2 NDs in a bed? Recipe for success or disaster. Dating.

Your relationship sounds wonderful - I’m so happy for you

people should never give up on finding love - you never know when you’ll meet someone who you’ll suddenly just make that connection with. I thought I’d never find love and I did (I’ve been married for  over 25 years to someone who is also autistic). Never lose hope people

That sounds very positive and it sounds like a very nice relationship you are a part of, thank you for taking time to write.

My partner and I are both autistic, although she still hasn't been 'officially' diagnosed. I also have anxiety and am a people pleaser by nature... she has PTSD and BPD (borderline personality disorder), which both make interaction and long-standing relationships with others extremely difficult and even distressing. So, strictly on paper, we should not be good for each other at all. We both have our issues and we're both working on them...

But in 10 years of knowing one another, 3 years dating, can you guess how many arguments we've had? Zero. I honestly was always on the fence about the existence of 'soulmates', and I don't think much of higher powers, but even so I truly believe knowing her was destiny, for lack of a better term. We are connected mentally and emotionally in ways I've experienced with literally nobody else, before or since. I could gush about her forever.

But I say this to tell you it is absolutely possible for you. Both you and your partner having neurodivergencies isn't strictly necessary by any means, but I can wholeheartedly recommend it. In the end it really is the same as dating is as a neurotypical person - it's about finding somebody compatible in both mind and spirit. After that, it's just about how committed you are to this particular person, finding compromises where necessary and understanding (or at the very least accepting) one another and your individual quirks to the fullest. There's always a chance that a new relationship could turn sour, that there could be 'chain reactions', but it's no more likely to happen with a fellow autistic than with anybody else. The chances are in fact slimmer, as you can draw from personal experience on certain aspects.

And remember, despite what I've said above, there can definitely be more than one 'right person' for you. The world is a very big place, so there's no doubt your next girlfriend is out there, possibly feeling similarly to you. Best of luck!

Like all other relationships, depends on the personalities. But oddly enough, not one but two ex boyfriends from my youth later discovered they were autistic too. One was just a fling, though we ended up good mates. The other was a long term, serious relationship and we are still on good terms.

Like minds attract and there really is no communication deficit in my relationship with either of these guys. We know what we mean.

I'm glad to hear that. It sounds like a nice marriage.

I agree what you said about personalities. It sounds like the advantages outweigh the disadvantages in your case.

Myself and my husband are autistic, and my son and his girlfriend are both neurodivergent. My relationship with my husband works brilliantly on almost every level in terms of how we get on. We’re so alike. The only problems arise as a result of our ‘weaknesses’ such as poor organisational skills etc. We really struggle to deal with many aspects of life in terms of the outside world. We’ve sometimes wondered if we’d have done better practically and financially etc with a neurotypical partner - but then we would not have got on so well with someone like that in the way we do with each other - as we are so ‘in tune’ with each other. No relationship is perfect - you have to accept that really. The main thing is that the other person makes you happy and that you enjoy their company - my husband is my best friend (along with my children). 

It really does depend on what your traits are and your partners traits/diagnosis. Some ND relationships work well because they understand each other much better than an NT person would but others can find it too draining to deal with needing to give a lot of emotional support to their partner whilst having anxiety or meltdowns/burnouts of their own. Sometimes ND people can click fantastically but can’t stand to live together because of clashes due to different executive functioning levels. (Although this is also pretty likely to happen with an NT partner) I’ve seen all these things happen with myself and with ND friends (not all autistic, quite a wide range of diagnoses, some with multiple) 

I'm really the  last person to ask about relationships, but I think that, as with lots of things, it could go either way depending on your individual personalities.

When I started dating my fiancee, we both thought she was neurotypical.  Now (for reasons unrelated to me) she iswondering if she is neurodivergent (ASD or ADHD) and I am wondering why we didn't think of it earlier, not least because she is scarily like me in terms of personality and skills.  Certainly there are advantages to the situation in that neither of us is pushing the other to do things we don't want to do, like going to huge parties (or having one for our wedding), but there are disadvantages too in that neither of us works full-time which puts our finances under strain and we can both get stuck in unhelpfully rigid modes of thinking about our future.  We haven't lived together yet, though, so that's a whole aspect I can't comment on yet.