I subscribe to the Headspace App because I have found it really helpful over the years, but today I had a notification that I had to disagree with in the context of our marriage. It said this:

“Paradoxically, the best way to make ourselves happier is by focusing on the happiness of others”.

As a person who spent many, many years putting the happiness of others, especially the happiness of my husband and children, before my own happiness I can categorically say it did not succeed in making me or even them happy. In the past I was a martyr to doing what I felt my husband and children needed. I would cook, clean, have long deep and meaningful conversations with them , do everything they ever asked, as soon as they asked, make sure they wanted for nothing. What did they do? They accepted it as the norm. They didn’t see it as special because it was what I always did. In fact sometimes, if I didn’t go above and beyond like usual, they would question why I was not doing what they needed. Even though I had spent the last 10 hours or so doing exactly that.  I was constantly focusing on their happiness but I felt resentful and angry. Eventually I would snap and shout at one or other of them and they would wonder what on earth they had done wrong. My husband, who just wanted the shouting to stop, would be trying to do what he could to please me but with little or no idea what this actually was because I was shouting not communicating. At the same time he was failing to notice his own signals of overwhelm because he was focusing on my happiness over what he needed. The result was most often an enormous argument with all of us deeply unhappy.

The way things started to change was when we began to acknowledge that we were looking at things the wrong way round. Rather than focusing on making each other happy while ignoring our own needs, we should be making sure our own needs were met and then reaching out to the other. So our new motto is

“Save yourself first”.

How does this work in practice? For me it means I get a free pass to make sure I have time every day to pursue my own interests. I ask myself what I need, in the same way I would have asked my family in the past, and then I do that. I have found that this doesn’t mean I ignore their needs and happiness, rather I come to them with enthusiasm because I am already happy myself. For Matt, his free pass allows him to leave out communal tasks if he is overwhelmed. The only thing he has to do every day is monitor his own levels of overwhelm and do whatever is needed to reduce them, whether this is time under his weighted blanket or pursuing one of his special interests; ducking out of a social event because he can’t cope with it or asking me to pick up the boys from school because driving in the dark is too stimulating at that time. Again, if he does this we have found he is much more able to engage positively with me and everyone is much happier. This approach is something we are still working on, we don’t always get it right, but we have seen the positive impacts when we truly do it and so it is something we continue to aim for.

It makes sense when you think about it. Matt is neurodivergent. I am not. I try to understand his needs and he tries to understand mine but when it comes down to it we only really understand our own properly. This is not a criticism of either of us and should not be seen as a failing, it is just a fact. Therefore the person that can most easily and efficiently see that our needs are being met and oversee our own happiness is ourself. When we meet our own needs we are in a much better place for supporting the other to meet theirs.

So, much as I like Headspace, on this one I am going to have to disagree. Happiness in a neurodiverse marriage doesn’t start from making other people happy. It comes from saving yourself first.