Autistic Communication: When Questions Are Heard as Criticism in Relationships

Have you ever had a significant disagreement with your partner that upset you both, and then later realized it was based on miscommunication? It’s not a secret that good communication is a major factor in healthy relationships, but it’s extra valuable when one is autistic.

I want to share a specific type of conflict that has come up regularly in my 15-year marriage to Erika, the Autistic PhD. I’ll share both the hard way and the easy way, using a classic scenario. In the end, I’ll clarify how to avoid this whole category of miscommunication and the pain that can accompany it.

The Hard Way

(I’m cooking dinner in the kitchen, and Erika comes in.)

Erika: Why are you using the oil from the pour bottle?
Me: I don’t want the chicken to stick to the pan.
Erika: Yeah but why that oil?
Me: (feeling like I’m being criticized, and hurt) I’m just cooking dinner.
Erika: (feeling frustrated and hurt) I’m just asking why you’re using the pour bottle.

This could continue for a while. I’d get more upset and she would get more frustrated, and we would both be feeling hurt. This was something that happened more often earlier in our relationship.

The Easy Way

(Same scene. I’m cooking dinner in the kitchen, and Erika comes in.)

Erika: Why are you using the oil from the pour bottle?
Me: What do you mean?
Erika: I’m not sure why you didn’t use the spray bottle oil.
Me: Oh. The spray bottle is avocado oil, and I can’t have it anymore.
Erika: Ah that makes sense. Why do we still have it?
Me: I use it when cooking food for other people who can have avocado oil.
Erika: Makes sense. Supper smells delicioso.

You see the difference, right?

There was a fork in the road early in this scene. In the hard way, I had heard Erika’s question as her questioning me. I heard criticism. It felt like a voice from my past that would ask judgmental questions like, “Why are you not [insert critical expectation of me]?” And I was not having it.

It took a few years, but I eventually realized that I shouldn’t attribute motivation to her words or behaviors. Once I realized that I was attributing motive to her questions, which I did based on my own previous life experiences, things became a lot easier.

When I am doing something and Erika asks me a question about it, and I am feeling some kind of way, it is up to me to clarify why she’s asking. I know my spouse to be a kind and loving person who does not intend me harm. Yet, for more years than I’d like to admit, her questioning my way of doing something often left me feeling judged, and judged as inadequate.

Now, the conversation goes the easy way as long as I remember to clarify why she’s asking a question rather than assuming she’s criticizing. I no longer attribute motive to her questions. She really is just asking. What she says is usually more direct communication than I was used to.

I love her questions now, believe it or not. This is partly because I know she’s unceasingly curious, and I enjoy answering her questions when I can. And it’s also because sometimes she has asked since she knows a shortcut or some other useful thing that helps me finish whatever I’m doing. (In the scenario previously described, maybe I did not realize we had the avocado oil.)

This is good practice for all relationships: don’t assume there is a unstated motivation to the other person’s actions.

Not making assumptions, and therefore not attributing motive to someone’s words or behavior can be helpful in any relationship of trust (not where there is a history of mistreatment – that’s a different topic and not present in our relationship). Not assuming motive is particularly helpful when in relationship with an autistic person.

It can be easy to misperceive the intent of a question. For me, the trigger is usually questions about why I’m doing something in a particular way. Try to determine what your triggers are.

Autistic people have been fired for asking similar types of questions in the workplace, when they are seeking to grow and to learn and their supervisor assumed the questions were criticism.

And we all have histories with critical people. Not attributing motive, and asking clarifying questions when those feelings come up, can save a whole lot of stress for both parties. It’s not as easy as it seems, and it takes practice, but the outcome is absolutely worth it.

I hope this reminder to not attribute motive helps you avoid some interpersonal strains this holiday season, and every season.

Want to discuss this topic?

* There is this post on bluesky and this thread on facebook *