Our life before autism diagnosis
I used to think we were simply bad at being a couple. We loved each other, had the same dry humour, the same low tolerance for small talk, yet our home felt like a place where wires were always slightly crossed. Tom would come back from work and disappear into silence. If I changed plans at the last minute, he would look stricken, as if I had pulled the floor away. On good days he was brilliant: thoughtful, inventive, able to hyper-focus and solve problems other people had given up on. On difficult days, he seemed to vanish in plain sight. I mistook his shutdowns for indifference. He mistook my questions for criticism.
It wasn’t dramatic. It was sand in the gears. Meals that never landed at the same time because I’d cooked to mood, not plan. Arguments that started with a missing detail and ended with both of us exhausted. He was generous and loyal, but unpredictable noise, surprise visitors or overlapping conversations would drain him in minutes. He would retreat to “reset” and I would sit alone in the kitchen wondering why wanting company felt like asking too much.
We chased a dozen explanations. Stress. Workload. I even wondered whether I was the cause, with my lists and my need to talk things through. We had a few false starts with self-help frameworks and date-night promises. Nothing stuck. The friction kept returning, and the cost was cumulative. We became careful around each other without meaning to, which is a terrible way to love.
The moment the pattern clicked
The click was not a documentary or a grand revelation. It was a conversation at work. I was chatting to two colleagues about project deadlines, and one mentioned her partner’s late autism diagnosis. She described the after-work crash, the sensory overwhelm in supermarkets, the way unexpected change would knock him sideways. I felt a tug of recognition that was almost physical. Then she said something I still remember clearly: “He’s not ignoring me when he’s quiet. He’s recovering.”
I went home and replayed the last few weeks in my head. Tom’s careful wardrobe choices to avoid itchy seams. His hatred of open-plan offices. The way he pre-writes emails in notes and copies them over because composing in the live box feels risky. His love of deeply structured hobbies. The panic when I casually invite friends for dinner without warning. None of these things alone yell “autism”. Together, they started to form a map.
I didn’t ambush him with it. I asked whether the word felt familiar or insulting. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said he had suspected something for years but was ashamed to say it out loud in case it sounded like self-diagnosis or an excuse. We agreed to learn more, not to label for the sake of it, but to see if a better explanation might replace the stories we were both telling ourselves.
Finding a route to clarity
The next problem was practical: how to move from suspicion to clarity without waiting years. Friends warned us about long NHS lists and a maze of referrals. I spoke again to my colleague, who suggested looking into online autism assessments, especially those that explain the autism assessment process clearly before you commit. The advantage, she said, was not only speed but also the comfort of being at home, which makes observations more representative.
We compared services like two slightly nerdy project managers. Transparent fees, defined steps, proper clinician oversight. We wanted more than a five-minute screening call and a form letter. That’s how we ended up at ADHD Health Clinic. Their site set out the pathway in plain language, and I liked that the report would include specific recommendations rather than vague advice. We booked without fanfare one evening, sitting on the sofa with the laptop balanced between us.
The assessment itself was kinder than we expected. It wasn’t a test to pass or fail; it was a structured conversation about how Tom’s brain moves through the day. He explained how open-ended tasks feel like fog, how certain lights give him a headache that isn’t pain so much as static, how small, predictable rituals keep him steady. I added my perspective where helpful, careful not to dominate. The clinician listened, asked precise questions, and kept us grounded in examples. It felt rigorous but humane. When the report arrived, it read like a translation. Here was the same man I loved, described with accuracy and without judgement. And there, in black and white, were adjustments we could actually make.
Building a different kind of ordinary
The changes since then have been ordinary, which is to say they matter. We add structure where it reduces friction. If I want to invite friends, I check his bandwidth and set a time. If plans change, I send a message rather than announcing it at the door. He wears noise-dampening earbuds to the supermarket and we go at quieter hours. We keep a shared list of household tasks and agree who owns what, so jobs are not silently resented or forgotten. None of this turns life into a spreadsheet; it just reduces the number of invisible decisions that used to exhaust him and frustrate me.
At work, Tom asked for a few adjustments. Written agendas before meetings. Clear, time-boxed tasks instead of open-ended “could you take a look”. Permission to use a side room when the office gets crowded. Nothing lavish. His output is more consistent now, and his energy in the evenings is not already spent by the time he walks through the door.
We haven’t fixed everything. There are still evenings when a plan slips and the old patterns try to reassert themselves. But we have a shared language, and that changes the tone. “I need a reset” is not a rejection; it’s a status update. “Can we push this to tomorrow?” is not avoidance; it’s a capacity check. The report helps with family too. When relatives ask why we can’t just be spontaneous, we show them the page that explains what spontaneity costs. It is easier to advocate with evidence than with apology.
Some days I think about how close we came to missing it altogether. How many couples are quietly writing themselves into corners because they lack the right words. If that’s you, if you recognise your evenings in ours, I’d say two things. First, your frustration is valid. Second, there might be an explanation that is kinder and more accurate than laziness or lack of love. Read up on the autism assessment process so you know what a thorough pathway looks like. If you’re ready to move, booking one of the online autism assessments at a reputable clinic can be the start of a different kind of conversation.
For us, it was ADHD Health Clinic. We found the tone respectful, the steps clear and the outcome useful. The diagnosis didn’t change who Tom is. It changed how we see what he needs and how we negotiate life together. That is a quieter story than the dramatic transformations people like to write about, but it feels truer. We didn’t become new people. We became better at being ourselves, together.