Reviews

Marriage and Lasting Relationships with Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Spectrum Disorder): Successful Strategies for Couples or Counselors by Eva A. Mendes

maribethw's review

informative medium-paced

4.5

sidra's review

informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

This is more a book with strategies and *exercises* that couples can use to help learn more about each other and communicate better. There's only one of the 6 strategies that I'd actually call a strategy. Instead they are exercises you may or may not find useful to repeat. It's not strategies that are really specific to neurodiverse couples. it would help any couple. For example, everyone can benefit from an exercise labeling the reasons why they are grateful for their partner. More of the book is spent on short stories about some detail of different neurodiverse couples communicating with each other and why couples counseling is a good idea than the strategies. Sometimes the author talks about couples counseling tailored for neurodiverse couples by a therapist who's experienced with ASD without really saying what that entails. Sometimes the author seems to blame the neurodiverse partner for the relationship problems. Sometimes the author seems to be manipulative? Like the sections on what to do if one partner doesn't want to do counseling or if the ND partner doesn't think they are ND but the NT partner thinks they are. There's also a little bit about how different aspects or characteristics of ASD can caught problems in relationships. But the author comes dangerously close to using these characteristics to blame the partner with ASD for the problems. Also, the book seemed to imply thateevery NT partner will feel emotionally neglected by the ND partner. So it has some problems. 
-- I'm the ND partner in my marriage. A NT partner might get more out of the book than I did? The book was still useful and got me thinking but I think the description of the book is a little misleading. 

nyx53's review

4.0

I'd probably give this a 3.5 if it was an option. There's some stuff that's great, some assumptions that are incredibly stereotypical, and some things that feel uncomfortable/dismissive. I think trying to write for both professionals and couples confuses the tone a little, but there's still some solid information in there.