Dr. Joe Kort PhD, LMSW, CST | Center for Relationship and Sexual Health
Ashley Grubbs | Licensed Professional Counselor
Keywords:
partner
people
neurotypical
feel
autism
work
autistic
neuro
brain
couples
thought
husband
sex
important
asd
relationship
mike
verbalize
met
formal diagnosis
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Hello and welcome to smart sex smart love. We're talking about sex goes beyond the taboo and talking about love goes beyond the honeymoon. I'm Dr. Joe court and today we're gonna be talking about adult neuro diverse relationships with psychotherapist Ashley Grubbs. Ashley is a licensed professional counselor practicing in Texas, Virginia in Colorado. Currently, she's working on her PhD in clinical psychology from modern sex therapy institutes. She specializes in PTSD and trauma, sex therapy, and neuro diverse couples counseling. She uses acceptance and Commitment Therapy as well as systemic approaches to build rapport and authentic connections with her clients. She's passionate about assisting others with intimacy and gender concerns, is an ally for LGBTQ, and she is kink friendly. Her goal is to help learn clients learn new skills to live their best lives. Welcome, Ashley. Hi, thanks for having me. So glad to have you here. I would just like to start because, you know, I am married to somebody who is on the autism spectrum. He has ASD used to be called Asperger's. We still call it that. But I know there's controversy around the word because of the man was named after. But um, I wrote an article a few years ago on Huffington Post, and it did receive a lot of attention. But I don't really know how much attention because it was an article and the comments sections was all I had to go by. And then a week ago, on Sunday morning, I just decided I'm doing all this stuff on Tick tock, I thought I'm just gonna talk about my relationship because it can help others who are in the same relationship. So I talked about being married to Mike. And when we got together, in our very first time together, he asked me, if we were on a date, he's just like I said, is this a date? You know, when you're two gay men? And you're going out? You don't know? Is this a friendship? Is this a date? So it was so intriguing to me to have somebody be so vulnerable, so honest. And on our second date, he said, is we still dating, And that, to me was like, even more vulnerable, and it just grabbed my heart. I always was able to see his vulnerability. But I didn't know he had Asperger's. At the time. I didn't know what it was. I just knew I was in love with him. I thought he had a he's an IT guy. He had his own brain, the way his brain work in working with it, you know, computer databases. And so anyways, last week, I went on there, I said that I just did like a minute on it, and it and Tic Tac video. And it now has over 4 million views and 1000s and 1000s of comments, many, many of which are these couples, where one is neuro typical like me, and the other one other predators like my husband, neuro atypical. And then there's all these mothers, of children who are so thankful to hear from somebody like me that there is hope for their child to have these relationships. So that's all I want to say. That's how we got here. Oh, and then I was supervising you the next day. And then I don't know why I never knew this. But you were like, Oh my God, that's my like the biggest specialty. And then you started educating me. I'm like, you got to be on the show. So happy to have you here. Yeah,
I think it's an area I'm really passionate about. We had we been me and my husband had a very similar first day, I won't repeat the questions he asked me may not be appropriate for our listeners, but same kind of thing of like, wow, this is such a new different kind of fresh openness I'd never experienced before. And then later once we put the pieces together and knew it was autism, it made so much sense. But it just felt so refreshing to have someone be blunt and honest about what they were thinking.
Wow. And you know, that's it's therapeutic for me to hear you even say that. So I'm not alone. And when that what that but when that happened? Oh, no, not at all. I don't think so What do people people are going to be listening to gonna be like, what is neurodiverse mean? Can you explain
it? Sure. So neuro diversity is kind of just a really broad category for anyone's brain who quote unquote, doesn't think the same. So it can include traumatic brain injuries, ADHD, the one I see the most, like you said, is autism. And so really what it is it just means your brain processes information differently than someone who is neurotypical like you were i. So for my couples that I see it's specifically Autism is the one I get and autism is considered a developmental disability. I don't necessarily love the disability aspects of it, because again, my partners are wonderful human as as yours as is everybody on the spectrum. But they can have difficulties socially or with communication or with behaviors. But really, it's just a really broad category for anyone whose brain works differently than ours.
Yeah, just learned something I never thought about it being for people who have had, maybe had Some brain injury or whatever, so right. It's just the brains working differently. Right? Right. And I said ASD earlier, that means autistic spectrum disorder, is that right?
Correct. So most people that are autistic Don't, don't really identify with the ASD label. So you might see that in some communities that is, oh, I have ASD, most people, it's a very inclusive, inclusive title. So it'd be the same thing as you saying, like, Oh, I have gay, right? Like, that's not how we ever talk about it. And so it's the I am autistic, making it more of an identity perspective is something that's really big within the autism community. Well, I
learned a lot too, because I mean, I was using Asperger's as because that's what I that, you know, there are books written on it, and that word, and I know it's changing. I never meant to insult anybody. But then I started saying high functioning autism. And then that was like, challenging. And it makes sense, because then you're saying that there's low functioning. So what what do you say different functioning?
So I get really specific with what the functioning looks like. So someone that might come into my office might be nonverbal. And so I would describe their functioning as nonverbal. So I make it really specific to what are the behaviors? What are the thinking patterns, not just high versus low? Because really, everyone is high functioning, the functioning just manifests differently.
Okay. Cuz I mean, I think about Mike, like, you really wouldn't know you would think he's a little odd or a little socially awkward. Some people would even say that he's arrogant, and they don't feel comfortable, but he isn't. He's just super quiet. And he's not having a good time. He's having a blast. He just doesn't express it.
Right. Exactly, exactly. So that just be a difference in the functioning expression versus how you are I would do it.
Now, one of the things that people asked about online, and I thought we could talk about here is how, what's the impact of it on a sex life and intimacy between couples?
Yeah, that's one of my favorite things to work on my favorite topic, as I know, you know, it can look so different, and also so similar at the same time. So I'm really going to speak from my narrow, typical perspective, I'm not going to try and speak as much for someone who has autism. I think that's a really important distinction. But what I see a lot in my practice, is that it can be different based on how someone with autism approaches, textures, and feelings. So that's a really, really big thing for someone who's autistic as some clothing doesn't feel good. Some tags on like shirts or pants cannot feel good. And that can translate to the bedroom as well. So that might be like using a specific type of sheet only, like no other type of material, like silk is a really common one I hear talks about some types of oral sex can feel gross or off putting because you know, oral sex creates a little bit of some type of texture that not everybody is into. So that can be a really big piece of sexuality is when you're having sex with someone, or any kind of intimacy, not just penetrative sex with someone who might be neuro typical, the conversations about it might look different, and how you're doing it might look different based on the texture piece. But there also is another important another important consideration when Autism is considered in the bedroom. And that's about how they may or may not approach sex. So a lot of my clients, what I see is, the partner that does have autism use it more like this is a release, right? This feels good. My mood shift, I can feel like this is an action, it's not always about the connection. And that's not true every time. But for the more neuro typical partner having sex with someone, when it's like, great, I got my release, I got off, I'm feeling better, you don't always get that same wrap up piece that you might be expecting or that you yourself might want. Because they're viewing it a little bit differently. And that kind of capacity.
I just feel like what you're saying is so important, even for all couples, right? Everybody's different in how they are erotic in the bed.
Right, exactly. And that's just something I think we all work with. And that's the biggest thing I really emphasize in my practice is I will have couples come in. And usually my couples are similar to you and I Joe where they found out their partner was autistic after starting a relationship, which I think is a little bit different. But there's a lot of expectation of here's what section intimacy is going to look like when really that's different. No matter who your partner is. It doesn't matter if your partner is autistic or not like there needs to be conversation and communication about what we like and don't like. But because the communication piece with someone autistic is different already, that can sometimes create an additional roadblock there.
That makes so much sense. And then you said something that I think we should talk about. There's lots of testing and lots of places for kids to go and raise your kids but nothing for adults. Is that right?
Yeah. So there is some kind of modified testing you can do but it's much harder to get a formal diagnosis as an adult than it is as a minor.
And this is frustrating for a lot of people on tik tok in the comments are saying we didn't know my husband was or my wife was until our child was diagnosed and Then we then it made sense. And that's how I realized about Mike, that our children, we don't have that. But through my clients through movies through Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, even though they don't say he has autism, he has all the I mean, every everything, almost everything about children is the same as my husband. And that's, that was the only way to figure it out. Right?
I think it's just a lot of communication. And I think so this is what I would advocate for anyone listening who's questioning like, Oh, am I on this spectrum? Is my partner on the spectrum is just to go to a therapist and have them talk about it. There's also a lot of online assessments you can do, you can get a pretty accurate formal diagnosis without anyone writing it down on a piece of paper like, Oh, yes, this is what it is.
The other thing you said, when we were talking about it for the show you and it may and it was actually a relief to hear you say this, is that for the neuro typical partner, they have to do more of the modifying toward the neuro atypical partner. Is that what you said?
Oh, yes, that's so so huge. I'm involved in a lot of neuro diverse communities. And what I see a lot for people not in my office, but just out, you know, in the world casually experiencing life, is that the neuro typical person normally is saying, like, my partner's the weird one, they're the one who thinks differently, you know, how can I get them to view things on my level? How can I get them to show more empathy? How can I get them to communicate how I want? And the thing is, they can't, right? Like, it's just not how their brain is wired, which really creates this huge, huge barrier, in my opinion on creating some authentic communication, because it's so much easier for the neuro typical person to say like, oh, okay, you don't respond well, to this, I can reroute versus someone who's neurodiverse may not be able to reroute easily. And so I think it's really important for us as a neurotypical to do our own work to do our own research, to really be talking to our partner or friends or whoever in the community, we know that's autistic, to try and meet them where they're at. In order to have success, I don't think we can place the burden just on someone autistic to meet us on our level, that seems really unfair.
Yeah. And in my therapy room, when I've worked with these couples, the neurotypical partners are resentful of this they get.
Right. And I think that's just part of how we're socialized is we expect, you know, like, if I'm talking to my parents, for example, both of my parents are neurotypical, and I might be able to set a boundary of Hey, I don't like this, don't do that anymore. And they can respond really well. versus if I tell my husband, I don't like this, don't do this anymore. His brain will get stuck on Oh, no, what should I do instead? Like they can hear your request, they can take in your information, but because the brain is processing differently just by how it's set up, we're creating all of these barriers. And so there can be a level of resentment there. But I think you can also do some work on yourself of like, do we really needed to be our way all the time? No, there has to be a way to meet in the middle, where both partners are getting their needs met at the same time.
Right. And for me, what really helped was when I realized that he had Asperger's, then I was like, okay, you know, 50% of our problems went away, because I didn't feel like fighting him, I could always see that he was working really hard to be in relationship with me. And I couldn't. And I just didn't understand why it was so hard. Once I understood why. And I didn't realize how hard he was working. I felt even more loved than I ever felt before.
Right, exactly. I think that's huge. My husband and I joke, it was like an aha moment like, oh, duh, of course, this is what it is, of course, this is why our conversations like continually go to the same place like your brain can't hear me like it made so much sense when we were able to figure it out.
And I'm glad we're having these conversations, because in 2010, it was a stigma. I mean, it still is obviously but less so. And Mike didn't like it when I was saying this about him. And I'm like, I'm not trying to be mean, I'm not judging you in a bad way. But this is helpful to me. And I really want you to get on board. If this is true, because he would think he always thought he's in Mensa. He's very highly intelligent. He thought it was always related to that. And parts of it might be, but there's no doubt that it's autism.
Right. And I think just similar to you do and then my partner felt the same way. When he got the diagnosis, it was very freeing for him to say, Oh, it's not that I can't meet your needs. It's not that I suck as a partner. It was very validating for him to have that experience of like, I get it. This is me. This is my identity. Like I can work with this. Versus he couldn't work with me without it.
Yes. Right. Right. And then the judgments you get I don't know if you get this but I have throughout the years judgments from others about our relationship that Yeah, look, what can I can you say what you've heard or
Sure. So I think it's exactly what probably Mike was experiencing as autism gets this like weird, low key judgment about what that looks like, what that feels like, like how our conversations must go, like people just assuming Alex is a certain kind of way. And if you met my husband, like I swear he's a genius. He's so intelligent. He's so thoughtful, like he meets my He's better than any previous partner I've ever had. But the stigma of like, oh, someone who's autistic, like, must not be able to feel like the robot vibe, you know what I mean? Like, a lot of judgments of like he must be a robot. We had someone close to us joke about what our sex life must be. Because having sex with a robot, you know, wouldn't be fun when that's the total opposite of our reality. And so it's exactly what you're saying, like this misconception of autism is like a bad disease like a death sentence. You know, like, that must mean he's flawed or broken, like you're doing a lot of caretaking. When really, we have a very normal relationship, everyone neurodiverse or not, like, has struggles. I don't think it's any different to have a neurodiverse relationship, like, you're still gonna have struggles, but you're also still gonna have successes.
Right? And so some of the struggles A lot of people have, I have these two is like, my can't really express his love to me. And I'll even say, you know, do you love me? He'll say, yes. And I'll say, Well, what do you love about me? I just want to hear it like every once in a while, and he'll say, I can't have the words. And I'm like, you're a man of words. Like he's great. He's so brilliant. How do you not have these words, but it's a part of his brain in the emotional part that he can't put words to,
right. Yeah, that's called and I might pronounce it wrong. Sometimes I get it, right. Sometimes I don't. But alexithymia. If you've ever heard of that, it's a condition highly linked to autism, which is literally just someone who has a hard time identifying and describing their emotions, which I think is a hallmark probably your experience with Mike definitely something I've experienced within my own relationship is we have these huge variety of words. And my husband can know he feels it, but doesn't know what to label it. Like there's just like a kind of a blank in his brain about like, I care for you. But I can't verbalize that to you. Because I literally don't know how. And and that's usually the reason for it.
I'm telling you, Ashley, I feel so lucky to be connected to you, and that of all the supervisors you could have had, it was me in our modern sex therapy program. Because I mean, this is so helpful. There are futures and hardly any therapists that specialize and are smart about this as you are,
which I think is a bummer. You know, and we talk about this a lot, you and I, and me and my husband about like, literally getting married, put me on this totally different path. because there wasn't anyone out there I could go to. So Alex can meet with someone like more in the autism community, which I always recommend, like, get your tribe get connected, like have feedback from other people. But there wasn't really anyone on the neurotypical side to tell me like, here's what you can expect, here's what you can do with it. Here's how to navigate this conversation. And it felt like such a barrier like this is silly, that no one knows what to do with this. And so I spent a lot of time and energy into making sure like, I can help people carry that. So they can have successful relationships, versus you know, just falling apart because they don't know what to do.
Yeah. And we had some bad therapy. And I had some friends bad advice. Because Don't you want a partner who's more expressive? Don't you want somebody with who gets a belly laugh with you? Don't you want? Yeah, of course I do. But you don't like I get so much more that keeps me in is his loyalty, his kindness, his intelligence, his ability to help me through up situations that I can't think through that he's so brilliant to thinking through? He is he does a lot of thoughtful things. He might not do it exactly the way I want him to do it. But he still does them. And I have learned to adapt to the way he loves me. You know, we all talk about wanting our love language. And yes, we should, but we should also adapt to our partner's way of loving us and actively. Yeah, I mean, I feel actually to be honest with you. He's loved me more than anybody in my family growing up. So to me, I mean, you always have to decide when you're with somebody, what can I let go of? And what do we still need and maybe means you walk away from somebody, but in 28 years, I've never felt that way with him.
Yeah, I don't feel that way with my partner at all. I think you really hit the nail on the head of what I think is the best is Alex's brains think so amazing. You know, I'm more of an emotionally driven, I'm a good person, I find myself in situations often where it's like, yeah, I should have thought this out better. And so having a partner who can say like, hey, let's talk about this. Let's think it out. Like let's add some reasoning and logic to this, when that is an area like I just don't do well, on my own has been so helpful. Like, I cannot imagine my relationship with someone who couldn't offer that to me, I think.
Right? Yeah, it is huge for me, too. What else do you think is important that people should know about neurodiverse couples?
I think you you hit something earlier, I just want to go back to on something I think is really important when you're talking about sure I would want to be loved in all of these ways. But what can I not settle for? But what's more important to me, I think sometimes we don't get creative about how we can get those needs met. So I really advocate for my clients, either one, the neurodiverse or the neurotypical like, is there a way you can get that need without it looking exactly like what you're picturing in your head. So for me just as a personal way of relating this, it was really important to me to have a partner that was empathetic You know, I'm a therapist, I carry a lot of emotions throughout the day, I relate to people in a pretty extreme way. And my husband just can't do that naturally. And that's not his fault. But I knew it wasn't something I was going to be able to not have. So we sat down and got really creative about how can I feel empathy? How can I feel you get my emotions, when you cannot do that the way I envisioned in my head. So for us, it's very formulaic. I've taught him a few key phrases of here's what empathy sounds like to me. So now he can repeat back any of those phrases, I say, and I still feel like my needs are met. Does he feel it as deep as I do? I know if you're going to notice that all the time, no. But he can say like, okay, you gave me a solution, I can say these words back to you. And no, it still has meaning. So I think that's something that can be really helpful for people, it's like, don't just give up on it. Because you don't get it the way you're envisioning in your head. Like, that's the benefit of having a partner is to be able to sit and talk and say, like, what works for you? What doesn't work for you? Like, how can we add and manipulate this to where we're all happy? And I think that's a really important thing.
It is, I'm cracking up inside because I did exactly the same thing. And gave Mike you know, a script. And I know people are like, I shouldn't have to give Well, in this case you do. And sometimes you do have to say to what your partner, you know, this is how love looks like, for me, this is one thing I do need. And it's normal.
Right? And I don't think that takes away from it. Like, again, Alex may not feel it the same. But I know he's prioritizing me in that moment. And really, that's what empathy is about. That's what I'm looking for. And an empathetic partner is someone who can feel my needs and give them to me. Alex is doing that. It's just a little bit different than what I originally thought in my head.
Yes. And the other thing, that people I think it's a huge misconception is that people on the autism spectrum do not feel empathy. That couldn't be further from the truth. Mike is here. Right?
Right. Absolutely. And that's the thing is, in my opinion, they they being anyone autistic feel things so deeply. It's the verbalizing piece where it gets stuck. And I'm sure you experienced this with Mike, sometimes, Alex will have a really strong feeling, and he'll be silent about it, he'll need a lot of time to think about it a lot of time to process it, just to be able to tell me two sentences at the end, because the feeling is so deep, that having the words to assign to them is so hard. So empathy is definitely there. That's really, really strong. It's just how do we act on it? How do we verbalize it? That I think is a little bit of a disconnect there.
And it was the cause of a lot of our arguments over time, because I had to wait so long. And sometimes it would take too long, I didn't understand. And sometimes it's still frustrating, because I'd like a response with more words and sooner and it just doesn't happen, because that's not how his brain works.
Yeah, exactly. And I think that's something the neuro typical partner, like, that's kind of our responsibility is to say, like, okay, I would love for this to happen in the next five minutes. But I can see by the look on your face, that's not going to happen. So like giving space and time, I think is really important. But also still being able to say, I'm disappointed, I wish we would have been able to do this earlier. But I know that's not your fault. Like to still be able to share some of the downsides like how we're feeling about it without placing blame on our partner.
That's so well said. I know people listen to this. And I've had friends say I could never be with a partner like Mike and I need so much more. And I get it. But I will tell you that people who have put in the comments sections, which has been therapeutic for me on Tick Tock have said, Yeah, I didn't know this about him and may or may not have chosen it before I met him. But being with him, it's all worth it. Everybody says it's all worth it.
Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. I think prior to Alex, if someone had said do you want to be with an autistic partner? I don't know what I would have thought I don't think it would have been necessarily a hard Yes. Although now being in that relationship. It would never be a hard No,
I don't think ever. I feel the same way. And I hope that moms and parents, dads, whomever are listening to this or will listen to this, because honestly, I really had no idea. It makes sense now, but in my mind, I was thinking oh, this will help some other couples. But there are 1000s and 1000s of mothers you should see their do wedding me on tik tok. They're stitching. And they're saying, I mean, I literally cried literally, I've sometimes watched it over and over again. What a good heart you have Joe court, you know, you're you're there. I hope, someday that my child can have a husband like you that will love him that much. I have never gotten that kind of support for this relationship. It feels wonderful.
Yeah, I think that's what a beautiful place we're at in the world, for this to be on the forefront of people's brains. And to be able to give that need back because again, prior to now, like we've talked about before, there hasn't been a lot of emphasis on what it looks like in the adult life. So I think that's a beautiful thing.
That and the relationship which I think you're going to bring and I hope you do more and more with that because it's so needed. I want to put you on the map. I hope this podcast is one way we do it.
Yeah, hopefully that's that's my goal is to keep doing some work here. Well, I'm gonna help I hope and find other ways for you. So how can people find you Ashley? So the best way to find me is on my website, which is www dot blue, like the color harbor where you park a boat therapy, the thing I do.com and that will give you all of the ways of getting a hold of me my Instagram, my phone number, my email, everything is listed right there for you to be able to vet me even before meeting me.
That's so great. Thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, and people that are listening. If you enjoyed this show, please don't forget to rate review and subscribe. You can follow me at Dr. Joe court on Instagram, Twitter, and I'm on tik tok. So Till next time, stay safe and stay healthy. All right. Thank you
