example so Jan is a neurotypical spouse so she's been married to her husband Brad for about 25 years um so she knew that Brad loved her and thought she was beautiful but he had stopped giving her any sort of compliments when they were first dating he would often compliment how beautiful she was and it felt really lovely but that had long since stopped so she really wished he would compliment her more but she never communicated that to him so she hoped that by doing subtle things like changing her makeup or fixing her hair little differently or wearing different clothing might help him give her more compliments so one night they were sitting on the couch and Brad was looking at her and she said to him tell me what you're thinking about you know so Jan was hoping that he would then give her a compliment and Brad said I was thinking about what we should have for dinner and JJ was devastated by this so she felt even more rejected and upset and for Brad he loved her he'd always thought she was eautiful he didn't necessarily see the logic or the reason to continue to say it he was married to her for 25 years so in couples counseling we were able to really identify this concept of mind-reading and Jam was then able to more clearly learn techniques to communicate her need for why compliments were something that were was important to her why she needed them and Brad was able to hear it and while he still maybe didn't think it was necessary because he loved her and of course she was beautiful he was able to incorporate it more into their routine because he understood why this was something she was asking okay so our last section of this is around offensiveness okay so with defensiveness so when you're hearing feedback do you automatically think your spouse is criticizing you for a partner on the spectrum does this result in shutting down or lashing out does that feel like difficult topics can't be brought up because they results in a fight maybe that's for the neurotypical partner okay so we're going to go through two skills for this so our first is around intention setting so this is one of the reasons why intentions for your relationship are so important so it really clarifies the reason why you're having the conversations so often when a couple comes to me for an initial neuro-diverse counseling session we will spend some time talking about what what their intentions are so if we go back to that goal slide from the beginning if a couple says our intentions are to maintain our relationship and we are doing this work because we want to stay together then we've set and grounded in these good intentions for the relationship so that means that we are giving feedback or talking about things that that might you might get defensive about but not to hurt your partner but rather be cause you want to strengthen your relationship they're able to ground an intentions a bit more I think another piece of intention setting helps a couple have a conversation about how some of these past experiences that a partner on the spectrum has had can results in reactions to feedback right if you've constantly had to defend yourself from bullying or people not respecting you or not giving you the time of day to talk about things then you might get defensive out of habits in these situations okay so our next skill I'm realizing I may have it should be two out of two I'm sorry about that is around information delivery so this can allow the neurotypical spouse to think about ways that they're delivering information so is that is it happening in the middle of a big argument is there a way that you can share feedback later when things are a bit calmer so often I will hear couples try to give feedback to one another or maybe a neurotypical spouse give feedback to the partner on the spectrum in the middle of the big argument and that feedback is not going to be very productive or useful and someone probably is going to get quite defensive about it so after the fact when things have calmed down and there's no longer like the stress or crisis of something happening is there a way that you can share feedback and give some additional information or context so you're stating your intention of you know I'm sharing this feedback because I love you and I want our marriage to work you know I think that's a way to be able to offer feedback and information from the lens of I want to work on this marriage I want to have better communication and then you're able to be clear and intentional of sharing this information right so the idea of defensiveness especially for someone on the spectrum is going to continue to happen if you're giving feedback at times or one is already really really stressed out or overwhelmed are already in a difficult conversation okay so I'm going to give an example for defensive nests so triggered from his adolescence if people always say he was wrong and criticizing him Jeff who was on the spectrum reacted really strongly when his husband would share any feedback so he constantly saw it as a criticism and not only was he unable to hear it he was definitely able to unable to take it in or to incorporate it so he would get really angry he would get upset and usually it would result in him exploding and there would be a huge fight so his spouse Luke who was neurotypical began to become really resentful and angry and stopped bringing up topics altogether so Jeff was used to having having to always defend himself so he would go into this defensive mode without even realizing it from his adolescence because he had always gone into having to defend himself when people were bullying or being unkind to him so in couples therapy once intentions were set of they love each other and they're giving each other feedback you know Luke was giving Jeff feedback specifically because he wanted to help strengthen their communication and in their relationship we were able to set those intentions but then also make a plan for how Luke would give that feedback how he would share more critical feedback about something so that allowed Jeff to be able to more effectively receive it and incorporate it he wasn't seeing it as a personal attack anymore because he understood the intention behind it so for Jeff not only was this a really helpful tool in his marriage but it also really supported him receiving feedback in other areas of his life so at work and in different places he was able to understand a little bit more about the intention behind it and not become quite so defensive okay so those are the four main areas so identifying these areas that may be challenging in your relationship and then incorporating the tools that we've discussed so my goal is that that can then help support clear less frustrating communication so I think you know thinking about timing and processing mind-reading defensiveness thinking about these areas and what are some skills that you can integrate to really be able to more effectively communicate and not let some of these challenges really continue to rear up in your relationship so if you're working with a neuro-diverse couples therapists I think one of my suggestions would be that one of the goals is that you can kind of further explore these areas specifically related to your relationship practice some of the strategies we talked about today so my goal is that this is a jumping off point for viewing communication as something that certainly can be difficult but not impossible and there are a lot of ways like any skill that we can learn and practice and build to be able to get better and better at this so I think this is an opportunity to do one more poll and my goal is to see which of these areas that we talked about today do you think you might like to further strengthen in your own communication so do you want to work on the timing of conversations do you want to be more mindful of how people are processing it do you want to think more about how mind-reading occurs in your marriage or when someone might become defensive or there's defensive Mis coming up you you you nothing so far defensiveness seems to be a topic like a defensiveness okay great all right so that can be a good goal for some folks out there to work on excellent so all right so now this leads us I see a few I see the little red circle on the QA so I think we have some questions and Joanne's been fielding those for us so we can kind of jump into the Q&A portion now okay great yes we have quite a few questions so the first one is my fiance is a very heavy mark marijuana smoker what are the pros and cons of smoking if they are on the spectrum I cannot approach him about it without him thinking and verbally attacking okay so I think that's it that's a great question you know if we're thinking about coping skills or adaptive skills that someone on the spectrum is using just sometimes skills coping skills can be more adaptive and sometimes it can be a little bit more maladaptive but often times people come up with strategies to help them decompress or calm down and so I'm wondering for your partner if maybe this is something that he's identified helps him calm down a bit when he's feeling overwhelmed and the defensive miss would be coming from a place of thinking it could be taken away so I think my suggestion around this would really be to think about the timing of a conversation so certainly if someone to actively smoking you don't want to bring up you know your concerns about it but maybe if this is a conversation that you can have at a time when that's not happening and then I think a goal would be for your partner to maybe think of and identify what are some other coping strategies that are also really effective you know are there are other things that help them decompress and calm down and settle down at the end of the day and maybe some of those things are things that you even do together so I think part of this is understanding it from the lens of neurodiversity and why that might be happening or what the usefulness of that might be and then thinking about the time that you're bringing it up understanding that they might be defensive but if you've done that intention setting like we talked about then you're coming into that conversation saying I love you I care about you I care about our relationship so I want to talk about this it's not because I'm mad at you but because I'm concerned and I'd like to think about other strategies so I think in general we never want to take something away without giving something so to help identify some other strategy might be useful in that process Thanks so the next question is my husband has trouble modulating his voice and speak so softly that I can't hear him and I have to ask him to repeat everything all of the time he is undiagnosed and it has to say that way to keep his anxiety levels down but do you have any suggestions on how I can work with him is he's undiagnosed what identifies that someone on the spectrum she says that he has the she believes that he's on the spectrum she has no hearing issues and he has no neurological issues sure so and this is something that my guesses that have been addressed that you guys have talked about and wondering and maybe this is something you can chat me if when you're bringing it up or asking him to repeat does he get frustrated about that is that something that causes conflict or difficult conversations he says that he doesn't realize how soft he is when he's speaking okay so I think this might be a really good place to use that strategy of a cold word that we talked about earlier so my guess is that you're recognizing pretty quickly that you can't care what he's saying or that you're not taking in all of the pieces that you want to be hearing because you're only hearing bits and pieces so when there's a time where you guys are having just a general conversation or maybe again you plan out a time to actually talk about this maybe creating a code word that you can say that means I love you I want I care about you and I want to hear what you're saying so turn up the volume a little bit so that way that you're not hopefully disrupting his train of thought so he can continue expressive in what he wants to say but giving him a cue and so maybe that's a code word maybe that's a hand gesture but coming up with some strategy that you guys create together because I think one of the challenges for some folks on the spectrum is that if you're identifying in a moment or it's saying something you might just regulate that that train of thought they're having and it might be hard to get back to that community line of communication but giving a hand signal or a code word that you pre-established together could help give that prompt to just turn the volume up a little bit as he's talking okay good good to know so our next question is my fiancee has this need to have tons of friends nine out of ten of them use him and then take advantage of him but he doesn't like it when someone points it out to him and he starts flipping out do you have any suggestions on how to work with your fiance's on the spectrum or yes so again I think if we're thinking back to this concept of defensiveness and we're thinking back to past experiences and behaviors you know I think unfortunately for folks on the spectrum because there are some social challenges and difficulties it means that their trajectory of making friends might be different so it sounds like your fiancee has made people who he's considering friends in his life it doesn't sound like maybe they're looking at him in that same way and so I think for him it might be working with other therapists to help identify people that he really does 1 in his life or what makes someone a it sounds like he's a really good friend to those people but they're kind of using him so to be able to identify that a little bit more what makes someone a really good friend I think so many times someone on the spectrum thinks that because they've had trouble having friends before that if someone wants to be their friend that they then will participate in that because they've had bad experiences or rejections in the past and they don't want to reject that person but so an individual therapy I think to build some self-confidence around you get to decide who your friends are what makes a good friend and then certainly I think found resetting but that area sounds like one that I would probably suggest doing some individual work with someone who understands and is skilled in looking at the doulton the spectrum might be most useful to target some of those areas ok so the next question is about taking breaks from conversation and I just want to let you know I think your voices is getting a little tired if you could speak a little louder for us so the next question is my ASPI husband takes breaks from conversation but he doesn't come back and nothing ever gets resolved and she's looking for a strategy you're sure so I think that's a really that's a really really good example so if you remember the example that I gave about the couple where the husband moved into the apartment and initially he would never come back right that that was something similar so he would never he wouldn't he wouldn't tell her when he was coming back he would just storm out of the apartment and she would call or text him a bunch of times to try to get him to return and it became this really frustrating thing so one of the strategies that they created together was this idea of what would these breaks look like and then what would the follow-up the after the break so I do think it can sometimes be useful to take a break and step away from a conversation and then maybe circle back to it a day later but I think what I'm hearing you say though is that circling back never happens and I think that can be quite frustrating so I would recommend having a conversation with your partner to say okay what does a brief look like you know this is this adaptive thing you're doing to help our communication to step away but how do we step back into it so it's I think it's it's pushing that plan a little bit further so is there a particular amount of time that's quite useful for him to sacrifice so for him is that an hour is that the rest of the evening do you then the following day plan and give him time to process that you're gonna have a conversation at five o'clock or you guys are going to sit down that evening and and kind of come to some resolution but I think it's identifying this it's identifying it as a challenge that you guys are having because of the neurodiversity because you're looking at it from different lenses so that would be my suggestion would be really to identify this as a challenge in your relationship sit down and kind of make a plan for what it looks like what it looks like for him to take that break right because that's something he needs in the moment but what you need and what your lens is is some sort of solution or follow-through of that conversation so I hope that that's helpful okay good yes so this question talks about equalizing the response at a workload between two partners they're looking for specific tips for how to do this with the thought that the neurotypical partner is often the person to initiate household tasks and they start to feel burned out after a while sure sure my follow-up question to that would be are there any strategies that you've tried in terms of division of household tasks a good question if you want to go ahead and get write it in the chat write that back to us let's see I'm not seeing it yet oops yes they have tried to they have tried to divide to divide them tonight yes okay so by clearly outlining what who does what tasks around the house it sounds that way one person is more task based than the other sure okay all right great so I think the concept that we talked about earlier where when you make a plan with a partner for something to happen and we talked about writing it down right this concept of writing it down and not just writing it down to say this is what you have to do but outlining it a little bit further so you know it sounds like this conversation is already happening right you guys know that one person is more task based the other isn't maybe for one partner having the house and things clean and look a certain way is more important than to the other maybe one partner's recognizing it and it's impacting them and the others not necessarily recognizing it so I think that's quite useful to know okay okay all right so that's that's quite helpful so the the clarifying information we just got is the person with Asperger's is also has ADHD and as a result that kind of feel like roommates so the there neurotypical spouse is is pretty burnt out from doing all of these tasks so you know I think the strategy of this clearly you guys are already talking about it you're already having conversations around what the experience is of each partner you know in identifying that from a neuro-diverse lens you guys are looking and experienced looking at this and experiencing it just from different ways so my suggestion would be that there's some sort of really very specific and concrete plan that's made of what sorts of tasks are going to be the most useful division so is there is there something more concrete the person that's not as task based are there things that are more concrete that they can do let's say every Friday they do these couple of tasks so not a task that will result in you know them having to monitor something but you know twice a week or three times a week they take the garbage out and these are the days they take the garbage out I think if someone is less task based and maybe less skilled in their executive functioning we want to give them tools to be able to kind of follow through with it because certainly if your partner's feeling really burnt out and feeling like a roommate and feeling overwhelmed we want to be able to take that load so I would suggest sitting down and mapping out a plan writing it down writing down something really concrete that's again not requiring checking or monitoring but on these particular days of the week this can be something that's just integrated into their routine for the partner on the spectrum especially if ADHD isn't into play but there's a reminder popping up on your phone let's say on fridays to take the garbage out and try to integrate really concrete strategies to see if that can help move it forward but not pick up the house when it's messy right so something much more concrete that would still be really useful so maybe it's doing the dishes at the end of the evening before you go to bed or something that can be really concrete and mapped out so I hope that that's helpful and I think certainly keep having these conversations because there might be a bit of trial and error and what's going to actually work the best in terms of the division of of tasks ok good so this question is from a person who is looking for advice on how to tell her husband that she wants a divorce and she goes on to say that any type of relationship oriented conversations don't go well then he shuts down or he melts down and she's become extremely conflict avoidant so she's not sure whether she should give him a little preview and say that I'd like to have a conversation with you after work or whether she should just start the conversation off from the start sure my suggestion actually might be to work with a neuro-diverse calls therapist around this it sounds like you've had made some efforts to try to talk about challenges or talk about stressors and it doesn't seem to be going very well and if you think that the result is likely going to be shutting down or lashing out working with the neuro-diverse couples therapist who really understands working with couples whose brains are wired differently I think could be useful in allowing someone else to help kind of with some of that intention setting and be a support to both of you as you go through this process so that might be my suggestion it sounds like this your partner is somebody who potentially could benefit from some time to process it and to think about it ahead of time but if if they're kind of exploding or or on the verge of melting down with some of these topics come up it might be useful to do it in a space with someone who understands how both of your brains are working and how they're working differently so I will this wasn't included in the original slides that went out but one of the slides I have in a couple of slides is that it is a sorry it's an ad for a website I'm sorry an Institute that's called neurology matters and neurology matters is a training program that's out of a AMA that is really aims to help train people who are already doing couples therapy to really understand their diversity better and to understand how to work with neuro-diverse couples and so it's an incredible training and then it allows people to actually go through a certification course so I have a link towards the end where you guys can know folks are from all over the country who are attending this webinar right now or who are going to be listening to it later and so this actually I'll you'll see a link that you can put in your zip code and you can see if there are nerd the first couple therapist in your area and if not there are folks and their folks at a A&E grace my hell is one who will do online couples coaching so I think finding someone who understands how neurodiversity is a packing this could be quite useful okay thank you so the next question is talking about the differences in men and women so as we learn more about autism and women and girls what differences do you notice between how autistic women approach and function in relationships versus autistic men sure I think I could probably do an entire presentation I'm a girl I can kind of go through the cliffnotes yeah yeah so I think with the cliffnotes I think often times with women especially women who are diagnosed later because our diagnostic measures are catching up but they haven't always have been able to really capture it well I think we see a lot of women masking and doing things that can be quite stressful on on themselves and even on their mental health to try to look or act or be a certain way and it can cause them kind of extra stressors I think especially if it's happening throughout the workday and then they're coming home and there are different demands so I often see stressors with that that's a little bit different and I think some of that is the masking some of it's how the women are raised I think there are a lot of different components that can complete into that but I think you know when were thinking about someone on the spectrum the profiles vary so much and the way that someone you know is the brain is wired differently or that their neuro-diverse is gonna be a little bit different for everyone um so I'm not sure beyond that little kind of disclaimer I don't know if I can give specifics this or that but I certainly think that working with an individual therapists for anyone is is really helpful in being able to identify specifically what are those challenges and what are those incredible strengths and what are the things that we do to help mitigate some of the difficult things oops thanks for that Wesley so we are just about out of time so I'm gonna take one last question and then I have copies of the questions can I send them to you and you can email the answers back to me yeah absolutely okay great so we'll do that and then I'll include those responses in the email I send out on Thursday with what's a video link so it's a question then the last question is what resources books or podcasts to people find helpful in learning more about communication and neuro-diverse marriages so that's an excellent question and I think that's one that I'm probably best gonna be able to give you in writing so I have some NOAA and he has some great suggested readings on their website I also have a list of ones that I tend to recommend to partners there are lots of great podcasts out there an incredible one that's happening right now is called spectrum in speaking with Becca Laurie and Kate Cody so I I think let me let me table this answer and I will send that with those questions for Thursday okay all right all right I'm gonna click through let's see my contact information which you guys have I think hey any resources I'm not sure Joann was there anything that you wanted to say to this so I wanted to let folks know that we are here to help and that we do have these resources available and that you or your your spouse or partner do not need to have a formal diagnosis to contact us and I'm you said you weren't going to put up the neurology matters piece as well so that link helps you to be able to see the therapists that have been trained and certified Asner first couples therapists and then also grace my hell is another incredible resource who does neuro-diverse couples coaching yes absolutely okay sorry I was just checking to make sure we didn't have another question coming but I am going to I'll send you the remaining ones we will run out of time to try to cut through them all right now okay excellent thank you everyone who's participating live and for everyone who's going to be watching this recorded leader yes and thank you my way this has been great and there's quite a bit of information here and thank you all for joining us this evening and take care wow thank you bye-bye good night

Channel: Asperger/Autism Network - AANE

Views: 3,250

Rating: 4.8117647 out of 5

Keywords: aane, autismspectrum, onthespectrum, asperger's, neurodiversity, communication, couples, relationship

Id: cwtKfVx56iI

Length: 85min 32sec (5132 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 10 2019