Some people are allergic to peanuts. Others, to bee stings.

And then there are those who flinch at the mere suggestion that it’s time to empty the dishwasher.

For partners living with Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) or ADHD, the everyday expectations of life—polite requests, chore lists, dinner invitations—can feel like psychological land mines.

They may deeply love their spouses. They may want to comply.

But the moment a request hardens into a “should,” something ancient and involuntary lights up the threat circuits of their nervous system.

In 2022, I presented on this topic at the American Family Therapy Academy, making the argument that demand avoidance is not a moral failure, not laziness, and not oppositional defiance dressed up as neurodivergence.

Let’s be clear: you didn’t marry an idiot.

You picked a smart, capable, emotionally literate adult who could write a killer project proposal and survive on three hours of sleep.

Then the two of you had a child. Or adopted one. Or inherited one through some divine act of chaos.

And that child? That gloriously complex, emotionally intense, maybe-autistic, maybe-ADHD, possibly-undiagnosed enigma?

They changed everything.

Now your evenings are tactical response drills, your weekends are therapy spreadsheets, and the person you built your life with is starting to feel like a colleague. Or worse, a critic.

Welcome to parenting conflict in high-functioning couples raising neurodivergent kids.

The data is clear, the stakes are high, and the fallout can feel like a slow-motion divorce.

You said you’d be home at 6. It’s now 7:12.
Your partner is furious. You’re bewildered.

They say you’re gaslighting them.
You were just trying to grab the groceries.

Sound familiar?

In neurodiverse relationships—especially those involving ADHD—this scene plays out in thousands of kitchens every night.

One partner is triggered by broken expectations. The other genuinely doesn’t understand what went wrong.

This post unpacks the critical difference between emotional abuse and executive dysfunction—and why mistaking one for the other can damage even the most loving partnerships.

What Is Gaslighting—and What Isn’t?

Neurodiverse couples are not rare—and they’re not broken.

They’re often just misunderstood. Neurodiverse-affirming couples therapy helps partners move beyond misinterpretations to find deep attunement across different neurological styles.

Instead of assuming emotional disconnection, therapists translate buffering as a survival strategy, inertia as executive dysfunction, and bluntness as sensory overwhelm.

This approach respects each partner’s brain, creating a shared language rooted in regulation and empathy—not shame.

Meet Nico and Samira: A Neurodiverse Love Story

Gary Chapman’s 1992 classic was written for people with full batteries and no lag.

But for neurodivergent couples running on low power mode—think autistic shutdowns, ADHD inertia, and spoon-theory budgeting—the traditional love languages can feel more like emotional overdrafts than sweet nothings.

Enter Low-Demand Love Languages: tender, sustainable affection for people who love deeply but just can’t swing the high-cost intimacy of dinner-theatre emotions.

Parallel play marriage is exactly what it sounds like: two adults in the same room, each minding their own glorious business, allowing love to bloom in the 18-inch no-man’s-land between their headphone cords.

It is the spiritual opposite of the dinner-date hostage situation (“Let’s stare into each other’s souls until one of us blinks or cries”).

For many autistic and ADHD partners, this is not anti-intimacy; it is peak intimacy.

You remain a sovereign state, I remain a sovereign state, our border is porous but not policed, and nobody has to maintain eye contact long enough to wonder whether they left the stove on in 2007.

The first generations of Americans diagnosed with autism in childhood are now entering old age.

Yet eldercare systems—Medicare, senior housing, memory care—were never built with neurodivergent aging in mind.

Autism. ADHD. Sensory processing disorders. Dyspraxia.

These don’t disappear with age. They evolve.

And the support systems that served these individuals in youth and adulthood often vanish in old age. The result? A silent crisis of unmet needs—and a dawning recognition that eldercare must evolve, too.

If it feels like your home has turned into a command center for nervous system triage, you’re not imagining it

.

The cultural noise is louder. The news cycle is meaner. Sensory inputs are stacking up.

And for neurodivergent folks and their families, these moments don’t just register as “stressful”—they register as existential threats to internal equilibrium.

In neurodiverse families, the intensity of each member’s experience may differ widely. So when the world gets shaky, the differences in how you each process that shakiness become more pronounced.

And that’s when the misunderstandings start.

In a certain kind of marriage, love sounds like code and feels like jazz.

One partner organizes their inner world in systems and subroutines. The other is fluent in emotional nuance, using tone, gesture, and eye contact the way others use semicolons.

You know these couples.

One writes love letters in Excel.

The other wants to be held while crying through the seasonal arc of their emotions.

They love each other, yes.

But emotional intimacy?

That’s where things can break down—not from a lack of love, but from a profound difference in cognitive architecture.

And no one taught them how to bridge that gap.

When Quants Marry CEOs: A New Power Couple Equation

There’s a certain image we all conjure when we hear the word “quant”:
A math prodigy who uses stochastic calculus to predict market fluctuations, fueled by Soylent, and emotionally sustained by Bloomberg terminals.

But behind some of Wall Street’s most dazzling female financial minds, you’ll increasingly find a barefoot quant in the kitchen.

We’re witnessing the rise of the Wall Street househusband—not as a punchline, but as a powerful evolution in family dynamics.

These men aren’t failing at capitalism. They’re optimizing for something rarer: partnership.

What if the real problem in your marriage isn’t communication—but cognitive architecture?

There’s a moment—maybe it was after your third fight about “tone,” or when you realized your therapist was nodding but not helping—where it hits you:

“We’re not broken.
We’re just not running the same operating system.”

One of you moves through the world like a structured flowchart.
The other? Like an emotional jazz improvisation.

One of you wants to solve.
The other wants to connect.
And both of you are tired.

You’re not crazy. You’re a neurodiverse/neurotypical couple.

And there’s finally a framework built for your brains, not just your feelings.

An ND/NT Survival Guide for Shared Social Scenarios

You love each other. You’ve built private rituals, repair scripts, and a relationship language all your own. Yet when you go out—whether it's brunch with family or navigating airport crowds—one of you seems wired to thrive, while the other is waiting for the floor to swallow you whole.

That’s not because your relationship isn’t solid.

It’s because public settings rely on neurotypical social architecture, which assumes everyone’s tapping into the same neural code. But you don’t both run on that code. And without planning, you end up mismatched under pressure.

Here’s how to step out—and stay together out loud.