 I think this is a pretty good thing to like highlight. Maybe my initial prejudgements was that like the support needs of each of these individuals were pretty like different to maybe like a concerning degree when it comes to like power and such but maybe it's just that the the woman in this relationship like that she just has a lot more like experience with like communication and such maybe like her communicational skills are just a little bit better but their support needs are kind of very similar you know I suppose that that's that's the important thing to you know remember when you kind of make make judgments about things. Welcome back to the Thomas Henley YouTube channel where we talk about autism lots of different things we read to videos and today we're going to be looking at a video from special books by special kids but it's not particularly a video about kids today we're going to be having a look at the story of a unique marriage a unique couple of autistic individuals their experiences in the relationship and we're going to see what it is and hopefully I have something to comment on let's get that right to the start Griffin tell me all about you and Rachel I go on dinner dates we explain how we met and we explain how we met well just explain like we've been dating for we've been dating for nine years tell them we got married we got married April 29th 2023 I love his personality I I do I mean me and him I just love his personality I mean his he has a great personality and his soul and everything I mean every day I'll see him when I see him it just makes me happy I mean it does is it okay if I ask you questions about autism yeah do you have autism yes I do and he has um I think what do you have autism yes I've autism did you know right away that Rachel had autism yes I did no right I mean the title of this video is an autistic marriage one thing that I did sort of finds I did watch like a little bit of this video before deciding to stream it is that that the communicational sort of ability seems to be quite different from like from each other I don't know what kind of support needs each each of these individuals have but it seems like there are some kind of quite sort of apparent differences in terms of their like communication skills I'm not necessarily sure like how I how I feel about the video like because in one in one vein you know obviously like being being sort of autistic and even even sort of having a different sort of diagnosis within the autism spectrum it shouldn't really be like a barrier to to sort of love but I don't know I just I mean we'll continue watching it because I'm I am very much struggling to characterize like what I'm thinking what I'm saying how I'm how I feel about this but let's let's continue and why how could you tell uh you guys I first met Rachel but how could you tell I have autism because you have Down syndrome no I don't have Down syndrome how could how could you tell that I had autism he's trying to ask how could you tell that I had autism because I was born 1998 I try to help him a little bit how could you tell that I had autism when you first met me was it that your mom told you that I had autism or how did you know that it was that my mom told me did you know that Griffin was also autistic until I found out from his mom what did you think when his mom shared that I just started crying I just felt great that we both had it so you're both autistic does that mean you're exactly the same no right I mean we're not the same we're different we're all different we're all different in what ways are you and Rachel different in negative ways and positive ways well I like to ride my bike and do all that and he doesn't he likes to walk and I like to listen to music in the car and he doesn't right work it's kind of he starts to talk OCD brain says they were on there before is there another video of these two is that what you mean like on the actual channel I mean this channel is like got about 3.45 million subscribers it's a very popular one I don't I don't particularly know how how to like characterize like what I'm thinking because obviously like on I mean we can obviously go into it a bit more but it it does seem like just from watching like the first five minutes on my own that there are some pretty like large differences when it comes to like the support needs of each each of these individuals and of course that that shouldn't be a question when it comes to like love and such but it does it does seem like like the amount of support seems like very one-sided I guess and I can sort of try to imagine myself in a sort of similar relationship it doesn't it wouldn't really feel I don't know I mean it could there is definitely the the aspect of it being like a conversation in front of a camera which you know obviously some people feel like yeah you feel the same Paula I don't I don't particularly know how to communicate it but yeah my boyfriend gets nervous in conversations exactly like there is their aspect of it you know perhaps being in front of a camera you know one of them might have a lot more skills in that sense but there does seem to be some some very big differences when it comes to like their communication skills and support needs I just I've never really seen like an interview of this nature which it's very very interesting I need to ask him a lot of questions to communicate clearly right he's making a deal yeah but we take turns in the car and making compromise compromise where I tell him can we listen to it for five minutes for five minutes and then we turn it off right yes what's your favorite thing to do Griffin is to do laundry why do you like laundry because I like to have clean clothes Griffin is there anything that confuses you about the world knocking my way knocking what I want all the time how do you feel when things don't go as you want frustrated but how do you feel embarrassed he starts yelling and he starts biting himself and screaming like one time I was at dinner with him we he threw the chairs down but he was upset but it was also a late night so it was you know and the noise you know when there's a lot of people and stuff like that you know there's so he seems to have some particular difficulties when it comes to like emotional regulation and meltdowns and stuff I can understand that I mean it's it's definitely something that I struggled with a bit more when I was younger I think nowadays in adulthood I can kind of be aware of it like coming on to a certain degree and like take myself out of the situation but it really it really depends like who I'm around if I feel comfortable with the people I'm around they can sort of self-advocate that's me I do that when I don't get my way sometimes interesting changes everything right Griffin it just changes everything yes do you like a more calm and peaceful environment I do like a calm more peaceful environment and we're just trying to teach him you know take deep breaths you know it's okay I mean you're not gonna get your way all the time like I mean I don't get my way all the time and I get frustrated and I do the things that he does and it's gonna be okay right Paula says I worry about the possibility of a power imbalance although it's certainly true knows might have an effect I'm worried my feelings might be unfair and judgmental I don't know enough yeah that's what that's exactly like similar to like my thoughts I suppose it seems like he is very very much like supported by her quite significantly obviously like we need to get sort of further into the video but just from from what I know of sort of the interactions that I've seen sort of off-camera yeah it does it does seem that way I guess like I mean if he needs support you know and she has a lot more capabilities to provide that and sort of care for him in that way then I don't see anything wrong with that I just I don't know it just kind of gives me you know strange strange vibes but again like I do want to highlight that you know just because someone has like differing support needs and is is different in these ways isn't necessarily me that it's like a bad thing like it's it's not not a good thing I just struggle to imagine myself I suppose want wanting to to be in like a relationship where I provide like that significant amount of care for like another person in the in the in this way you know I don't know if you guys feel the same it's just just kind of my my thoughts on it all right I can get I can get my way next time when you do feel frustrated does Rachel help you yes Rachel helps me what does she say to you just calm down take deep breaths do you love him even when he's feeling frustrated I do and do you love me when I'm feeling frustrated yes I do I notice that you kind of look around a lot yeah is it hard for you to focus sometimes but when I look around a lot that's part of my disorder of ADHD and destruction to make sure everything's right but yeah so tell me about what you're looking at and making sure it's just looking at things that need to be fixed in this house a little touch up paint you know how that is you know it's a house so things are gonna fall and need to be touched up like a like a normal house how do you describe ADHD um ADHD is like fidgety make sure everything's perfect like as you can tell I like everything perfect like everything straight like I mean is that is that like an ADHD thing I feel like that's more of like a an autism thing sort of more related to like perhaps so this stereotypical like presentations of no because there is some crossover between autism and OCD I definitely find myself wanting to like have everything set and and sort of organized in my environment but I don't is that something related to ADHD I didn't think it was it sounds more like like an autism thing to me like I like everything straight organized um I never keep this house a mess like this house that I'm living in right now I always keep it clean I'll always keep it organized do you two ever have disagreements do we ever have different agreements no no how are you able to avoid disagreements are we able to avoid disagreements Griffin is it by like what do you think doing what one wife says and not doing things spilling from my wife did you two have a traditional yeah I mean your comment Paula earlier about like the power in balance like um yeah I'm not I'm not too sure I'm like that too sometimes but I was diagnosed with both so I'm not sure yeah I mean the crossover between autism and ADHD is pretty strong like there is I think from from the top of my head it's it's either like I think it's very very like it's very very likely if you're autistic that you have ADHD as well I do like one thing that I have thought about quite a bit is when people make content about autism when they're when they're old HD it's like how do you know necessarily well I suppose without like looking into like the research and using that that one thing is as a result of being ADHD and one thing as a result of being autistic like because it seems like the majority of people that I do see online seem to be old HD and they don't they don't seem to be like just autistic and some things that they do talk about or mention or like comment on they don't particularly resonate with me as as much and they don't particularly like make sense when it comes to like talking about like the common things related to autism too there's just one one thought that I've had because I feel like that's a pretty significant thing when it comes to talking about neurodiversity from like a lived experience perspective you know like late you got to be sort of you know careful when you when you're just talking about autism when you're just talking about ADHD if you're if you you have both you know how do you make those differentiations because I imagine that you know if you don't make those differentiations in the in the right way you could perhaps mislead a lot of people or not resonate with like people who just sort of have an autism diagnosis as as I can need more support in some areas and be more in other areas I have few abilities and it can be very difficult for him a relationship is difficult I can get bossy and he can too yeah definitely I mean would you say that your partner has a similar sort of presentation to um to this guy so I'm very very well aware that you know this is not a typical sort of social interaction or um how would you say like normal circumstance to be like in front of a camera in front of like 3.45 million viewers subscribers probably even more now yeah I mean let's let's continue but I'm just very careful about airing my my thoughts and feelings around this because it's not really necessarily like any of my business to like sort of criticize like people's love life um in that way I suppose it is just it is fairly concerning to me in some ways like if I was to give my opinion because it is just my opinion just about like the power imbalance aspect of it if you know what I mean I mean I've I've been with you know I've had relationships with over autistic people but perhaps people who don't necessarily have such like a a different presentation or different sort of um set of needs to myself I don't know because then again like are you going to force people to be with people who have like similar needs profiles it seems it seems like kind of a very you know touchy area to kind of go into if that makes sense you know how how you know are you going to stop people from being in relationships because they have such different needs profiles I don't know puzzle meaning to somebody get down on one day um I kind of just did it my way on and and out here I just texted his mom and said hey can we do it and she goes yeah let's just do it so we just did it she texted his mom and said can we get married yeah can I get engaged with them yeah and then we just started planning the wedding tell me all about your mom did did she ask him did she ask him or she did did she just ask his mom I'm assuming that that she did ask him I'm assuming that she cooks me dinner and takes me to get food takes care of me and gets me some beer products from Dollar Tree hope lost just enough some salt and toothpaste and toothbrush we're here in your beautiful home can you tell me about your living accommodations well this is like my bed this is where I sleep this is my table it's okay if I take the camera off and kind of give the tour this is like my you know this is my bed this is where I sleep and then this is my kitchen table that's like my kitchen um hey Griffin I'm in the backyard of my parents house um they built this for me to be more independent so what's it like to have your own place and be right out back of your parents it's it's cool I love it every day I think so they both they both definitely like have some some needs that like their parents are still sort of helping them out with I mean it's definitely you know I wouldn't say that I am completely independent at this point in my life I have lived independently for about four years um but at the moment I definitely like receive some support by like my family system them every day about it that I love it introduce your parents this is my mom her name's Ann Lee I call her aunt mom but her name's Ann um she's an artist um and then this is my dad his name's Richard but I call him dad he's financial advisor um they have really really have helped me all my life um get through from where I am now to where I used to be they're just make me happy every day and they're and they will always be my parents and I love them do you two live together no we um go back and forth like we spend the day together but we haven't really gotten to that far and I don't think it's gonna happen right now I think we're just going to hang out more and go to dinner and I go back and forth and spend the evening at his house and he comes over here we go do different things like activities and stuff um but no we don't live together I have heard that from from a few like autistic people that like the idea of like living with a partner is is not the most like um comforting thought or like something that they want to pursue I mean it's definitely something it's something that I've tried in the past but it didn't go too well but I think that was more over a result of like my choice in partner and not necessarily like the actual thing I suppose one thing that kind of I suppose like worries me about living with another person is like I know how much like I need to like conserve my social battery and I know it's very common for a lot of all these stick all neurotypical couples to like I don't know they go they go to work they come home they have like dinner together they like sit down and watch tv and then they go to bed and they both sort of like sleeping in the same bed so you have your entire work day and then you know obviously like depending on like what type of job you have you come home and then you've got to spend more time around people I'm not necessarily like it's it's obviously like a little bit different because you would feel sort of a lot more comfortable with someone that you're that close to and you kind of used to it a bit more but I imagine that if I was going to endeavor to like live with another human being I definitely have to have my own space you know I'd have to have some time alone like just some some down time on my own you know I mean I think you know personally the way that I love my relationships have gone is like you know two or three days a week max is like enough for me we have our relationship structured to spend a lot of time alone yeah I imagine that that would be you know something something that would be a lot more suited to me I suppose can understand that sometimes I do more space than living with my husband allows though mostly is good you know I could imagine perhaps if you had like separate bedrooms and you spent a lot of your time sort of in separate bedrooms but I don't know I've had a couple of experiences where they did like neurotypical individuals who very much like you know they want that kind of normative way that like the life goes where it's like you know you start the relationship you get closer and closer and then you end up spending like every evening together and you go out on the weekends and all of that like it does it feels very intense and whenever I have been like extending myself socially over a long period of time to like that extent where it's like an everyday thing like I'm thinking particularly like about lockdown and things like that I have just found it very very very difficult you know with my husband who is edhd we do a lot of parallel play type stuff we spend time being quiet in the same room I think that's good I think you know maybe if I was with someone who also liked that then that would that would somewhat work but I don't know I guess I guess I'm just I'm very used to dating people who aren't autistic so I would sort of feel myself you know like you know I should be talking I should be interacting and doing stuff and you know never dated a neurotypical must have been difficult I don't necessarily think it's like when I say neurotypical I'm meaning sort of holistic so not not an autistic person it very much depends on the person like I need to highlight that because there there has been situations where it hasn't been like the right person for me and they haven't been very understanding and wanting to make adjustments and etc but I have had some really good relationships with people who are neurotypical who do understand that and they're kind of you know they're comfortable with like the sort of separate living kind of see each other maybe once or twice a week kind of thing I think in a lot of a lot of holistic minds you know they have sort of these socially normative ideas of like how the relationship is going to progress you know I lift every Wednesday I lift every Wednesday he goes to weightlifting every Wednesday do you like lifting everyone yes I do like lifting every Wednesday because it's good for me what's it like to date a man who does weightlifting pretty cool pretty cool right pretty cool yes I think they both have an unwavering commitment to each other they love each other and they'll be companions forever but they don't feel the need to live together spend the night together and so it just looks a little different they go on a date we go on Monday night we go to dinner or choose a night or choose we come get Rachel and go to dinner and then we come home I mean the man's obviously like exceptionally nervous like during this interaction I do you know as as I'm watching this it does seem like like the level of support that they they both get from their parents seems to be pretty like even you know you have to make sure to schedule down time for each person mm-hmm true uh dev nut says I live with live with my husband fairly easily but there was a lot of miscommunication frustration in the first year now we each have the ultimate to get away from me now powers if either of us need a break yeah one or two mm-hmm we can just say I need some alone time and we pretend the other doesn't exist until we're ready for each of again it's like having like an invisibility cloak oh that is nice yeah I mean that there's definitely going to be some like differences and like if the other person has some experiences and expectations then you know it doesn't matter I suppose like how much you debate or talk about it or there is always going to be some like feelings that is like some feelings that you have to kind of get through I suppose like if the other person doesn't want as much contact with you is I mean that that could translate into like any relationship I would say but you know it just it very much it is something that I hear about a lot when it comes to like having space from each other and stuff being autistic and they're happy with that um it might develop into more at some point but they're very happy with the way things are so you're happy to let it develop however they want absolutely absolutely I was a little stressed out because like Rachel doesn't really understand we've tried repeatedly over the years to help her to understand kind of like how men and women work um adult men and women and um we've ordered books and we've had conversations and the OBGYN has as well and the OBGYN was like she just doesn't understand and I'm like I know how do you two express your love to one another so it seems like they don't have it seems to be sort of from from the description that their their mom is giving sort of like an asexual relationship I would say maybe just just from what they're communicating across I know that like the rates the rates of like or the occurrence of asexuality I mean asexuality and autism have you know some some ties I think there's a larger amount of autistic people who would consider themselves asexual sort of percentage wise than perhaps the general population. Hi my name is Griffin what's your name? No he's asking how do we express our love together? How do we express our love together? How do you show Rachel that you love her? I kiss her. Is it okay to say like the most they've done is give each other a sweet little peck? I mean that's that's what they've done and it's and and when when she came and told us the first little it was you remember that and she came in and we were both laying in the bed and she was like he asked if it was okay if he gave you a kiss and he kissed me and she goes and I liked it is that okay and I said yes that's okay that's super sweet and that's 100 okay just makes me smile and makes me grateful and encouraged that I was able to marry someone that has autism and it just makes me happy that he me and me and them both fit together and so I'm preparing all this you know I'm I'm like reading books and you know because that's my thing to do and I get all stressed out I'm like let me read a book and Paige was like and they may just want to keep doing things the way they've been doing things and I was like oh okay and that's what they've wanted to do well they love their routine right absolutely do you ever have sleepovers with Rachel no I don't have no I do not I feel upset I have sleepovers with Rachel do you prefer to sleep alone I prefer to sleep alone do you like the way your marriage works yes I do what's your favorite thing about your marriage about my marriage what's my favorite thing is it was my favorite thing about my marriage is to go on a walk that's something they never asked for is to spend the night together no and it's funny because when I said you realize Griffin may want to spend the night and she went well why would he want to do that well honey because and I think this is a pretty good thing to like highlight maybe my initial prejudgements was that like the support needs of each of these individuals were pretty like different to maybe like a concerning degree when it comes to like power and such but maybe it's just that the the woman in this relationship like that she just has a lot more like experience with like communication and such maybe like her communicational skills are just a little bit better but their support needs are kind of very similar you know I suppose that that's that's the important thing to you know remember when you kind of make make judgments about things I just I feel like you know obviously when I'm streaming things I have to like react to things and give you my thoughts and feelings but I do want to just highlight that that's not necessarily like representative of like how I've you know I've got I've got to react to things as they come but it does seem like my sort of initial prejudgements are somewhat unfounded to a certain degree Fagi says hi welcome to the stream that says I am romantic and asexual love is expressed differently for us 100% never put a noticing person on the spot it is very interesting as well it's a very good video as it's definitely bringing up some very sort of nuanced kind of topics for us to talk about and she was like well we already sleep and I was like well he probably would want to sleep in the bed with you and she goes I don't understand all that and I was like okay well I don't know what to say here so I mean they have just kept on doing as you said their routine and Paige was right have you witnessed their love grow stronger I think so but the thing with them you know I think we were talking inside about people going through their first heartbreak and you know you get a boyfriend and break up and the two of them it was never wavering from the minute they decided they were each other's person I feel like they've never me doing them has ever wavered off of their love so have you always loved Rachel I know I love Rachel yes will you always love Rachel yes I will I do love Rachel how do you know that you love Rachel uh because me and Rachel have been dating for nine years wow what does love feel like love feels like life it's a non-traditional tight marriage but there's love between both of them and respect yes and honor and I mean like beautiful we view him as her husband as our son-in-law and uh he's in family pictures yes and he's very kind to Rachel and very good to her yes how do you feel when she says that she loves you uh I feel happy and what and grateful what is the best thing about being in love marriage right yes marriage I agree very interesting I never see content from high support needs folk yeah yeah me too um I suppose that there is a lot of like stuff out there you know if you if you look at like documentaries and you you see like you know particular channels like special books special kids it does seem that they do like a lot of work or do a lot of interviews with people with sort of relatively higher support needs than perhaps myself I mean it's it's it's great that they've they've they've found someone I mean I know that you know even even for myself it can be somewhat quite difficult to kind of navigate sort of the nor the societal normative like relationships and and dating norms and all that it's it can be very very complex I imagine that it can be somewhat hard you know to to sort of date and find a relationship so it's it's great that they've they've found each other I also just want to highlight that I don't particularly like I haven't seen like their diagnosis they haven't really talked about support needs yet so I am I'm very much making assumptions here and I'm you know perhaps it's not the case and we do have to factor in that this is an interview like for a youtube channel one of the lines I suppose that I'm treading sort of quite carefully is like like I think it's the same thing so I've talked to some like staff of like care homes of like dementia patients you know people without signers and sort of the the ideas around like consents you could perhaps consider like some autistic individuals to to need that kind of support in order to make decisions and such you know where where is kind of the line when it comes to like understanding things and being able to like make decisions because there are some people out there who do have relatively high support needs and that do you need quite considerable support when when making decisions and sometimes you know obviously there are ways to kind of you know coax out of them what they want and sort of guide them to or sort of try and understand what what might be good for them and what they desire but I think is very very different it's kind of like that you know thin line it's like you know what at what point can people like consent to like relationships and you know dating and even even physical related things I suppose that that's kind of one element that that's on my mind as we watch this not necessarily saying that it's it's a bad thing just want to highlight that but I'm definitely that's that's my thoughts at the moment just just my thoughts why is marriage the best uh why is marriage the best why uh uh you don't have to look at me is the interviewer needs to be a lot more direct like when it comes to this question questioning uh trails they're very open questions you know at least give some options is obviously like struggling to um get his thoughts out so I can be married forever what do you think Rachel um well I just think marriage is good for us it's a lifetime memory and I just think you know it's moving forward ahead and um just you know it's just a big step but it's a personality and you know we love to be together um and it's just I'm grateful that I have him and you know grateful that God gave us each other and to be with him right right introduce each of your siblings so so that christian christian autistic lovers interesting they do seem to have quite a um a strong sort of sense of romance about them like there's definitely a lot of like mutual respect that I can see um this is Kira Glaser King she's 34 married has two kids and then this is my brother he's 26 single not married um has a house what's his name Kaelin Patrick Lutz um and then this is my sister Ashley Elizabeth Lutz she's 17 not married she has a job in this home school thank you for those introductions what is it like having Rachel as a sister oh my gosh yeah you're good you want me to go yeah you're good um exciting it's never a dull moment can you describe the living situation of how your parents and you are in the house over there and she has her little home back here yes um well before this obviously she was in the same house as us for as long as forever since I was young um and then just up until recently she decided that it was now time for her to move out so she's now out here but essentially what that looks like is waking up and it's been a year now so waking up and usually you would see Rachel already out and about in the kitchen or in the living room doing her thing but now you wake up and you're like wait where is she like what I always wonder if she's been in the house yet or where she's gone but um she will come in every now and then usually in the mornings for some coffee she does have coffee with my parents and uh sometimes some food my dad makes some good good breakfast she'll come in but she'll say hello she'll be in there for maybe about 20 minutes she'll head out and then you do not know what she's doing for the rest of the day Brooklyn what's your favorite tv show what's a tv show you he doesn't really watch tv but do you watch tv I like my favorite movies mean girls she doesn't even go here she doesn't even go here I just want to go see that maybe last weekend what are some other lives I mean maybe the communication communicational differences that we're seeing is perhaps like as a result because she obviously has multiple siblings that she has interacted with like for most of her life I don't know if the guy has siblings like that you know maybe he just doesn't have as much experience with like interacting with all those stick individuals so much experience when it comes to communication interesting yeah it's interesting niki I can't go talk about on my my carb diet god can you're so stupid do you have any other favorite lines what are your other favorite lines about them do the christmas song uh song and crushing kicking the ram taking the rail off the stage why is mean girls your favorite movie why is it your favorite movie girlfriend because of Regina Karen and Gretchen and Katie because of the girls being mean he loves girls being mean why do you like girls being mean uh why do you like girls being because they're doing funny things I mean it's just amazing to see two people who both struggle in their own ways treat a mean keeping cane he likes the mean girls oh oh okay a always talking about is he talking about the film is it the film mean girls I feel like it's zoned out for like a second come together what is it like being married uh very abstract doing activity sometimes what activities do you and Rachel do together we go there together you don't you you got it I'm not going to talk anymore but you got this I got this just explain to them what we do together I work at Midian bows how do you feel when Rachel helps you I feel happy you appreciate her help I appreciate her help no matter the their difficulties that they go through you know they're there for each other and support each other and they had a really big party and they had a huge there was three all the people that 300 people there 300 people there you know and I even said I wrote back and said so sorry if I couldn't say hello to everybody like I was there were a lot of people there tell me about the wedding oh you want to share a little bit about that well the wedding was uh at a beautiful location on ala ho yes he said he doesn't watch television but he likes filming girls are fair enough is it is not an expression of um his type then I suppose he's nervous yeah it does very much seem like that I feel like my my initial prejudgements were not incredibly accurate with as well as we are sort of going through learning a bit more about about them and the like the family system you know it does it does very much seem like I mean it shouldn't really be a question should it about like whether they love each other like they're married you know you wouldn't you wouldn't question others I suppose feel like this kind of video is a great example that a loving relationship doesn't have to be one specific way like by the box 100 cala there is lots of ways of doing romance is the guy using echololia when answering I think it might be um it is as s said he does seem to be quite nervous so maybe it's just a result of like you know perhaps like the camera you know maybe he's got like some particular things that he'd you know written down or he'd gone through sort of prior to the interview that they wanted to get through probably about 250 of their friends and our close friends um it was just a beautiful event my main thing is that I found somebody that loves me that's my main thing they've been together and they decided at some point they wanted to get married so um I think we all just felt that whatever it looked like they deserved if that was what they wanted they deserve to have that and it didn't have to look like everybody else's marriage of course it could look like their marriage why did you want to be married um not just a what do you think because I just was I don't know I was ready to be married and I guess help them and do our achieve our goals and our dreams together what are some tips you've learned to have a happy marriage about hey Rachel will you please marry me maybe to buy the support another person well it's that whole thing about like support and independence and like you know obviously like to a certain degree even holistic or neurotypical individuals they are dependent on other people like we're all dependent to some degree on society unless we're like living in like a log cabin somewhere that we built and you know we've got our own sources of food and water and you know it's I mean even even then you could consider yourself sort of somewhat dependent on the land but when it comes to like our ideas about you know it's it's less of a question about like how much support do you need how much into how independent you are it's it's more about like the the the scale like at what point people consider it to be different enough to be dependent or it be independent like it's it's got to be like a very gray scale you know everyone's got the room support needs wherever it be like emotional physical is a different way of doing romance still considered to be romance to a neurotypical person I'm aromantic so I'm always lost on this topic I'd love to I'd love to know what you think fortistic well I think romance is generally like a concept there is obviously like some societal social norms which into play with that you know but maybe like the idea of romance yeah it might look a bit different but I think it's it's subjective enough for us to to make up our own ideas of what that looks like my buddy asks what do you do together my autistic brain would think he's asking what do you do with your wife that you don't do with others no I think they've talked about that earlier on they said that it's it's seems seems to be towards that you know they're trying to get across it's very sort of asexual I think they've only exchanged a um a quick peck here and there but they've been together for nine years that's amazing what are you thinking Rachel he's think he's saying like happy tips Griffin what are happy tips what are happy tips uh you're you're smart use your brain would you like me to ask the question in a different way uh about having people over for brunch if somebody wants their marriage to be happy what should they do uh they should love each other but that was that was a really interesting video and I feel like I made a lot of kind of assumptions at the start I mean just from going through it it does seem like there is still um some definite sort of differences when it comes to like communication styles perhaps even support needs to a certain degree because I think you know the the woman was talking about sort of helping him and he was talking about like the ways that she supports him there hasn't really been like a conversation about the ways that he supports her I suppose so you know obviously like all isn't very very different from person to person like everyone's going to have their own sort of varying support needs and so like boxing people off into certain categories is probably not like the best thing to do it does seem like there are there are some some differences but they they still you know I wouldn't consider them to be like in terms of support needs being being similar to myself I suppose 14 for us a long time that is awesome 21 for me and my partner whoa the guy says I think how people wish to connect and feel intimate is up to them if that makes sense my buriedness not working well though tonight understand that yeah I mean it's um it's definitely like a really interesting video I don't think we've reacted to a video um quite like this before you know I think um some of my prejudgements weren't necessarily correct you know whether I think certain ways about certain things is um you know chiefly my opinion you know they obviously love each other and they've entered into agreement with each other and it seems like it's very like consented to and all that and you know what what is there to criticize about that very interesting video thank you very much to s for suggesting this uh if you guys do want to suggest a topic a video idea um my email is hi at tomasanley.co.uk if you want to just have in this topic like video to react to or something you can send us uh send us