Boundary Essentials for Neurodiverse Couples-Barbara Grant
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Welcome to the Neurodiverse Love Podcast. I'm Mona Kay and I was married for 30 years and in that relationship for 32. We didn't find out that we were a neurodiverse couple until our 29th year of marriage. I've been divorced since 2018 and together we have an amazing adult daughter who is thriving and doing fantastic. My hope is that as you navigate your relationship, But the information shared in this podcast will help you better understand the strengths, differences, and challenges you may have in your mixed neurotype relationship. If you would like to learn more about the resources I have available, I hope you will also check out my website at neurodiverselove.com. And I also hope you will subscribe to the podcast and let me know what you like about each episode.
Thank you so much for listening to the Neurodiverse Love Podcast. Hi, Barbara. It is so good to see you and welcome to the Neurodiverse Love Conference.
Thank you so much, Mona. As I was saying, you were my very first podcast experience years ago, and I've been hooked ever since. You're such an excellent interviewer and lovely to speak with.
Oh, thank you. I feel the same way. And I know our conversation is going to be so helpful to a lot of folks because we're going to talk about boundaries in neurodiverse relationships. And I know a lot of couples. feel uncomfortable even asking for boundaries or discussing them because it feels like kind of almost invasive sometimes. So I'd love to start with you kind of sharing why are neurodiverse couples at higher risk for codependence and dysfunction? What have you seen?
Well, you know, I think of course everybody is different. Every single neurodivergent person is different. Every neurotypical is different. But what I see in general in human relationships is a lack of understanding about where they start and stop. And where the other starts and stops and who's responsible for what? In a healthy way. Many of us grow up in families where there's a lot of confusion about what we're supposed to do, what, you know, emotions we're responsible for. We have to caretake others. Others are jumping into our lane and telling us what to do. And that seems normal to many people, like stepping all over the place and having others step all over them. And none of us are happy about it.
We're all pretty not happy about it. And then that gets internalized. A lot of this is programming and habits. So people are not. who their habits what their habits are. People are who they choose to reprogram themselves to be over time. Of course we all have different wiring. So that's where the um the trouble for boundaries and neurodiverse relationships largely comes from um What I'm going to call the double empathy issue. Many people might have heard of that, where a neurodiverse person may or may not have very good. Theory of mind? And may not be able to read the general context of a situation, a lack of central coherence, lack of um nuanced understanding of social behavioral, you know, cues, that all is well known.
But the neurotypical partner or the less maybe autistic partner is possibly um going off of scripts they've learned socially where they're overlaying a lot of expectations and um Because couples come from such different backgrounds and programs of how boundaries are or aren't handled,
yeah.
Everybody comes with their own expectations. And neurodiverse couples are at higher risk for um I I think just trying to echo locate off the other more than they need to.
Yeah.
Okay. So when we have a sense of who we are and not only that, but we're kind of comfortable with that. That's been somehow affirmed. We're secure, we've been supported, we feel safe, seen heard, secure. Soothed in that in who we are. then we're able to say, no, that doesn't work for me. You know, let's not do that. Or let's try this instead. And we're much quicker to identify what is rubbing us the wrong way and what to do about it. Neurodiverse couples, um, maybe neurodivergent people I'll talk about first. I think they they inherently grow up until there's a familiarity with their neurodivergence or an acceptance or an embrace of it.
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Chapters
3 chaptersSpeakers
2 identifiedMore from Neurodiverse Love with Mona Kay, MSW, Ph.D.
Lessons Learned & Lived Experiences: Mona’s Final Solo Episode
Improving Regulation & Communication-Jill Corvelli, Daniel Dashnaw, Barbara Grant & Jessie Mahoney
How is Neurodivergence Impacting Your Relationship?-Karen Doherty
Could I Really Be Autistic? Your First Steps to Self Discovery-Sarah Hendrickx
Imposter Syndrome, RSD, PDA & More-Panel Presentation from 2025 Neurodiverse Love Conference
Creating Consensual Reality in Your Neurodiverse Relationship-Margaret Cocharan