The Neurodivergent Love Lab

The Uncomfortable Truth: Most Couples Therapy Wasn't Built for You

• Jenna Dalton • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Can I be honest?

Couples therapy may actually make your relationship worse.

Not because the therapist isn't empathetic or skilled. Not because your partner isn't trying. But because every exercise you're given was likely designed without your unique brain in mind.

"Maintain eye contact when your partner is talking."

"Use 'I feel' statements in the moment."

"When you go silent during a fight, that's stonewalling and it means your relationship is in a downward spiral unless you do something about it."

"Assume positive intent - whenever your partner does something hurtful, assume they didn't intend to hurt you."

These research-backed strategies can work incredibly well.... for neurotypical brains.

If you've been in couples therapy before and left feeling like you were the problem. If you were given strategies that you tried to use and they felt like they didn't work the way they were expected to and you assumed it was your fault. This episode is for you.

Today, I'm going to show you that it was never your fault. The tools just weren't built for your brain. Some of the most common couples therapy techniques quietly backfire on neurodivergent brains, and once you understand why, you can stop blaming yourself for "failing" at couples therapy.

I'm also not just going to tell you what doesn't work, I'm going to share tips to help you shift common couples therapy approaches to actually work for your neurodivergent brain.

IN THIS EPISODE

  • Why some of the most common couples therapy techniques quietly fail neurodivergent couples (and what to do instead)
  • Why eye contact is a sensory load, not a measure of love or attention
  • What's actually happening when you can't produce an "I feel" statement on the spot (spoiler: it's not avoidance)
  • Why "assume positive intent" can create more harm than good for neurodivergent people who have spent a lifetime doubting their own perceptions.
  • How neurodivergent shutdown gets misdiagnosed as stonewalling, and what that label does to neurodivergent clients
  • How to adjust the Five Love Languages to work for your sensory needs, executive function challenges, and fluctuating capacity
  • Why the Imago dialogue can lead to more disconnection than connection for neurodivergent and mixed-neurotype couples, and how to adapt it to work with your wiring
  • The exact questions to ask a potential couples therapist before you book the first session to ensure they are neurodivergent-affirming

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

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A NOTE 

This podcast is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. If you're in crisis, please reach out to a local crisis line or emergency service.

SPEAKER_00

I'm a psychologist, so what I'm about to say is probably going to sound a little wild, but here it is. A lot of couples' therapy tools, the standard, evidence-based, in every textbook kind of stuff, are making neurodivergent relationships worse. Not because therapists are bad. Most of us care so much it hurts. Not because the techniques are inherently flawed. They were developed from real research with real couples, but because that research was done on neurotypical brains and the techniques assume a neurotypical operating system. And when you try to install neurotypical default software onto a neurodivergent system, it's like putting diesel in a car that needed premium. It's not going to work, especially not long term. If you've ever sat in couples therapy and walked out feeling worse than when you walked in, if you've ever done all the homework and ended up feeling more disconnected from your partner, if you've ever had a therapist tell you that you don't seem to be putting in the effort when you are putting in so much effort and quietly drowning, this episode is for you. This is the Neurodivergent Love Lab. I'm Jenna Dalton. Yes, a psychologist publicly criticizing psychology. Yikes. And this is episode six, The Uncomfortable Truth. Most couples therapy wasn't built for you. Money you'd been given at some point. And I'm going to show you where they go sideways for neurodivergent brains. And then, because I don't want to just tear things down, I want to show you what to do instead. Because the goal of each of these tools, it's usually still valid. It's the delivery that needs to be rebuilt for how your brain actually works. I'm going to focus on five tools in depth and then give you a faster tour of three more. Before we get started today, if you like this episode, make sure you subscribe and turn on notifications so you'll know when new episodes are up. And please leave me a review. Reviews help other neurodivergent people and the people who love neurodivergent people find this podcast. The more people who find this podcast, the more support the neurodivergent community will get. This episode is especially important because my goal is to help you realize that it's not a you problem, it's a tools problem. Okay, thank you for subscribing and writing a review. Let's do this. I want to start by being really clear about something. I'm not anti-therapy. I'm not anti-couples therapy, obviously. I'm a psychologist. I see the power of good therapy. I've watched couples cultivate a deeper connection, and I've watched individuals rewrite their I'm the problem narrative into I just need the right tools for my wiring. I'm also not anti-couples therapists. Most of my colleagues are kind, smart, ethical people doing their best with the training they were given. The problem isn't them. The problem is the training. Most couple therapy modalities, like Gottman, EFT, Imago, you name it, were developed and researched on neurotypical couples. The techniques are evidence-based, but the evidence is built on a population that doesn't include the people I work with. Neurodivergent brains are systematically underrepresented in the research that these models are built on, which means the techniques are calibrated for a brain that processes emotion, language, and connection in a way that isn't yours. So when a well-meaning therapist hands you a tool that was designed for someone else's nervous system and it doesn't work, the conclusion is usually either you're not trying hard enough or the relationship is doomed. When the actual conclusion should be this tool wasn't built for you. I'm naming this publicly because I think the neurodivergent community deserves to know. And because I'm a little bit done with watching my clients walk in carrying shame about having failed therapy that was never going to fit them in the first place. Let me walk you through eight common techniques and the shifts we can make to ensure they're more neurodivergent affirming. One, maintain eye contact while your partner is speaking. This is the classic, right? Look into your partner's eyes, stay present, show them you're listening with your gaze. For a neurotypical brain, eye contact during emotional conversation does help. It activates the social bonding circuitry, it signals attention. For many neurodivergent brains, especially autistic ones, eye contact during emotional conversation is cognitively expensive. It takes processing resources away from listening. So when you're forcing eye contact, you're literally giving your brain less capacity to actually hear what your partner is saying. You end up performing connection while losing the actual goal, which is to hear and understand your partner. For many autistic clients, they feel like I can either look at them or I can listen to them. I can't do both at the same time. That's not avoidance. That's an allocation of neural resources. And telling an autistic person to do both is asking them to do less of the thing that actually matters. Listening to understand. So what works instead? Sitting side by side, walking and talking, writing things down and verbally sharing it without the pressure to make eye contact. Connection that doesn't require your visual system to be performing while your auditory system is trying to capture the message your partner is sending. Work with your wiring rather than fighting against it. Two, use I statements in the moment. This formula I feel blank, some sort of emotion. When you blank some sort of behavior, because blank, the impact. Oh my goodness, you've heard it. You've probably tried it. Possibly while wishing you'd never agreed to come to this therapy session in the first place. Here's the problem: the I statement requires three things, all available in real time. Clear access to your emotional state, clear access to language, and the ability to construct a sentence that includes summarizing all this real-time processing while your nervous system is activated. For many neurodivergent brains, especially during conflict, none of those things are an option. On top of that, there's something called alexithymia, which is a difficulty to identify and name your emotions. And roughly about 50% of autistic adults have it. And many ADHDers experience it too. So when a therapist asks, what are you feeling right now? And the answer is, I don't know. My body is doing something, but I can't name it. That's not avoidance. That's a real neurological feature of how your brain naturally works. There's also processing speed differences. ADHD brains often need to talk through something before they know what they think. Autistic brains often need time alone before they know what they feel. Asking either to produce a coherent I statement in the moment on demand is asking them to do something their brain isn't built to do, especially under pressure. Here's what works instead: delayed emotional processing. Take notes during or immediately after a conflict and then talk, or write to each other instead of speaking in real time, or have an initial conversation that's just naming the topic or the problem, then a second conversation hours or days later when both brains have had time to access what's actually going on. The I statement formula isn't wrong. It just doesn't have to happen in the heat of the moment. 3. The Four Horsemen. Okay, let's move on to one you've almost certainly heard of. The Gottman's Four Horseman framework says that the four biggest predictors of a relationship breakdown are contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. And the goal of the Gottman's approach is to learn to recognize them and interrupt them. And honestly, the research behind this is solid. The Gottmans have done incredible work, and for neurotypical couples, it's genuinely useful. But here's where it gets sticky for neurodivergent lovers. Take stonewalling. In Gottman's model, stonewalling is when a partner intentionally goes silent and withdraws during conflict. It's framed as a choice, a harmful pattern that needs to be interrupted. But for many autistic people, what looks like stonewalling is actually shutdown, a neurological response to sensory and emotional overload. Their brain has hit a wall. They're not withholding, they're not avoiding. They physically can't access language or emotion in that moment. That's not the same thing as stonewalling. Not at all. Or take criticism. In Gottman's framework, criticism means attacking your partner's character instead of addressing a behavior. Fair enough. That shouldn't be something we do, right? But autistic communication is often very direct. You didn't do the dishes. It might not be a criticism. It might be a straightforward observation with no emotional charge behind it whatsoever. The autistic partner is stating a fact. The neurotypical partner hears an attack. And then the framework tells them both that criticism is a relationship killer. Do you see what happens here? We take a neurological response and we label it as a toxic relationship behavior. And the neurodivergent partner walks away with the message: something is fundamentally wrong with how I love. This is devastating. So here's what to do instead. Before you label something a horseman, ask, is this an intentional behavior or is this a nervous system response? Is this person being contemptuous or are they overwhelmed and expressing frustration in the only way their brain can manage right now? Reframe stonewalling as a signal that someone's nervous system needs a regulated withdrawal and build a return agreement so neither partner is left in the dark. You just need some time away to regulate, and then you can come back. You can repair, you can reconnect. Reframe criticism by discussing communication styles explicitly. Something like, when I state facts, I'm not attacking you. When you hear directness, please be mindful of how you interpret it. Check in with me first before you make assumptions. Here's a practical thing you can do this week. Create your own translation guide as a couple. For each of the four horsemen, write down what it might look like in your relationship and what's actually happening underneath. For example, when I go quiet during a fight, I'm not stonewalling. I'm in shutdown. I need this amount of alone time to regulate. I will come back to you. Just please give me some space and time. Same goal as the Gottman's goal. Different delivery built for your brain. 4. The five love languages. Okay, next one. The five love languages. Words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, receiving gifts, discover yours, discover your partners, speak each other's language. Everyone's happy. Honestly, as a starting point, the framework is useful. It gives people permission to name their needs, which is a lovely thing, but it was never designed with sensory processing differences, executive function challenges, or fluctuating capacity in mind. Take physical touch. For many autistic people, touch can range from deeply comforting to intensely uncomfortable, even painful, depending on the day, the type of touch, the environment, and their current sensory load. My love language's physical touch doesn't capture the full picture when your sensory tolerance changes hour by hour. Acts of service is another tricky one. An ADHD partner might genuinely, deeply want to show love by doing things for their partner. They meant to do the laundry, they wanted to book the restaurant, they really were going to, and then their brain dropped the task, and now their partner feels unloved and they feel like a failure. The love language framework doesn't account for the gap between intention and execution that executive dysfunction creates. And without that piece, the tool can quietly turn into a measuring stick that the ADHD partner can never quite reach. Quality time assumes both partners have the same social and energetic capacity, but after a day of masking at work, an autistic partner may have nothing left to give. And quality time, it might feel like one more demand on an already maxed-out nervous system. Here is what to do instead. Add a sensory and capacity layer to every love language. Don't just ask, what's your love language? Ask, what kind of touch, time, or service feels good? When, how much, and what makes it stop feeling good? And then build in the understanding that the answer might change depending on the day. For acts of service, separate the intention from the execution. Create systems, shared reminders, visual cues, body doubling so that ADHD partner's love can actually land instead of getting lost in executive dysfunction land. Try this. Expand your love language into a love preferences menu. That includes sensory details. Instead of just physical touch, try, I love a firm hug when I initiate it. Light, unexpected touch overwhelms me. After a long day, I need about 30 minutes before I'm ready for physical closeness. That's not less romantic. That's more authentic. And authenticity is the foundation of feeling deeply loved. 5. The Imago Dialogue. Alright, another popular one. The Imago Dialogue was developed by Harville Hendricks, and this is one of the most widely taught communication tools in couples therapy. The structure is this mirror what your partner said, validate their perspective, empathize with their feelings, take turns being sender and receiver. It's lovely. For neurotypical couples, it can be transformative, but it asks a lot of a neurodivergent brain. All at once, in real time? Step one is mirroring, repeating back what your partner just said to show you heard them. For many autistic people, this is immediately a problem. Processing spoken language, filtering for meaning, holding it in working memory, and then reproducing it verbally, all while managing the sensory and emotional load of a difficult conversation. Yikes. That's an enormous cognitive ask. The listener is so focused on getting the marin right that they likely can't actually absorb what their partner is saying. For ADHD brains, the challenge is different, but equally real. An ADHD partner might hear their partner's words and immediately have an emotional reaction, a response, a connection, a side quest, and then be told to suppress all of that and repeat the words back verbatim. By the time they get to step two and step three, they've either lost the emotional thread or they're performing a script instead of genuinely connecting. There's also a deeper issue. The Imago dialogue asks both partners to stay in a rigid sender-receiver format. For someone who already experiences communication as effortful and draining, especially after a day of masking, adding a formal multi-step protocol on top of vulnerable content can make the conversation feel more like a final exam than a moment of connection. Here's what to do instead. Keep the spirit of the Imago dialogue, being heard, being validated, being met with empathy, but adapt the delivery. Instead of requiring verbatim mirroring, allow the listener to respond with what landed for them. What I'm hearing is that you felt alone when I didn't come to bed. That's resonance, not repetition. And it shows deeper understanding than parroting back exact words. Let neurodivergent partners take notes while their partner talks. Let them pause before responding. Let them write their validation and empathy statements if that's how their brain processes best. The three steps can even happen across time. Mirroring in the moment, validation in a text later that evening, empathy in a conversation the next morning. What matters is that your partner feels heard, not that you followed the formula in real time. Here's a take-home version. Adapt the three Imago steps into a written exchange. After a difficult conversation, each partner writes, What I heard you say was that makes sense to me because I imagine you might have been feeling trade notes. Talk about them when you're both regulated. It slows the process down to match how neurodivergent brains actually process, and it often produces deeper connection than the live version can. Okay, let's go through a faster tour of three more tools that need adapting. I could spend an hour on each of these, honestly, but don't worry, I won't. I want to name them quickly because I want you to have a vocabulary for what's happening the next time one of them shows up in session. 6. Weekly relationship check-ins. The idea is that you're going to schedule a recurring meeting with your partner to talk about your feelings, your connection, and anything that needs attention. Here's the problem for neurodivergent brains. For AHD brains in particular, a vague relationship meeting on the calendar can trigger dread and avoidance. Talk about feelings at 7 p.m. on Sunday is open-ended, emotionally demanding, and has no clear structure. That's executive function kryptonite. For autistic partners, the issue is often the opposite. They overprepare, mentally script the whole week, and then feel blindsided when the conversation goes somewhere unexpected. Yes, I see you, my autistic friends. The plan not going according to plan. The worst. Here's the fix: keep it short, structured, and predictable. Give it a clear agenda shared in advance. Time box it 15, 20 minutes, not an open-ended emotional excavation. Attach it to an existing routine rather than making it a standalone event. Coffee together on Sunday mornings? That sounds lovely. And keep the stakes low. This isn't the space for big confrontations. It's a maintenance check, not an emergency repair. You can even try a three-question format. What made you feel loved this week? Is there anything small I can do differently next week? Is there anything you need from me right now? Share the questions in advance. Have it at the same time, same place, same format. Boring and predictable is the best way to approach this. 7. Assume positive intent. Okay, the idea behind this one is that when your partner says or does something that hurts, assume they meant well. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Here's the problem for neurodivergent people. On the surface, this sounds reasonable, and in many cases it really is. But for a lot of neurodivergent people, especially autistic women and late diagnosed adults, this advice lands on top of a lifetime of being told their instincts were wrong. Many neurodivergent people have extensive histories of being gas-lit, dismissed, or told they were overreacting or being too sensitive when they were accurately reading the situation. They've been trained to doubt their own perception. So when a therapist says, assume positive intent, it can sound a lot like stop trusting yourself. Here's the fix: reframe it as seek clarification before assuming negative intent. This is a crucial distinction. It honors the neurodivergent partner's right to trust their own experience while still leaving space for misunderstanding. It sounds like I felt hurt by what you said. Can you help me understand what you meant? This protects both partners. The person who spoke gets a chance to clarify. The person who was hurt gets to be taken seriously. Nobody is asked to override their own instincts. Practice the phrase. Is that what you really meant? It opens a door without requiring either partner to abandon their reality. 8. Between session homework. The idea is the therapist assigns a task between sessions, a date night, a gratitude journal, a daily compliment, a connection ritual. Here's where this can run into a sticky situation for neurodivergent people. The ADHD partner leaves the session fully intending to do it. They're motivated, they care, and then life happens. Working memory drops the task, the week fills up, the reminder didn't get set, and suddenly it's session day again, and they haven't done the thing. Now they're in the therapist's office feeling the shame spiral. Their partner is frustrated. The therapist, often without meaning to, frames the incomplete homework as a sign of low effort or low investment. And the ADHD partner internalizes what they've always internalized. I can't follow through on anything, even the things that matter most. I'm a failure. This is plain old executive dysfunction. And when it's treated as evidence of not caring, it compounds the shame that's already there, often making the relationship feel even more hopeless. So here's the fix build executive function support directly into the homework. Phone reminders, specific days and times. Times, micro-sized versions for low capacity weeks, the explicit understanding that an incomplete task is never treated as evidence of not caring. Better yet, design the homework collaboratively with the neurodivergent partner. Ask, what would make this doable for your brain this week? What would help? What supports do you need? How can you set yourself up for success? A gratitude journal might become a single voice note. A date night might become 15 minutes of parallel puzzle building. The point isn't the specific task, it's the connection it's meant to build. And here's another tip you can use. When your therapist gives you homework, immediately, immediately put a specific reminder in your phone before you leave the session. The number of times I've said to a client, feel free to take out your phone and write that down right now so you don't forget, lifesaver, right? Do it immediately. And if the task feels too big, ask the therapist, ask your partner, what's the smallest version of this that still counts? A micro task completed beats an ambitious task untouched. Okay. I just walked you through eight of the most widely used couples' therapy tools and showed you all the places they can feel misaligned for neurodivergent brains. And if you're anything like me, you might be sitting with a complicated stew of feelings right now. Relief, maybe, some grief, probably, a little bit of anger, likely, some hope, hopefully. Here's what I want you to know. Every single tool I just talked about was created with good intentions. They're backed by research. They work amazingly well for the brains they were designed for. But when one or both partners are neurodivergent, using these tools without adaptation is like handing someone glasses with the wrong prescription and wondering why they still can't see. The intention is there, the fit is wrong. And the through line in all of these tools is the same. Most couples therapy was built around the assumption that both partners can access their emotions in real time, regulate on a predictable timeline, and communicate in neurotypical ways. For neurodivergent couples or mixed neurotype couples, the goal of the tool is usually still valid, but the delivery needs to be rebuilt for how your brain actually works. Your brain isn't broken. You're not bad at love. You just haven't been given neurodivergent affirming tools yet. And when you finally find the ones that fit, ugh, that's when everything clicks into place. That's the moment that changes everything. Okay, before I let you go, I want to speak directly to a few different people listening right now. If you're currently in couples therapy and these tools haven't been working or working as well as you'd hoped, I want you to know that this is not a sign that your relationship is doomed. It's not even a sign that your therapist is bad. It might just be a sign that you need different tools or that your current therapist needs more context about how your brain works. You're allowed to bring this conversation into your next session. You're allowed to share this episode with your therapist if that feels appropriate. You're allowed to advocate for yourself. If you're between therapists or you're thinking about starting therapy, I want you to feel empowered to ask a few questions before you book. In the consultation, you can ask things like, how do you adapt your approach for neurodivergent clients? What does it look like in your session when one partner shuts down? What's your approach? Do you allow written communication if verbal processing feels hard? How do you handle a client who needs more processing time before they can answer a question? Do you adjust things like homework or between session practices based on a neurotype? And what's your experience with mixed neurotype couples specifically? A neurodivent affirming therapist will welcome these questions. The answers don't have to be perfect, but they should be thoughtful. If they sound bewildered or annoyed by the question, that's information. And if you're the partner of someone neurodivergent and you've been frustrated that the tools aren't working, I want you to know that this is not a you failing. This is also not your partner failing. This is a fit problem. And fit problems are solvable. You just need bigger shoes. The goal of every single one of these tools is still so wonderful to be heard, to connect, to be seen, to repair when things go wrong, to stay close even when life gets hard. You don't have to give up the goal. You just need a delivery system built for how your brain actually works. If you've been in therapy that felt off and you want to try something built for your brain, and you're in Alberta, I'd love to talk. I offer free consultation where we can sit down virtually and figure out if I'm the right fit for you. No pressure, just a conversation. The link is in the show notes. I'll also be on Instagram at Neurodivergent Love Lab if you want to chat about any part of this episode. And please send this episode to your partner. Send it to your friend. Send it to the version of yourself who has been white knuckling through couples therapy for years, wondering what was wrong with you. Nothing was wrong with you. The tools just weren't built for your brain. Let's change that, shall we? Thank you for listening. I feel like today's episode was a really, really important one. So please share this with people in your life who know need to hear it. I'm Jenna Dalton. Your brain isn't broken, it's beautiful. I'll talk to you soon, you can't see the same thing.