written by Coach JoyGenea with support from Claude AI, image by Chat GPT
Your Partner Is Wired Differently. Here Is the Sequence That Actually Works.
The Question:
“I’m pretty sure my partner is on the spectrum and is missing some major relationship concepts. They are working all the time, so focused on their company and their ideas. They never seem to get that excited about our relationship or the family. I’m fantasizing about something that exists to teach them the socially acceptable behaviors and expectations in a partnership. Maybe a workshop or some class they can take?”
My Answer:
This is a great question, and we need to take two steps back from what you see as the problem before we can start to see real options for change.
The best way I can help you see more options is to remind you of the four parts of behavioral change. Because here is the thing: you cannot skip steps and expect the outcome you want. I see this constantly with partners, spouses, and even business partners who are ready to act while the other person does not even know a conversation is coming.
The Four Parts of Change
Awareness comes first. You need to be aware that something you or your partner is doing is not creating the outcome you both want, and you need to get clear on what you actually have control over in that situation. That awareness has to exist on both sides, because this is a partnership.
Exploration comes second. Now that you have awareness, what do you do with it? You research, you ask questions, you have conversations, and you decide on an action based on what you learn.
Implementation and action is third. Notice that is not step one or two. First comes awareness. Then comes real understanding of what you are asking for. Then, and only then, do you take action. Here is what nobody tells you about this phase: when you first start doing things differently, it feels awful. It feels awkward. It goes against every instinct you have. You will want to quit. That is completely normal. The key is to not bail on the whole thing. Ask yourself, was all of it terrible, or was just one element of it needing to adjust? Stay in it. Add more learning. Repeat. The people who quit at this stage lose out on so much growth. Stay with it.
Success! The fourth phase is when the new behavior becomes part of everyday life. It stops being an effort and starts being who you are. Things around you will shift. People will react differently to you. That is worth noting and adjusting to as well.
So, before we even get to recommendations, I want to name that you are talking about deeply rooted behaviors changing in another person. That is absolutely possible. But it takes all four of these steps, in order.
Why the Sequence Matters
Here is what I see most often. The person asking this question has been in awareness for a while. They have been in exploration. They are now at step three, ready for action and implementation. But their partner? Their partner is still at step one. They do not even know a conversation is building.
When you jump straight to action without enrolling the other person in what is happening, they feel blindsided. They hear “you are failing” when you mean “I need more from us.” That gap between what you are communicating and what actually lands is not a character flaw on either side. It is a sequencing problem. And it is solvable.
The goal is always enrollment and curiosity, not confrontation.
Three Things I Recommend, In This Order
A Relationship or Partnership Workshop
Whether this is a romantic relationship or a business partnership, a structured workshop is the best place to start. It creates a level playing field. Neither person is the problem. Both people are participants. It removes blame and opens conversations that begin with “I” statements: I need, I want, I would like, I could use more of this.
It also gives your partner the chance to move through awareness and exploration on their own terms, so that when you arrive at action and implementation together, they are not feeling ambushed. You can skip this step. But I promise you, it is more painful when you do.
If you are already openly discussing the possibility that your partner is wired differently, there are workshops specifically designed for that conversation. If you are not there yet and just want a solid place to start, the Gottman Institute’s Art and Science of Love workshop and Hold Me Tight Online are both options I have seen clients use with real results.
https://www.gottman.com/couples/workshops/art-science-of-love/
https://holdmetightonline.com/
For partners who are ready to have a more specific conversation about neurodiversity, the AANE (Asperger/Autism Network) also offers resources designed for couples navigating exactly this.
https://aane.org/services-programs/training-education/courses-for-couples-partners/
For ADHD this comes as a recommendation
https://centerforlivingwellwithadhd.org/workshops/adhd-marriage-uncomplicated/
Counseling with the Right Fit
The goal of counseling at this stage is not to fix your partner. It is to give both people a referee, a translator, and a space where each person is actually heard. That can be hard to achieve on your own, even with the best intentions.
If you suspect your partner thinks differently than most, find a counselor who has worked with different thinkers, with executives, with people who have built something and carry a specific kind of pressure. You will not have to spend your sessions educating the counselor. You will get to the real work faster.
The counseling is also for you. Coming to terms with who your partner actually is, not the version you want them to be, is part of this process. You cannot change someone else. And trying to is a losing strategy for everyone. What you can do is understand the dynamic better and show up differently inside it.
Unconventional Leadership Coaching
This is the third step, not the first, and that matters. Coaching is most powerful after a person has moved through some awareness and exploration and is genuinely ready to change, not because someone told them to, but because they can see that how they have been operating is not getting them where they want to go.
When a different thinker arrives at that realization, coaching can be enormously effective. They start to understand how their brain actually works, what they bring to a relationship or partnership, where the friction comes from, and how to navigate it with more skill. Week after week, they build new tools. They practice new ways of communicating. They stop being confused by their own patterns. I can recommend a great coach for this. Me, Coach JoyGenea.
That is where the real shift happens.
You Are Not Alone in This
If you are in a relationship or partnership with someone who is wired differently, there is a real possibility that they are missing some things that feel obvious to you. That is not meanness. It is not indifference. It is a different operating system running without an updated manual.
And it can change. But it requires solid communication from everyone involved, a willingness to look at the full picture, and the patience to move through the process in the right order.
A lot more connection, balance, and clarity come out of that process. I have seen it. Start where you are comfortable and keep moving forward. Build from there.
If you would like to learn more about this topic feel free to reach out. I am happy to support people in any way I can.
Coach JoyGenea
Want to Expand On What You Just Read?
AI PROMPTS that support this topic
- Find Your Step “Based on the four phases of behavioral change, awareness, exploration, implementation, and integration, help me figure out which phase I am currently in. Here is my situation: [describe what is happening in your relationship or partnership]. Ask me questions to help me get specific about where I am stuck and what the next right move is.”
- The Enrollment Conversation “I need to bring up a difficult topic with my partner or business partner without them feeling blindsided or attacked. Here is what I want them to understand: [describe the issue]. Help me draft an opening conversation that starts with curiosity, not confrontation, and gives them room to arrive at awareness on their own terms.”
- Find the Right Counselor “Help me build a list of specific questions I should ask a potential counselor or therapist before hiring them. My partner is a high-performing, different thinker, likely wired unconventionally. I need someone who already understands that profile so I am not spending sessions educating them.”
- I Statements Prep “Help me reframe my frustrations about my relationship or partnership into clear I statements. Here are the things I keep saying or thinking: [list your complaints or observations]. Rewrite each one as an I need, I want, or I would like statement that opens a conversation instead of starting a fight.”
- Map the Gap “My partner and I seem to be operating from completely different realities right now. Help me map out what I think they are experiencing versus what I am experiencing, side by side. Here is what I know about the situation from my side: [describe it]. Then help me generate three possible interpretations of their behavior that I have not considered yet.”
Video Transcription:
Okay, so this week I’m answering a specific question literally that I received over the weekend. It goes like this. I’m pretty sure my husband is on the spectrum and is lacking some major relationship marriage concepts. He is working all the time and is so focused on his company and his ideas, so passionate about them.
He never seems to get that excited about our marriage or the family. I’m fantasizing about something that exists to teach him about the socially acceptable behaviors and expectations for a marriage and family. Maybe a workshop or some class that he can take. Okay. Oh, let’s just dive into the answer to that.
And the answer to that is. Sure there is. The outcome probably won’t be what you expect and the other person’s experience of the conversation leading to that is probably going to be a bit painful, um, and not overly appreciated. Typically, most people don’t appreciate being told that they are different or any of those kind of things, and in particular, they may hear it and interpret it as.
They’re failing in the marriage. You are not happy and they’re not good enough. And even if that is slightly true, I don’t think it’s gonna get the outcomes that you want if we address it quite that way. So I’m gonna dive into a little bit deeper the answer that I give for this.
Okay, so now to address this question first, the main thing you wanna remember is that any form of behavioral change requires four important things. Awareness, like you have to be aware that the behavior that is happening is not the behavior that you want, and it’s not achieving the outcomes that you want.
So there has to be that awareness, and then you’re gonna need some awareness of when. That behavior happens when, in this example, when that person isn’t engaging with the family, when this person isn’t possibly meeting your needs as a spouse and a partner in that relationship. So that’s some awareness that needs to happen for both members.
’cause remember, this is a partnership in a relationship. The next part in any behavioral change is about exploration. Okay, so now we have awareness. What are we gonna do with that? And the doing with that is to actually explore, do research, be more specific about what might be the issue and what you wanna change in that.
The third part, and this is the part everybody always loves, is actual action and implementation. Notice that wasn’t one or two. First we gotta become aware, then we’ve gotta do some research and, and really start to understand what we’re asking for. And then we take action and implementation. The key and fun thing with that is when at first you start to implement these things, they feel awful.
They feel awkward. It doesn’t feel right. It goes against all natural instincts in some ways. And so you wanna push back and you wanna quit. That’s normal. Take the next action. Learn from that. Say, okay, officially was all of this terrible, or was just one little element of it. Needing to adjust, but you don’t bail on the whole thing, but trust me.
Oh, you want to. And a lot of people do. And that is where you lose out on so much growth. So we’re working on our behavioral changes. And then number four is you actually implement it and you have this new behavior and you actually live it out every day. That’s a whole. Different space. That’s a whole, that’s just all different.
And that’s exciting and fun, but it’ll be different and it will create different outcomes and people around you will react a little differently to things. And again, you’ll need to adjust to that and you need to be aware of that. So the first part of that question. Wow is the fact, wow, you’re talking about somebody’s behaviors changing.
They’re fairly enrooted. Absolutely. That can happen. But that takes awareness, that takes exploration, that takes these four steps, action, and then really embracing that new behavior, that new way of being. So I, I have to start the conversation there to then give the answer to. In this person’s particular position.
What I would actually recommend, and I rema recommend this quite often to most of the people that ask me this, that are not already engaged in some coaching and they’re already aware. So when it comes from significant others, when it comes from employees and staff, when it comes from business partners, I’m usually like, listen, first thing you need to do is possibly like for.
Business partners, I encourage them to find a weekend workshop, a retreat, uh, something they can go to, to build their, on their partnership that will allow them the opportunity to talk about that. The same thing is true for relationships and one of the simple earthing and easier things to have access to.
It’s actually an online workshop. That might be a great way to just start the conversation because what I find with partners and. Spouses and so forth. You’ve been thinking about this circumstance for a while. You’ve been in awareness, you’ve been in exploration, and you are now to step three, action and implementation.
That other person, they were there for one, two, and now you’re on three. Guess what? They feel blindsided by three doing an online workshop, um, going to a weekend retreat or something of that nature allows. The other person to become aware. It allows them to have the awareness, the exploration, and then join you on actions and implementations.
You can skip this, but I promise you it’s more painful, so you wanna enroll them in, in what’s kind of happening. The next thing I usually encourage for relationships in particular, marital, significant other types of things is um, couples counseling. Because now you have a referee, you have a translator, and you have somebody there to support both of you and to make sure each other is actually heard, which can wind up not happening, just doing an online workshop.
So. I highly recommend doing that. Counseling is always gonna be something I’m recommending for people. You wanna find a counselor though, that has worked with different thinkers, that has worked with executives. If that’s who you’re married to, who’s worked with someone who, who has similar tr you know, who’s worked with someone who has had traits similar to your significant other, that will be very, very helpful.
You will not have to waste so much time educating the counselor. That’s what I can see kind of happening with that. And then the third thing, which you’re not gonna be at all surprised that I’m saying is coaching. Absolutely. After you have done the other things and possibly this person has become aware that yeah, their behaviors are not leading them in the direction they want to go.
That they want their significant other to feel valued and heard and appreciated and they would like to change some of their behaviors, but is not gonna be super easy. That is exactly when coaching can be huge. Hugely, immensely valuable and add. Great. Great. Um. Support to the changes and the, the things that you, that you as a team wanna make happen as a family.
And then working on it week after week, being able to talk about it, being able to learn new techniques and understanding who they are and the strengths and weaknesses that they bring to things. And better being able to negotiate that as a team, um, and, and communicate it in particular. That tends to be.
Yeah, as I’m saying this, that tends to be one of the biggest. Things I hear from, from significant others, partners, girlfriends, boyfriends, those types of things is just that I don’t feel heard. Like I’ve said this so many times, they’re not hearing me. You’re not wrong. And you’re not entirely right. It just hasn’t landed the way you want it to.
And so, um, that is one thing when it comes to relationship coaching. When that winds up being a little part of the coaching that I do, I’m always looking for ways to restate what was. Stated, uh, because quite often someone will come to me and they’ll be like, ah, my significant other said this, and I can’t believe that did.
And I said, pause for a minute. Let me give you another angle on that. Let me, um, help you see a different perspective. And I might, you know, spatter off four or five different perspectives. But one of them, they’ll go, oh, is that what they meant? I’m like, I don’t know. But if it was, what would your reaction be?
And it allows them the opportunity to see, oh, that instant interpretation might not be the only interpretation. So there’s room for growth and improvement. So if you are in a relationship and you are not feeling heard, you are not receiving what you need in that relationship, that is valid too. And I wanna acknowledge that.
And you’re, if you want it to change. You’re gonna need to explore it too, because you are part of that partnership. You’ve helped lead things to where they are. You may need to change some of your behaviors to help the other person grow and yourself. So that is why I encourage the relationship workshop.
There’s a lot of learning that happens in that that then makes it really valuable. When you do do some couples counseling, you can bring some more information to that, and then from the couples counseling can come, like I said, that. Coaching afterwards to really help with the implementation and the understanding.
Should the person you are with be different, a different thinker, be possibly neurodiverse, any of those types of things. So you are not alone. I wanna start there. You’re not alone. If you are in a relationship with a different thinker, there’s a possibility that that different thinker does miss some of the obvious things in that relationship.
You are not alone there and it can change, but it is going to require some solid communication from both all parties and a reation of your whole relationship, which I hope you’re excited about. You should be. It is pretty amazing what comes from those conversations. A lot more happiness, a lot more balance for families.
It’s, it’s just great. So you’re not alone. Coaching belongs in there, but there’s kind of a process if you want it to be more successful. And this is the process I have seen success-wise. If you wanna check out my, um, article that I wrote about this, I do have some additional links to a few of the workshops that I have seen clients go through that they have recommended, um, because it’s actually they’ve tried them and had great results.
It’s I’m JoyGenea unconventional leadership coach, international neurodiversity coach and champion for the world. Just having a lot easier time getting along. Bye now.