One of the things that Matt and I have struggled with over the years is romance and outward expressions of love. There have been numerous issues with things that I thought of as standard: no cards or gifts on days when they might have been expected, sometimes the occasion has been completely forgotten, lack of physical affection or meals out, that kind of thing. I used to get so cross. This stemmed from my feelings of low self-worth, of course, as well as my bad habit of comparison. Why should Matt constantly be proving his love to me with external things and why, just because society has specific ways of portraying the showing of love, should we have to do so too? But still, it was a real issue for us. I have spoken before about how I now do things for myself or give really specific instructions on those days if I want something particular.  But I have also realized that Matt is constantly proving his love to me with external things – they are just not the things that you might see in the movies, read about in books or be told you need to have from adverts on TV. Just like a lot of things about Matt, I need to look a little differently to see what is right under my nose.

So some examples of things Matt has done this week to show he loves me:

Fixed the tap when it broke even though it took most of his day off.

Sanity checked me when I was struggling doing something at work.

Listened to me when I needed to talk even though he was halfway through watching a video (that is a massive thing as he doesn’t like to stop something halfway through).

Unpacked the dishwasher every day.

Been happy that I ordered some pans (because it made me happy!)

And then he surprises me completely with an amazing sweet gesture. This year is our 20^th wedding anniversary. It is not yet but it is coming up in the next few weeks. On Sunday he gave me a gift. It was meant for our anniversary but he saw I was feeling low and thought I needed cheering up then. It was my old Walkman (portable cassette player for those of you who are too young to know what I am talking about!) which he had fixed so it played again. It had an old tape in that I loved. He fixed it up to his portable speaker and we played the old songs and danced whilst I cooked the dinner. He had hoped to play an old mix tape that I had made when we first started going out but it has been slightly mangled. He is in the process of trying to unravel it.

This gift broke all the “rules” of anniversary gift giving. It was early, there was no ceremony or unwrapping, it was just placed on the table with an embarrassed comment …… and it was perfectly timed and one of the best gifts I have ever been given. It also broke the rules of autistic behaviour that I, and possibly you, have read about. It is a truly thoughtful gift and incredibly romantic, it took planning because he had had to order parts and spend time fixing it  – and Matt was empathetic enough to see that I was feeling low and that then was when I needed it. All things that when I read the descriptions of autistic people when learning about autism I would have thought they would not be capable of. Descriptions that might have made me give up on my marriage if I hadn’t actually started looking deeper.

I guess what I am saying is, with a neurodiverse relationship love might not always look like you might expect. And if you want the Hollywood image of a relationship then possibly a neurodiverse one is not for you. But don’t despair on finding (and feeling) love with a neurodivergent man or woman. It might not be playing by society’s rules but if you look for it you will find it – and sometimes you might just get a gesture that you would never have expected.