A Look Inside a Neuro-mixed Marriage
They say opposites attract, and my husband and I are certainly opposites when it comes to our neurodiversity. I'm neurotypical and he is dyslexic, so you could call it a neuro-mixed marriage. He is quite ‘stereotypically’ dyslexic in most ways, as his reading, writing, short term memory and organising skills pose a challenge to him, however he has incredible strengths in spoken communication, practical skills, visual/spatial awareness, and coordination. In an almost perfect contrast, I excel in reading, writing, and organising, and am (for the most part), woeful in all the other areas.
Sometimes it can be frustrating when something comes naturally to one of us but not to the other. Driving, for example, requires practical, visual/spatial and coordination skills, so it is very much in his wheelhouse but not mine. So, when we are driving down a busy street and he says, “Oh just pull into that space”, I know he has the skills for the task, so he gets annoyed at me for driving another 50 yards to find a bigger space or a side street to park comfortably in. And actually, I don't know what 50 yards is, so I would have to ask! My frustrations often arise from his memory and organisation challenges, like when he tells me we are invited to an event at short notice, even though he knew about it for months, and I'm suddenly left to sort out babysitters, presents, outfits and travel plans.
How We Work Together to Excel
For the most part, however, we excel as a team. I head up the family administration and he completes the bigger jobs, like building toys and trampolines. I don't do maths at all, whereas he is a human calculator, so I normally just ask him to do the sums while I'm focusing on the bigger picture (like working out yearly child care payments or similar). I will bring him some ideas and visuals for decorating and he will do all the planning and building, then I will naturally swoop in with some decorative bits and take the credit!
Our differences make us a strong team, but we do have a number of strategies in place to help us manage these differences sometimes. The first is communication. We have different communication preferences, especially for important conversations, so we sometimes have to compromise. We may take breaks in discussions to help with the information processing, and we do active listening so we can check that what we heard was the message that was sent.
We use systems, processes, and routines to organise family life, such as to-do list boards, calendars and working backwards from deadlines etc. Our lives would be chaos without this.
We also play to each other’s strengths. He often parallel parks the car; I whip up a detailed itinerary for family holidays. This is not just efficient, but it means we don't get frustrated trying to do tasks we aren't very good at.
Diversity works. We see this in all parts of life, and our relationship is no different. Accepting and supporting each other's differences and playing to each other’s strengths enables us to grow as individuals and as a team.