TIP: when your autistic partner gets defensive

I’d like to address a question raised by a subscriber in the Chat section. She wants to know whether I have any communication tips to help her when her partner gets defensive and she feels “hurt, hopeless, and shut down.”

This challenge arises frequently in couple sessions. The neurotypical (NT) partner brings up a topic. Maybe she’s talking about something that frustrated her. As she speaks, her tone and facial expression match the emotion she is expressing. In a conversation with another NT person, all this information would probably be read accurately, and she would feel as if the person she was speaking with understood what she was saying and what she needed from them.

Meanwhile, at home

In a conversation with her autistic husband, though, she has a different experience. Instead, he doesn’t follow either what she means or what she needs from him. He responds as if she were angry.

Angry at him.

And he becomes defensive.

She may hear whataboutisms such as, “well, you do that, too,” or even something sarcastic, such as, “and I suppose you never do that.” All these kinds of comments are likely to do is inflame her. For one thing, they sound careless and even rude. For another, both effectively change the focus of the conversation from what she is talking about to what he wants to talk about.

Now, both partners are feeling off kilter.

Another possibility is that she’s speaking too quickly for him. If he is not able to follow and figure out exactly what she’s talking about, he will feel lost and frustrated for that reason alone, regardless of the topic at hand. All he can see clearly if that happens is that she seems angry and his life experience suggests she’s probably angry at him.

Rejection sensitivity

One common feature of being autistic is rejection sensitivity. This is not an unusual result of the sense of not getting things right over and over again in his life to the point at which a person becomes primed to expect rejection. Many autistic adults report feeling this way after a lifetime of feeling out of step or for having been criticized after making their best effort. They can learn to respond to any raised emotion from another person as anger directed at them.

This can lead to emotional disregulation, which then, as anxiety rises, makes it very difficult for the autistic person to follow, much less respond to, his neurotypical partner once the pattern of rejection sensitivity takes hold. This is what is so frustrating also for the neurotypical partner, who may continue to try to make her point or get frustrated at her partner for “making everything about him when it has nothing to do with him.”

When I work with couples, we discuss this dynamic so that both partners can understand it with compassion and move toward changing it within their relationship.

Suggestion for improving her chances of being heard

Once both partners understand the cascading effect of rejection sensitivity, they’re better prepared to address it. One thing the NT partner can do is begin the conversation earlier than she may normally do. For example, she may say, “I’d like to tell you about something that happened at work today and how it made me feel.” This way, her autistic partner has a head’s up on where to focus his attention and an increased likelihood of understanding that what she’s about to say does not involve him.

I generally recommend the NT partner also chose the timing for such a conversation with care. If an autistic partner is already focused intently on something else or involved in a project of some sort (which can include such things as cooking or picking up toys or cleaning gardening tools, for example), he is more likely to experience anything she may say as an interruption, which, by definition, interrupts his focus and can lead to frustration and anxiety. This heightened emotional pressure contributes to making him less able to focus on anything his partner says.

One way around this is to begin the conversation even earlier in the information chain by saying something like, “There’s something I’d like to tell you about. If this isn’t a good time, could you tell me when you’ll be available? It’s not about you.”

A focusing question for the autistic partner

Often, clients tell me that part of the challenge for them is not knowing what their partners want or need from them. They experience losing time trying to figure that out and in the process missing the meaning of what she is saying as she continues to talk.

I suggest autistic partners ask this: Do you need me to listen, to comment, or to hug you?

If the NT partner can give a clear answer to this question, the autistic partner will more likely be able to hear what she’s saying subsequently.

Does that sound tedious?

The important question, hard as it may sound, is this: does the NT partner want to improve communication with her autistic partner or does she want to stay frustrated by assuming incorrectly that his way of processing information is the same as hers?

The autistic partner’s responsibility

Once the NT partner makes the bid for conversation by giving him advance notice and assuring him that she’s not planning to criticize him, he has the responsibility of saying yes, he can talk now, or of letting her know (within the next reasonable amount of time) when he will be able to do so.

Then he must remember to listen with the knowledge that anything she says is not meant as a criticism of him. If he begins to feel dysregulated, he must let her know that he can see the conversation is important, he is unable to continue it now, and he would like to bring it up again after dinner, once the children are in bed, tomorrow morning - in other words, at a specific time. Then she must be able to hold him at his word.

Both partners have a role in change

Change is possible. It doesn’t involve the expectation of making both partners neurotypical or autistic. It means both partners have responsibilities to acknowledge their differences, understand their challenges, and make whatever changes they need to make in order to improve their communication.

This is another way of saying they each make changes in order to increase the sense of connection that they both want in their relationship.

I hope this is helpful and that it answers the subscriber’s concern to a useful extent.

I encourage all subscribers to send me their questions or concerns and I will do my best to address them.

Caveat: In this case because the person asking the question was a woman, I used the NT woman, autistic man basis for pronouns. Please always remember that tips like the above apply regardless of the constellation of the partnership.