Chris Packham, 63, naturalist and Charlotte Corney, 47, wildlife charity founder
Chris: I can’t love Charlotte 99.9%. That doesn’t exist in my world. I can only offer Charlotte 100% of myself – or 0%. The 100% commitment, which has previously been suffocating in relationships, is something which I hope gives Charlotte a degree of security.
I have had a number of stable, monogamous relationships, all lasting five to seven years. They all reached their full term because, as much as I was dealing socially with my neurodiversity, I wasn’t dealing with it at home. I couldn’t let my guard down and that was always very challenging for my partners.
I have slightly better control of my obsessive personality now. That means I don’t totally expose Charlotte to my obsessions and force her to be part of them, which is what I did in past relationships – while at the same time being pretty unforgiving when partners wanted me to do anything they valued and I didn’t.
I saw no contradiction in this approach because I live in a didactic, black and white world. I felt that I was right and what they were asking me to do was entirely unnecessary. If I did what they asked me to do, I did it under duress: I sat in the corner and didn’t communicate or got completely wrecked and said entirely inappropriate things. Now I just refuse to do things I don’t want to do: I don’t go to the weddings of Charlotte’s friends or round to her friends’ for coffee and chats, and she accepts that.
My relationship of 17 years with Charlotte is different because of basic maturity. If I had met Charlotte when I was younger, there is every chance that the relationship would have failed and that would have been my fault.
I know Charlotte would like there to be more softness in our relationship, and she probably means the sort of thing you see when you watch a movie. But I don’t need to emulate that in my life because I don’t see the need for continual positive reinforcement. If I say Charlotte looks nice, for example, it’s because I’m actively thinking it at that moment.
We do misunderstand each other sometimes. Recently she was late – she has terrible time management – and I said it was like she was doing it on purpose. She denied it but I’m so organised that I can’t understand how anyone can be late.
There is no ambiguity in my mind that Charlotte has my back in every aspect of life. I don’t need her to go through any clumsy scenarios to demonstrate that. I just need to know it – and I do know it.
Charlotte: For the first three years of our relationship, Chris didn’t tell me he was autistic because he thought he was able to mask his condition. That’s not how it felt to me though, and I don’t think I handled the relationship very well until I knew about his diagnosis. I used to get even more upset about things than I sometimes do now because I had no way of explaining them. It is a lot better knowing what the reason is for his behaviour because I have a whole universe of knowledge and research to draw on.
Chris’s reaction when I talk about having more quality time together is simplistic. He thinks of it in terms of a hierarchy of needs alongside all the other demands on his time. I see it as an actual need – not just for me but for the relationship. But because Chris doesn’t need it himself, it feels like he has no desire to put me or us at that level of importance.
His honesty can be a bit brutal and, if I’m in the wrong frame of mind, upsetting. As long as I’m prepared for an honest answer to a question, it’s fine. Mostly, though, his directness gives me a sense of security: I’m never floating around, not knowing where I am, because I absolutely know. I do get words of affirmation from Chris but he won’t say nice things simply to keep the relationship ticking over.
I have to be very active in maintaining my position within the relationship. The partners of people with autism can often lose themselves a bit: our needs aren’t as strong as theirs. If you’re not careful, you can start forfeiting aspects of your own needs and end up orbiting them.
While I am more laid-back now about things I would have been more pushy about in the past, I do think carefully about how his mind works so that I can navigate my way round it and get my feelings fully recognised. It’s about trying to embrace our differences rather than forcing either one of us to be more like the other.
Richard, 38, and Roxanne Pink, 39, both authors and entrepreneurs
Richard: Before I understood Rox had ADHD, our relationship went through some really difficult periods because I could only think that some of her behaviours were on purpose and indicated that she didn’t care about me. But now I feel like her ADHD has been a blessing in disguise: the amount of work we have had to do to understand each other over the past four years has made this the best relationship ever.
I’ve had to reconsider a lot of the basic expectations of neurotypical relationships – that you’re on time to meet each other, you text each other during the day or that you remember anniversaries and birthdays. Rox simply can’t do any of this, so if I held on to the belief that she needed to show her love for me in these specific ways, I would be setting her up to fail. Now I understand that, I’ve also realised those things don’t have to matter because Rox shows her love for me all the time, just in different ways.
I don’t think I’ve compromised any more than she has though. When she does do something that someone neurotypical would deem small, like picking her clothes up off the floor, I know how challenging that would have been for her and how doing it was an act of love for me. I make sure I acknowledge that.
The positives of Rox’s ADHD far outweigh the negatives. There is a huge amount of fun, laughter and spontaneity. She’s got so much creative energy and amazing ideas.
A couple of years into our relationship, Rox told me she had a crush on someone else. It was brutal but it was a defining moment. I could see how scared and confused she was. How she hated herself for these feelings. But I could also see that she was trying to do things differently than in her previous relationships: she shared it with me and wasn’t just ending our relationship and acting on it, which is what she’d done in the past. It was at that moment that we moved into real love, where you really commit.
Roxanne: Rich reminded me about our first anniversary twice in the run-up and I still forgot. When I assured him I had it under control, I was pretending – because who forgets their anniversary with the love of their life? Well, me it turns out. It’s humiliating and shame-inducing but memory issues are on the ADHD diagnostic criteria.
I’ve had to work really hard on being honest with myself and with Rich, because if I’m pretending it’s all under control, I’m guaranteed to mess up, and then that’s going to be upsetting for Rich.
Once I stopped masking, our relationship deepened: Rich understood what makes me feel overwhelmed and could talk me through the basic steps of what I needed to do. That deep level of communication has made me feel truly loved for the first time.
The fact that Rich understands that I’ve done my best when I do something that would be really small for other people, like taking my clothes off the floor, makes me want to cry, because historically I’ve been told I’m stupid, lazy and careless – that I need to try harder. And that when I did try harder, I still failed because, guess what, I’m a failure. The narrative in my head was one of constant negativity. Rich has changed all that. He understands me.
Having said that, had I not had a diagnosis of ADHD about a year after we got together, I think we might have broken up. It took a lot of work to learn the understanding, the communication and the accommodations.
My ADHD brings a lot of positivity to our relationship: I have such zest for life, so much energy. I’m constantly thinking of amazing, random things we can do together. There is so much joy to be found in delusional thinking. My hyperfocus can be a superpower because my motivation to have fun and be happy with Rich is awesome.
Batou Gomis, 33, hairstylist and Aidan Martin, 34, singer-songwriter
Batou: Where I’m from in Normandy in France, no one talks about mental health issues. To make things more complicated, where my family comes from in Africa you not only don’t talk about your emotions but being gay just isn’t a thing.
Aidan and I met in London about 12 years ago and were best friends for eight years before we got together. I don’t think our relationship would have lasted had we not been friends for so long beforehand: I didn’t know he had ADHD. I just thought he was this eccentric person.
It was while we were living together, both in other relationships, that I learned to understand and respect him. I realised that you can’t draw the usual meanings from his behaviour. I learned that he had integrity – even though in someone else his behaviour would sometimes suggest they didn’t. Now I don’t take it personally when he does things that, in other people, would be rude and uncaring.
There are a lot of positive sides to being in a relationship with someone with ADHD. I love it because you don’t get bored. There’s always something going on with Aidan: his mood goes up and down, you don’t know what to expect. He’s spontaneous, fun and everywhere, all at once.
Aidan: It is a miracle to me that we’ve been together for four years: I hadn’t managed a relationship for longer than six months before Batou. The fact that I haven’t run out the door to look for someone new – in fact, we’re engaged – is something I’m massively proud of.
He already knew me, warts and all, by the time we got together. I didn’t have to fake anything. He understands me as a complete person. I value that so much that the ADHD part of my brain has had to grow a backbone and not be so flippant and impulsive with this relationship.
One of the brilliant things that Batou does is give my ADHD space. He gives me the room to be intense, pace around, flip out, cry. He just lets me be me.
I’ve known I probably had ADHD since I was a child. I’ve always been a bit all over the place but I’m also very organised. That dynamic can be difficult for Batou because when I want something done, I want it right now and will go on and on about it. Batou is so laid-back that he misses flights.
Communication has been key. We almost broke up recently because Batou was brought up not to talk about emotions, while I need to talk a lot about my feelings and hear how he’s feeling.
I’d love for us to adopt a child in a few years. I want to feel like the responsible man of the house. The protector and the provider. I’ve always felt like a flaky failure, but having a child would give me the opportunity to look after someone else. To be there for them. To be an adult.
• Small Talk: 10 ADHD lies and how to stop believing them by Richard and Roxanne Pink is published by Square Peg
• This article was amended on 5 June 2024. A previous version described Charlotte Corney as a zookeeper.
