For me it is important if I am going to be writing a blog about our marriage to be honest from the start. Although we have been together 23 years now and I love my husband unreservedly, it has never been easy and I don’t think it ever will be. There are days when I question whether I am right to stay in the relationship, whether I wouldn’t be better off on my own, whether the love I feel for Matt is enough to keep going through the misunderstandings and sheer frustration of trying to communicate that is a regular occurrence. Matt tells me he does not feel like this, but mainly because he doesn’t think about it. Our marriage is a habit. He is married, he sees no reason to stop being married because it it what he is. This is not necessarily reassuring!

But I have come to believe that it is OK to feel like this. Neurodiverse relationships can be exceptionally hard and frustrating. All relationships can. And the thing is that throughout the 23 years, I haven’t left, we have always worked it out and I still love him. Over those years, and particularly since his diagnosis, we have come up with many things that have made our marriage easier and both of us happier. Those are the things that I want to share here. But I want to be upfront and say from that start that we do not have it all figured out. There are days when I sit and cry over what we have to go through. There are days when he sees me upset and thinks he should leave if only to stop me crying. If I pretended it was all roses I would be lying to you, so I am not going to. I will share the bad as well as the good. This is going to be an honest blog about real life inside a neurodiverse marriage, one that despite everything I would class as successful, functional and life affirming.