My partner has Asperger's syndrome

Note: since the DSM-5, Asperger’s syndrome has been included within autism spectrum disorder (ASD). I keep the term in this article because it’s the one many people still use.

Following a post I wrote about three years ago about Anna and Ben (Asperger’s syndrome), a couple of couples have recently come to see me in which she is neurotypical and he has the syndrome. It’s a subject I’ve touched on very little in these articles and I’d like to say a bit more about it over a few posts, as I think it could be useful to quite a few people. Today I’d specifically like to talk to you about communication in this kind of couple, and more precisely about opening up emotionally to the other person.

Before getting into it, I’d like to remind you that people with Asperger’s syndrome have three areas affected:

• Social relationships
• Communication
• Imagination

It’s worth stressing that there is huge variety among people with Asperger’s, which is why diagnosis is so complicated and they often go unnoticed or are misdiagnosed. This is especially true when the person is high-functioning, meaning they can lead a relatively ordinary life. It’s not unusual to meet adults who don’t know they have Asperger’s, or who have only recently found out. As I said in the post about Ben and Anna, it isn’t true that people with Asperger’s don’t have feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. They do have them, just like you and me. The problem is that their brain works differently from that of a neurotypical person (someone outside the autism spectrum), so they often identify, manage and communicate emotions less skilfully than others.

From here on, when I talk about Asperger’s I’ll be referring to men, because that’s the case in the couples I’m telling you about and because it’s diagnosed more often in men (although we now know it often goes unnoticed in women). Even so, much of what I describe can also happen when she is the one with Asperger’s.

As I mentioned, I’m going to focus on a very specific part of communication: how a man with Asperger’s opens up emotionally to his partner. Talking about what you think or feel goes a long way towards building a bond with your partner that you don’t have with other people. The degree of intimacy and connection between two people grows with this kind of conversation.

What happens when my partner has Asperger’s?

Generally speaking, they find it very hard to open up, however much they trust their partner. This is largely because many men with Asperger’s are very sensitive to criticism. They know they are different from most people and that this has often led to problems. What’s more, as I mentioned, many of them have no idea why, because nobody has ever diagnosed them. So it’s hardly surprising that they’re used to being criticised, and that they see opening up to their partner as a potential threat: saying what they feel and think has caused them a lot of trouble throughout their lives, because they find it very hard to put themselves in someone else’s shoes.

So-called theory of mind, that is, sensing what the other person might be thinking and how they’re likely to react to something we say or do, is something many men with Asperger’s find especially difficult. This makes it very hard for them to empathise with other human beings, which is why many of them can come across as cold or cruel when expressing what they think and feel. They don’t usually have a filter, and that’s a problem in the society we live in.

They also tend to take everything as criticism, because that’s easier for them than trying to listen to and validate what their partner is trying to get across. Doing so would be a bigger challenge, since they would be forced to question the way they see themselves. These people tend to be quite mentally rigid, so changing the ideas they already have about themselves is a huge struggle. That’s why they avoid any situation or conversation in which they’d be forced to question their own ideas, and prefer to see criticism where there is none, so they can reject it and close the subject.

And what about her? Can she tell him how she feels?

It hasn’t been studied much, but some couples describe what is sometimes called the feeling of deafness: when she starts talking about feelings, emotions… he feels, almost literally, that he can’t hear her, as if the words turned into whispers he can’t quite catch. Some even reply, “Speak up, I can’t hear you.” They often find it very hard to hear and understand any emotional opening from their partner (or from anyone else). To put it another way, it’s as if someone started talking to you in highly technical language about a field you know nothing about. Something similar happens to them with emotions.

Can people with Asperger’s improve in this respect?

They can, though within limits. Asperger’s isn’t an illness that can be cured, but a different way of functioning that stays with the person throughout their life. Their brain works differently from a neurotypical person’s, and this needs to be absolutely clear so that we don’t ask them for changes they can’t make. They can learn, from a logical and practical point of view (not an emotional one), how to behave, what to say and what to do in certain situations. For example: if I think that skirt looks terrible on my partner and she loves it, it’s better not to tell her, because she’ll cry and get angry, as has happened before. I can’t understand why, but I know the outcome is bad for her, so I won’t tell her, and that way she won’t cry and there won’t be an argument at home.

The world of Asperger’s is very complex, and life becomes much harder for the person who has it, but also for their partners. When they are correctly diagnosed and both members of the couple understand that there’s a logical explanation for everything they’ve been through, it’s a huge relief for both of them. And that’s where the work begins.