173: When Your Brains Are Different: Finding Your Way in a Neurodivergent Marriage

Episode Transcript

FamilyLife Blended®

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Season 7, Episode 173: When Your Brains Are Different: Finding Your Way in a Neurodivergent Marriage

Guest:Dr. Stephanie and Dan Holmes

Air Date: September 22, 2025

Dan (00:02):

What it reminded me of was the shame of knowing that I caused that. There is a walking wounded in my house, and I am the cause of the wound. The one that is supposed to be next to, near and dear, is the one that is the cause of the scars.

Ron (00:29):

Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most. Next month, next month is our annual two-day in-person leadership conference. It’s called the Summit on Stepfamily Ministry. We are gathering pastors, staff, and lay couples from around the country. We’re all going to get together in Nashville, Tennessee on October 23 to 24, 2025.

Our theme is “Press On” this year, and that’s just what we’re going to equip you to do, continue to press on. What we mean by that is take the next step in ministering to blended families in your church and community. We’ve got the tools. We’ve got the resources. You have the fields that are white for harvest. Let’s get together and make a difference for the kingdom. So join us October 23-24, check the show notes for a link, or you can just go to the website SummitonStepfamilies.com.

(01:32):

It sure would be fun to spend some time with you there.

Speaking of ministry, I hope your fall small group has launched. Make sure it’s on our searchable map. We also want other people to be able to find you. And if you don’t know where that map is, go to FamilyLife.com/blended and you will find a link to that map, and you can search all kinds of things. But most importantly, you can add your blended family ministry event to that map. Not just small groups, but one-day events, retreats, whatever it is you’re doing for stepfamilies. Submit it to us and let us add that so other people can find you.

And here’s a thought. Consider making your next group a virtual one or having a virtual component to it so couples from around the country can jump in if they don’t have a group in their area.

(02:20):

Okay, you may not have someone in your family on the autism spectrum, but I bet you know and love somebody who does. For your sake and for theirs please stay with us. Stephanie and Dan Holmes have been married since 1994 and are a neurodiverse couple. What that means is one of the partners in this marriage is on the autism spectrum. Dan is the one who’s on that AS spectrum, and they have a daughter, Sydney, who is on the autism spectrum as well.

Stephanie is a trained counselor and specializes in working with AS clients and families. Dan has a background in systems architecture and design, and coaches neurodivergent men. Together, Stephanie and Dan are co-founders of the International Association of Neurodiverse Christian Marriage. I bet you’d never heard of that before, but it’s an important organization. They’ve recently written a book called Uniquely Us: Gracefully Navigating the Maze of Neurodiverse Marriage, Autism and Faith.

Dan and Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me on the FamilyLife Blended podcast.

Dan (03:34):

Oh, it’s great to be here.

Stephanie (03:35):

Love to be with you.

Ron (03:37):

Stephanie, you and I wrote an article a few years ago that was published in Autism Parenting Magazine, and it had to do with blended families that had a child on the autism spectrum. To our listener and viewer, by the way, we’re going to put a link to that article in the show notes. We’ve got a PDF that we can make available to you for that. And then we also interviewed you, Stephanie, on our podcast. That’s episode number 46. For anybody who has not heard that one, go back and listen to it if you’d like. So here’s my question, Stephanie, what percentage of families with a child on the autism spectrum also have a parent on the autism spectrum?

Stephanie (04:15):

The Center for Disease and Control here, based out here in Atlanta, the CDCs that one in 36 children are on the autism spectrum. And then there was a really large study by medical journal back in 2018 or 2019 that found an 80 percent hereditary rate. So we can say with about, there’s about 80 percent certainty that maybe one of or both parents could be neurodivergent and that could mean ADHD or on the autism spectrum.

Ron (04:41):

And that’s actually a really high percentage. I remember the first time I heard you say that, I was like, “Wow, I didn’t know that.” And I’m wondering how many people know that. Do you have a sense of whether people are in tune with that very well or do they just focus on their child?

Stephanie (05:04):

I don’t think they do. When I started doing focused work in this about 10 years ago, working with children and adolescents and start interviewing parents, I would say anecdotally or based on what I’m observing, this seems to be something that’s happening in families. And then it was kind of interesting, all these things that were coming out about what could cause autism, that I’d be like, “Well, that’s not what we see, or that’s not what we observe. Who’s on the spectrum with us? I can’t possibly—who’s on the spectrum?” So even as a trained therapist, I wasn’t even aware of Dan’s neurodiversity really till well into our marriage.

Ron (05:40):

Okay, Dan, let’s talk about that for a second. You guys had a daughter who had been diagnosed on the autism spectrum long before you were. Tell me about that journey for you to realize that, come into that and face that situation.

Dan (05:56):

It’s really not that exciting of a story.

Ron (06:00):

Kind of a boring story, huh?

Dan (06:01):

It is. It is actually, because we had spent so long watching, diagnosing, understanding, because Sydney’s diagnosis back in 2000s was a very difficult process. It was a rule out process. So we met almost every doctor in North Carolina to figure out what was going on and they had to say, “Nope, it’s not this. Nope, it’s not this. Nope, it’s not this.” Finally we got to a psychologist and said, “Yes, now with all of that, this is what’s going on.” And then, so that gives you a lot of time to learn everything that it’s about. So then you push on towards the next, that was what, 20—

Stephanie (06:39):

2005, 6 Ish.

Dan (06:40):

Five six, something like that. You push on into the mid-teens of that and now there’s a lot more learning, a lot more growth. And by the time I was diagnosed in 19, it was, I mean, it really a non-event. We’d lived with it kind of informally for so long that it really wasn’t—it was “Okay, that’s true. Let’s have tomorrow now.” Right. I mean, it just wasn’t really a thing.

Ron (07:03):

Wow. So even for you as an adult, how old were you when you got that diagnosis?

Stephanie (07:08):

Five, six years ago. So late forties.

Dan:

Late forties.

Ron (07:09):

Okay. Here you are in your late forties, and someone finally puts words on it and that didn’t feel like a big deal? Or was there a part of you that was like, “Nah, I don’t get this. I don’t understand.”

Dan (07:22):

No, I think we had pretty much decided a handful of years earlier than that. It really, I had accepted it just based on living, watching, identifying, seeing behavior between Sydney and I that was similar. And because of that, it just landed in a reasonable place. This isn’t illogical. It didn’t change my every day. I mean, it just was, here’s a description of something that’s going on. Here’s a reason why I think, act, behave, talk, do, and it wasn’t wrong, so it was okay. And then we get the official diagnosis, and it was, all right, I got the certificate now.

Stephanie (08:00):

He actually asked for one. He wanted a certificate from the person who assessed him.

Ron (08:05):

Like something you put on your driver’s license that allow you to park up front, that sort of thing. Okay.

Dan (08:10):

I don’t know where it is now, but I got to bring it home.

Ron (08:12):

You really did get one. So let me talk out of my ignorance for a minute. I think I’m speaking for a lot of people who are listening or watching right now who just go, well, I don’t know how this works. So I think sometimes walking around life, you bump into people, and you get a sense pretty quickly that, “Oh, okay, that child has some special needs. And I kind of feel like maybe it’s on the autism spectrum, but I’m not exactly sure.” In other words, sometimes it’s fairly obvious. Dan, in your case, I guess it wasn’t obvious, right? I mean otherwise that would’ve, this whole conversation would’ve happened earlier in life perhaps, or am I totally off about that?

Dan (08:51):

No, I think that’s accurate. Growing up, I was definitely different to the point that you would say weird. I didn’t have as much money as I do now, so I was an eccentric, right? I mean, that’s the difference.

Ron (09:03):

You’re weird, but when you have money now, you are eccentric. I got you.

Dan (09:06):

You’re eccentric. I don’t know what that cutoff is, so maybe, I don’t know. So I don’t know when you actually crossed that line, but there was definitely a—I thought different. I could tell it, but I didn’t know the word autism. I didn’t know that it was anything other than weird. It didn’t hurt. I still went to school. I came home every day. I still rode my skateboard. I did all the stuff, but when it was time to think about stuff or process something or something like that, it was just different than my peers.

Ron (09:41):

And did you feel weird, I mean, I know others from the outside may have described it as weird, but did you feel weird?

Dan (09:48):

Well, that’s an interesting question because one of the characteristics is not really understanding how you fit in time and space and relationally. So you could arguably say no, because I was ignorant that anybody else actually thought I was weird, other than you get on the school bus and kids act like kids.

Ron (10:07):

So there was what, bullying or teasing kind of stuff?

Dan (10:11):

Yeah, teasing. It wasn’t soul crushing, but it was standard. I was also short. So for a kid that was, I was the youngest in the class, I was tended to be the smallest in the class. So I mean it kind all went together with that.

Ron (10:29):

And I’m also thinking about your mother. So her son gets diagnosed in his late forties. Did it make sense to your parents?

Dan (10:36):

I don’t think so. I still don’t think they really understand, although mom, I think she accepts it because I do and because I’m still the same person I used to be, but I don’t think she’s really consumed what it means.

Ron (10:51):

Okay. And Stephanie, what was your journey?

Stephanie (10:54):

So for me, since I was a licensed professional counselor, I was being trained in the 1990s when this new designation called Asperger Syndrome hits the diagnostic manual. And I’m being trained on that manual. So while I was told I would never see anyone, because at that point it was like one in 10,000 was the diagnostic rate,

(11:15):

It just kind of got put in the back of my head. And then when I started observing certain things in our daughter, I was like, “Huh, I wonder if this is that word I was never going to see.” And so it kind of went from there. And I think one of the reasons I fell for Dan is he was very unique. He was very different than other people and also very smart and also didn’t really tend to fall for a lot of peer pressure because he didn’t really care what other people thought. So we have also the benefit of growing up together from ages 10 to 12.

(11:49):

So he was just Dan to me, just different and highly intellectual, and I liked that about him. And then when we started figuring out some of the stressors we were having in our own marriage, then Dan was actually, was like, “Well, I always told you Sydney and I were kind of the same.” And so I was like, “Whoa, how did I miss that as a therapist this whole time?” So as we kind of went on that journey, Dan is kind of an anomaly though. A lot of the Christian men we work with are very angry about the diagnosis. They’re very defensive about the diagnosis. And so I would say Dan’s a bit of an anomaly in that. That was like, “Okay,” and maybe we had a child, and we loved autism from a parent’s point of view at first, but many men we work with are very, very angry and feel accused or very defensive when you say, “Hey, have you ever thought about maybe you’re on the autism spectrum?” So that is something we run into.

Ron (12:47):

I’m curious, why do you guys think men are angry and defensive about it?

Dan (12:51):

I think it’s a less than thing.

(12:54):

It is different than perhaps a medical disease. If I have—let’s pick something, it doesn’t matter—diabetes, that’s a health condition. There’s a pill you can take for that. There is insulin. I mean, you can treat that. In the case of autism, it’s not something you take a pill for. It’s not anything that you treat necessarily because it’s how you are and how you are can influence how you are to others. Sometimes in positive and sometimes in negative. And I don’t know, maybe it is that idea, you go back to the, whenever that movie, whenever Rain Man came out, it created a stigma against it.

Because autism has so many forms, you can go everything from nonverbal, non-speaking, needs an enormous amount of help. You’ve got all forms of intellectual capability in there. It’s easy to paint it all with one brush. And if you do that and the brush you paint with is a negative feeling one, then you might think, “Well, that’s how other people are going to think of me.” And then you’ll adopt that vision for yourself and you won’t like it. That’s my, I don’t know, off the cuff speculation.

Ron (14:13):

Yeah. Stephanie, do you have any further thoughts?

Stephanie (14:16):

Yeah, I think kind of growing up in church in the nineties, I mean just first of all, when I went into the field of psychology, that was called the devil science. And a lot of church circles are anti labels. We’re just not going to call it that. We’re just going to love this person the way they are. And sometimes people think that that’s a kind thing to do. We don’t believe in labels. We don’t believe in all of that. But what that’s really saying is a label is something to be ashamed of. What you’re really doing is putting a stigma on it.

I think since the research that I did, showed that over 75 percent—we did a survey of 108 individuals on the spectrum, and over 75 percent were diagnosed over the age of 35. And so if you think about kind of what’s changed in that time period from like Dan was saying, Rain Man, where autism had a connotation of intellectual impairment to now, we know there’s a much broader spectrum where you can be twice exceptional and be brilliant. You could be Mensa smart and be on the autism spectrum. I think that’s still not as known and prevalent in our church circles. And I do still think just with mental health and neurodiversity, the church world is a little behind on understanding all of that.

Ron (15:40):

I can imagine someone’s listening or watching right now and they’re doing the math and they’re going, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. My niece’s kid is on the autism spectrum. Does that mean one of their parents is?” and they’re sort of doing that math with their friends, their extended family members, or maybe even a child or themselves. What would you suggest they do? How would you encourage them to move forward with considering that or pursuing that? What’s their strategy?

Stephanie (16:10):

Yeah, I think what we’ve found and what neuroscience is now showing us and the whole, first of all, let’s look at a little bit broader of an umbrella of neurodiversity; that might be autism, ADHD, dyslexia, left-handedness, learning differences and learning different processes. Usually when you find that in a family system, you’re going to see grandpas and aunts, and this wouldn’t have been talked about for our grandparents’ age. He just had an engineer mind or he’s just really smart, he’s just a little aloof, or he is just introverted. So there’s such a broader space. And then if you’re starting to think about it, usually if someone in your family gets diagnosed, people start learning about it. And then yes, the math starts to add up. The apple did not fall too far from the tree.

So I think just learning about it because when we learn about things and we have knowledge, it empowers us and so we can now look to next steps versus being afraid of what this means for our loved one, or for ourself, to say, “Oh, there’s a lot of information out there. Let’s get good information. Let’s start educating ourselves so we can equip and empower ourselves.”

Ron (17:16):

Speaking of education, you guys have written a book about this, about your journey about being a married couple with a neurodiverse couple as you say. And so I’m curious, what’s unique about this book and what would be helpful for people who are navigating this space?

Stephanie (17:34):

So for our book Uniquely Us, it is the first research-based book on neurodivergent couples, and it also is the first book that talks about autism, marriage and faith. So I would talk about it in three sections. The first few chapters are based on our survey data that we did of 300 people who are in a neurodiverse relationship. And so we kind of talked about, what does the neurodivergent partner see as satisfaction? What does the neurotypical person see as satisfaction? What are some of the common issues? We weave some of our personal story in there, but there’s another book we wrote that’s more personal story. So that first section is kind of here’s what it is and here’s what some of the differences are.

Then the second section of the book is what can change; neuroplasticity, social communication, accommodations and modifications if there’s issues with someone remembering something. Or coming up with lists, different strategies to help memory and what you can do in your attachment, growing in your attachment to God and to each other, the spiritual things.

And then the third section is kind of the sad chapter is if these things remain unchanged, there is a very high divorce rate in neurodiverse couples, especially for those where the diagnosis didn’t come until 20 or 30 years into the marriage. That’s a lot of hurt and a lot of misunderstanding before there was a label or a diagnosis.

Ron (18:53):

I could see how that would be the case. So let me back up. Let’s take this a little bit at a time. Dan, what’d you guys discover in some of the research about how the neurodiverse person defines marital satisfaction versus how the typical partner thinks of satisfaction?

Dan (19:12):

Generally the opposite. What one likes the other one rates lower and the other way around. So if you think about it from a communication perspective, just being near, close attachment, it could be as simple as what do we both find would be something that created connection. It could be anything. So from the neurodiverse person, it could be when you let me go do my own thing from video games to model cars to reading to whatever that hobby fun thing is. I am connected to you when I get hours of time doing that by myself. That is very likely to be the opposite of what the spouse thinks. She would like to go for a bike ride, have dinner, get help holding the laundry,

Ron (20:07):

Face to face, knee to knee, toe to toe, having conversation.

Dan (20:11):

It could be just sit in the same room with me. I mean if the other person is downstairs putting together the model train or whatever that thing is and they don’t participate in the family, it could be a first step just to participate in the family, be present, physically present if you’re not mentally present.

Ron (20:29):

And I would think this would, that specific example would be on steroids. If the genders are like your genders; that it’s the woman who’s the neurotypical who’s really wanting connection, and that means connection, that means face-to-face conversation, doing things together, looking at one another, talking, sharing. So Dan, tell me how is that connection for you when you have space or time to do your thing?

Dan (20:59):

We’re much better at that balance than we once were, so go back, I don’t know, 20 plus years maybe, and the only thing I would ever do was fix something on the computer. I mean that’s what I did for my job. And then when I came home, I kept doing it. If I wasn’t doing that, I was probably reading something. And if I wasn’t doing that, I was outside.

Stephanie (21:18):

Tinkering on something.

Dan (21:19):

Hudson around, just doing whatever. Fast forward and now we have activities. The weekdays are what they are. I mean you go to work; you come home. You wake up the next day and you do the same thing. You get to a weekend now and it’s a little bit more scheduled as in “I need to do this thing.” There might still be some layover work that needs to happen. You got to go to the grocery store; you got to do just stuff around the house that needs to happen that you can’t get done during the week. And then there is a time, what are we going to do together? And then we will actively talk about that. So instead of going our separate ways after that, on Saturday mornings right now I’ll go to the grocery store. I might have a tennis match, but then in the afternoon when we get to say one or two, we’ll have a planned something, whether it’s playing Frisbee or whether it’s just going for a walk or riding the bikes, we’ll have a planned something and then that’s how we’ll stay connected instead of what used to be, maybe I would just find a place and go read a book for the rest of the weekend.

Ron (22:19):

Not that it would be this way for every neurodiverse partner, but for you, do you have to actively put that in your calendar? Do you have to find little mechanisms to push yourself into “What’s that connection piece?” or is it just something you’ve grown toward and it’s not that difficult anymore?

Dan (22:36):

More of the latter now. I’m still extremely forgetful, so there’s certain things I really do have to write down or I have to put them in a calendar, or I’ve set an alarm. Most of the time that’s simple stuff, but to the rhythm we’ve gotten ourselves into the weekend is what the weekend is. Now I know that the morning is going to be “Alright, we’ve got to do grocery shopping for the week.” I might or might not have tennis. I might need to go down to the garden, get that kind of stuff done. And then I know the afternoon, and the rest of the weekend is going to be us having a planned something or other.

(23:08):

So it’s not so detailed. We don’t put plans together such that you have to figure out what’s going to happen every 15 minutes of the day. That would be overwhelming. There’s no way I’m doing that. But when we say, “At about three o’clock, well, we will go for a bike ride,” that I don’t generally have to write down. We’ve been doing that idea for a while. So yeah, we’ll go the bike ride. I’ll pick out where we’re going to go probably on the way based on what traffic is going to be. It’s just this mechanism fits naturally who I am. I am not a detailed, logistically, highly planned person, just not.

Ron (23:48):

Yeah. So you found your rhythm, you found the way to make this work for the two of you.

So backing up, Stephanie, before you guys both had this insight and he was working toward connecting time with you when he was just tinkering and gone and involved in doing things, where did that leave you? What would you say to a neurotypical partner who’s listening right now? Who’s going “Man, I’m the one who’s just feeling like the other person never really wants to spend time with me.”

Stephanie (24:26):

Well also adding that, we had two neurodivergent children, one on the autism spectrum and one who was ADHD and they were high needs. It felt lonely, it felt difficult. It was frustrating because this is not the person I married. It felt like a bait and switch. It felt like, I call it in the book, a tale of two marriages. Dan’s marriage was going just fine and mine was awful. So a lot of Christian women, “What am I doing wrong? Am I not praying enough? Are we not doing this enough? Are we not following all the good Christian rules enough? Because I thought we were doing all the good Christian things.” And so it’s very easy for a woman to think “It’s me. I’m not enough, or he doesn’t want to be with me, or he doesn’t want to spend time with me.” So it causes a lot of hurt and attachment pain until you kind of figure out what’s going on and how to start changing that. There are attachment differences for neurodivergent folks as well. They just need less attachment and connection time. And most neurotypical people want more attachment and connection time. And so finding the balance that wasn’t overwhelming for him, but desperate for me, that’s really what each couple’s going to have to figure out for themselves.

Ron (25:38):

Dan, in the course of writing this book, I imagine when you guys got into that chapter on the tale of two stories, two marriages, and by the way, that reminds me of the old joke every couple lives in a two-story house, his story and her story, and you guys had an even greater spread between the two stories. So what was it like for you to sort of wake up to, “Oh, that’s the way you experienced me all this time.” I’m curious.

Dan (26:06):

So I’ll say that came in two phases. There was a big moment back, I don’t even remember when that was, but I can remember we were still in Charlotte and you’d pretty much had it and told me what you felt, told me how you were, and I was—

Stephanie (26:24):

—blindsided probably.

Dan (26:25):

Yes, and devastated that I somehow ignorantly and inadvertently created that.

(26:31):

In that situation, that was my first moment. And then as we walk through and start to talk about what’s going on, I mean, every once in a while, we’ll still unravel some other something that we either laid dormant in her or hasn’t been said, and it’ll be that, “Wow, one more layer of depth.” And then that also will if something happened. So I’ll give you a quick story on this one. Sometime last fall, I can’t remember, but I came unglued, just absolutely unglued and we recovered way better than we ever have. I’ll say it that way. But what it reminded me of was the shame of knowing that I caused that. There is a walking wounded in my house, and I am the cause of the wound. The one that is supposed to be next to, near and dear, is the one that is the cause of the scars.

Ron (27:34):

Wow. That must have been hard and heavy. And I know speaking of my own marriage, I have those ongoing ahas and realizations and it is just another reminder of “Thank you God for being merciful to me and us, for bringing us through that stuff to this point where we’re repairing and actively building more trust and intimacy in our relationship.” So there’s a gratitude that comes and there’s also that sadness that comes. Do you feel those?

Dan (28:05):

Yes. The tension is, it used to be harder when shame had a higher grip. I’m the one walking around with, “Look what I did. Here’s my prize. Here’s my princess. Here is the crown, as Proverbs calls it. And look what I’ve done to it. I’ve tarnished it, I’ve dropped it, I’ve scraped it in my hand.” That at the same time of “Let’s pull ourselves out.” And eventually I got to where, yes, those things are true, but those things aren’t going to be my now and my forever. I am going to say, acknowledge “That happened. Yes, it’s true, but I’m not going to wear it every day.” And as I got to where I could put that aside, acknowledge it is true and say, “It is not my today. It is not me. It is not our forward. It is not our future,” that allowed me to walk more in the gladness, more in the joy, more in the anticipation of tomorrow as a better, stronger, greater us than it would’ve been had I not let that go.

Ron (29:08):

Wow. Stephanie, what’s been the journey like for you to move through this and build that new rhythm?

Stephanie (29:18):

Well, definitely it’s the new rhythm. It’s also kind of letting go. I usually even talk with my clients about letting go of the neurotypical-to-neurotypical Christian utopian marriage that is promised in all the books that A, doesn’t exist anyway.

(29:32):

And B, there are many different ways to have a covenant loving marriage with your spouse. And so I think especially in the Christian world when your marriage or your family doesn’t look like the model, as we’re talking about the model home of what that looks like, you can take on shame as a wife and as a mom and as a woman. And so I think what makes our story unique is we definitely started growing and working together and sometimes some of the spouses that we’re working with are really working opposite of each other. “Well, you go, do you and then I’ll do me” or “You go do this and then we’ll get help” or “No, it’s your fault, it’s your needs because you’re neurotypical and you’re too needy and you’re too sensitive.” “No, it’s your fault because you’re a neurodivergent and you don’t know how to be typical.” So when couples get caught in those really big cycles, that’s usually when they’re finding us at Crisis Point. I think something that was strong for Dan and I, as like I said, we grew up together. We were youth group buddies and friends, and so while things were very difficult and the marriage was miserable for about a good decade, he’s always been my friend.

(30:43):

We’ve always been friends and remained—our friendship has always been strong despite the struggles in the marital part of our life. I think if that had not been there, maybe we would’ve been in a different place now.

Ron (31:09):

Let’s turn the corner. Let’s talk a little bit specifically about blended families now. Because again, people are doing the math. If you have a neurodivergent child or, and/or one of the partners, maybe people are connecting some dots going, “Oh my goodness, this is a dynamic for us. We’re just beginning to uncover this.” Obviously, your book is going to help speak to that partnership, trying to find the teamwork of marriage, but also the teamwork of parenting, stepparenting, coming together and closing the gap is what I’m trying to say between you as a couple in order that you can be more functional as parents, more functional as husband and wife. I know you work with some blended families. I know we’ve had those conversations and thinking back to the article that we wrote about, what are some of the things that you find that you really need to caution couples about as it relates to how you deal with this autism spectrum child and/or now your marriage that you’re figuring out. One is and one isn’t. Where would you start?

Stephanie (32:17):

I think it’s also depending upon what is the neurodivergence, right? We could have a child or stepchild that’s on the spectrum. You could have one of the spouses who’s on the spectrum and undiagnosed or the ex-spouse—

Ron (32:33):

That’s right.

Stephanie (32:33):

—is on the spectrum. So there’s all these different kinds of combinations you could have. But I think if we’re going to start with a child that’s based on the article you and I wrote because I had walked up to you at a conference one day and said, I’ve read all of your stuff about some in the crockpot are potatoes and some are carrots, but what if ones a strawberry? It doesn’t really fit in the crockpot connection. And so the autistic child, the family who has the autistic child are a little more aware of the protocols and what we do. And so maybe the other parent thought, “Well, my kid is this age, and her kid is that age, we’re going to put them in a room together.” And the mother of the child says, “I don’t think them sharing a room is a very good idea for my child or yours.” That’s going to cause friction.

Ron (33:19):

It is. And the stepparent who’s walking into that situation sees the autism spectrum child, but doesn’t fully understand what that means behaviorally, managing day in and day out and then discovers that, “Wow, that kid kind of dominates the whole household and everything revolves around the care of that child because we don’t want to lose progress that we’ve made with that child.” All of those things are hard, stark, wake-up calls that can immediately throw this, “No, we’re not going to do life that way.” And the bio parents saying, “Well, but we have to do life that way.” Where do you find couples at that point?

Stephanie (33:58):

Yeah, because so many things could look like, alright, so let’s just take maybe the biological parent: “We lived in this particular place because this school district has the best accommodations for my child.” And so the other parent says, “Well, no, we need to move because we need to get a bigger house that meets all the needs of our family.” And it’s like, “Okay, but you don’t understand. Not every school in every district has the same accommodations. All the rest of the children could pick up and go to any other public school, but this child really needs these accommodations that are at this school.” And so that could again feel like you’re being selfish, but as a parent who has fought for advocacy and it’s going to get tougher for special needs kids, you have your team, and you have your accommodations. That’s a really big thing to give up just for a new house. Or maybe a church; maybe you found a church that knows how to deal with Johnny or Sally in the youth group. And so that’s where that person has community. But the other parent’s like, “Well, my kids don’t like going to that church.” And it’s like, “Well, we know that only seven to 11 percent of evangelical churches are equipped to handle children with special needs. Now you’re like back to looking for a needle in a haystack when you finally found maybe a church community.

(35:10):

So that’s again going to look like, “Well, why are we doing everything for Johnny or Sally?” Because there are specific accommodations that you might not find elsewhere. So sometimes for the siblings and the step siblings and the non-bio parent, it looks like just the world’s revolving around them. But it’s like we want this child to be as independent as possible, so we have to have the accommodations and things that help this person reach that potential. And sometimes that’s just not always seen or understood by the part of the family that didn’t grow up with that child.

Ron (35:42):

And it is a legitimate accommodation to make decisions that are heavily influenced by the needs of the child on the autism spectrum. And that’s a hard, hard reality for somebody who’s married into that or whatever the case may be, different household. I think that’s important to be said though. It doesn’t mean that absolutely everything is done their way because they’ve always done it that way. There might be some challenges or growth opportunities for that child and for the parent and rhythms, but it’s legit to say, “No, this school really matters,” or “This church or this thing that we’ve got in place really matters.”

Stephanie (36:24):

And it’s going to affect vacation. It might affect concerts, parks, everywhere you’re going that has a potential sensory issue that involves your five senses could be an issue for that child. Again, maybe the bio parent has kind of figured out some of those things and some of those rhythms. I’m not saying that the child on the spectrum can’t be stretched a little bit and there’s occupational therapy and physical therapy that could help, but it’s not sometimes in the Christian world it’s like, listen to me first time obedience. If you’re not doing that, you’re being disrespectful, and the non-bio parent is going to have trouble with maybe a more gentle approach or let’s break that down into three steps. Or maybe a tone comes across in a different way. The non-bio parent is going to be latching onto the disrespect or sin or all of that kind of stuff versus like, “Okay, I’ve got to build my relationship with this child as well.” And they are slow to warm up kiddos usually because you’re new. You’re a new thing in the environment and you are changing the pattern and the flow of this environment. So that’s going to take very slow movements of making major life decisions.

Ron (37:33):

Well, that’s one of the reasons I really appreciate your work, Stephanie, in this arena because you are helping people make sense of it. And I know that that article we wrote at the time, it was the only article that had ever really been written about autism and blended families. I don’t know if there’s been more that’s been developed since then. I haven’t seen anything. Don’t know if you have, but I really appreciate your work because people have a lot of questions around this, and they need to dig into what you’ve provided and that’s really important.

If somebody’s listening right now and they’re thinking, “Oh my goodness, my former spouse I think is on the autism spectrum. This is clicking, now I get it.” How do I help that person perhaps face that or understand that or pursue an understanding of their own situation better? Is there a way you can approach that person from the outside, do you think? Or is that challenging?

Stephanie (38:27):

It’s always challenging, especially now when a marriage has dissolved and now you find the label and it’s like, “Oh, you’re going to say my autism destroyed our marriage or something.”

Ron (38:39):

Now it feels like another blame tactic.

Stephanie (38:41):

Yes.

Ron (38:41):

Yeah.

Stephanie (38:42):

Yes. So I mean even with families that are still, the marriage is still together. The wife has a hard time going to the husband they’re married to.

(38:52):

So I always say we are not responsible for someone else’s response. We’re only responsible before Jesus for being kind and loving and a gentle approach, a question, an invitation into curiosity and exploration. There certainly are better ways to do it than others. “You better get tested or I’m going to divorce you” is not a great way. Which many people have tried. An ultimatum approach does not work. It’s so different for so different people. It just based how, like you said, if someone was bullied or teased growing up and now there’s a label, it’s like to some of the men that I’ve worked, they’re like, “When I got that label, it means that what those kids said was true.” And I was like, “No, it just still made them kind of jerks and still means that maybe there were differences they were picking up on that you weren’t aware of, but that doesn’t mean that you deserved that treatment because you were different.”

(39:43):

So different people just have such a different way with their identity and what a label or a diagnosis means. You just never know from person to person how they’re going to handle that. So I would say if it’s important to your relationship and how you’re going to co-parent, maybe you want to bring that up, especially if a child is on the spectrum and the words already there. But then that person, if they don’t want to look into or to be curious about it, you can do your due diligence to better understand, how do I communicate with them knowing that? But it doesn’t mean that they’re going to have that same curiosity journey with you.

Ron (40:30):

Dan, did anybody at any point in your life come to you and say, “I think you’re on the spectrum. I think you ought to pursue this and try to understand it”?

Dan (40:39):

No.

Ron (40:41):

If they had, and they’d been pretty direct about it—and I don’t mean mean. I just mean caring, but direct—how do you think they would’ve landed with you?

Dan (40:51):

I guess it might’ve depended on what decade they said it. I would’ve had to know what the words meant. I don’t know. Man, I never thought of that.

Stephanie (40:58):

Well, people gave little hints like being on the music team, like “Dan, you don’t smile when you play the bass,” “Dan, smile and use your face more when you’re on stage.” Or “Dan’s a little aloof. He needs to talk with people. He should interact with people more.” Those little comments would come here—they’d usually come to men to tell him.

Ron (41:18):

Interesting.

Stephanie (41:19):

But I don’t think too many people did to you.

Dan (41:20):

I don’t know that I would’ve ever taken any of that as characteristics of—I wouldn’t have connected the dots with that. “Alright, that’s just who I am. You go be you, and I’ll be me.”

Ron (41:31):

Yeah, exactly, gotcha. So it may not have gone very far as the net result of that.

Dan (41:36):

Yeah, you have to know what it means, and I don’t know that I’d have known what it meant.

Ron (41:40):

Gotcha. Man, that is so good. Okay, you guys were talking about church a minute ago. I’m curious for any ministry leaders that are listening to us or watching right now—maybe they’re a small group leader working with blended families or maybe they’re a pastor—what in general is different about marriage with neurodiverse couples versus neuro-traditional couples? And what would you sensitize them to in terms of what churches can do to be helpful?

Stephanie (42:08):

Oh wow, so much. We literally do workshops on this. So I would first of all say you need to know what you don’t know that a neurodiverse family, we are struggling, and it is very complex, and we go to church and put our mask on too.

(42:23):

We want to go to church and be treated as normal and contributing members of the community. So if you don’t know, we might not let you into that. But if we have children with needs, we might not always get to come to church or maybe that’s why we’re late because Sally was not putting the socks on her feet to get into church or decided last minute, she wanted to put rain boots on instead of the shoes that were appropriate. So there’s all kinds of things just getting out the door.

And then if the couple is neurodiverse, in addition to the child having needs, it’s a hard to get to church. And then if you are constantly back in our day, my daughter’s number was 27, that will be indelibly in my brain until I die. 27 keeps popping up on the screen and you don’t know how to deal with number 27 except for to go get the parents and constantly pull them out of church. That’s embarrassing. Especially when an usher comes and taps you on the shoulder and is taking you out by the elbow to go deal with your child and then you feel embarrassment. Is that going to be a place I’m going to keep coming back if you don’t know how to work with my child? And then sometimes some of the really shaming things that church leaders can do, like offer you books like Dare to Discipline or Shepherd your Child’s Heart.

Ron (43:41):

This will fix it.

Stephanie (43:42):

This is you. This is a parenting problem.

Ron (43:47):

And that comes with a great deal of judgment and condemnation that makes it really, really difficult to entrust yourself—

Stephanie (43:52):

Absolutely.

Ron (43:53):

—to that kind of lead and care. So I mean, should a pastor pick up and read Uniquely Us?

Stephanie (44:00):

I think the pastor could start with Embracing the Autism Spectrum, which is our family story. That really kind of talks about all the different things we were going on as a family. Both of our adult children have written their perspectives as well from what we’re going through at school, fighting for individual education plans, sibling stuff that’s going on, if they’ve got their own different needs, the marriage dynamics that are not usually in a good or strong place. So I think the first book, Embracing the Autism Spectrum really tells you what’s going on in the family. And then Uniquely Us talks about how sadly, in the faith world, neurodiverse couples can also end up being in an abusive relationship. So if you take someone who is a really black and white thinker and they apply scripture outside of context that could end up being a spiritual or religious abusive situation for the non-autistic spouse.

Ron (44:55):

I could see that.

Dan:

And that particular situation is going to be very hard to get somebody to acknowledge, yes, I weaponize the Bible against my wife.

(45:03):

Nobody’s going to volunteer that. They don’t think of it that way. They think they’re doing the right thing and catching someone in the act; they’re not going to—that’s just a very difficult thing to notice. And you can—let’s play pretend. You’re going to your pastor for conversations, counseling, whatever. You could unwittingly reinforce that and not even know that’s really going on. She could be saying, “This is what I experienced,” and he’s saying, “I am being the Ephesians 5 spouse, the husband guarding and protecting.” And until you see it, you don’t know. It’s a very difficult thing to see through

Ron (45:44):

You guys, thank you so much for revealing so much of your life and your story in order to help other people. I keep thinking this is cutting edge. This is stuff that we need to be talking about and need to be sharing because while it’s not everybody, it’s certainly some, and it’s far more prevalent than most of us realize, and anything the body of Christ can do to support and help couples of all shapes and sizes, we need to be doing that. So thank you for writing this book and thank you for sharing your time with us today.

Stephanie (46:19):

Thank you for having us.

Dan (46:19):

It’s great to be here.

Ron (46:21):

Well, if you want to learn more about their book Uniquely Us: Gracefully Navigating the Maze of Neurodiverse Marriage, Autism, and Faith, pick up a copy. And don’t forget to read that article that Stephanie and I wrote. It’s in the show notes; it’s on Autism and the Blended Family.

If you haven’t subscribed to this podcast yet, do that right now so you don’t miss a future episode. And make sure to scroll back through the previous podcast. I’m sure there’s something in there that’s going to be helpful for you or somebody you know and love. FamilyLife is a donor supported ministry. All gifts are tax deductible, and we can’t do it without you. We appreciate your consideration. Prayerfully consider how you might be able to contribute to this ministry.

And don’t forget, the next Summit on Stepfamily Ministry is October 23, 24, 2025. Look in the show notes for more information or you can just go to our website dedicated for that event SummitonStepfamilies.com.

Okay, next time I’m going to be talking with author Diane Fromme about stepparenting after a child’s parent has passed away. That’s next time on FamilyLife Blended.

I’m Ron Deal. Thanks for listening or watching. Thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.

FamilyLife Blended is part of the FamilyLife Podcast Network. Helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.

Ron: Welcome to the FamilyLife Blended podcast. I’m Ron Deal. We help blended families, and those who love them, pursue the relationships that matter most.

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That’s next time on FamilyLife Blended. I’m Ron Deal, thanks for listening or watching. And thank you to our production team and donors who make this podcast possible.

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