If you are trying to understand autism and affection in your own marriage, a new study offers a more hopeful explanation than the two you have probably been carrying. When an autistic or autistic-leaning partner offers very little warmth, touch or small tenderness, many partners conclude either that he does not love them or that his wiring makes affection impossible. Research published in September 2026 points somewhere else: to attachment, and especially to avoidant attachment. This post is for the partner who has been reading low affection as a verdict, and for the neurodivergent adult who has never quite known why closeness feels so costly.
I’ll call her Margaret. She is fifty-eight and has been married to Jaroslav for thirty-one years. He renews the car registration before she remembers it exists. He fixed the porch steps, rebuilt the garden fence twice, and drove her mother to every appointment for two years without being asked. What he rarely does is reach for her hand, say “I love you” first, or stay in a hug past the count of two. Margaret told me she had settled on two explanations and rotated between them, sometimes within the same afternoon. On bad days: he doesn’t love me. On tired days: he’s autistic, and this is simply how it is. Neither explanation let her rest, and neither one gave either of them anywhere to go.
In this blog post, I walk through what the new study actually found, and why its most important result is the one the headlines skipped. I explain what avoidant attachment looks like in a mixed-neurotype marriage, including the very common pattern of a partner who does enormous practical labor and almost no affectionate labor. I also cover how to tell avoidance apart from sensory needs, alexithymia and shutdown, which can look identical from across the kitchen. And I explain why this distinction matters so much, because an attachment pattern is something two people can work with, and a story about fixed wiring is not.
3 Key Takeaways
- A 2026 study of 796 adults found that autistic-like traits were linked to avoidant and fearful attachment, and that avoidant attachment, not the traits themselves, was what went with less affectionate relationship behavior.
- “He’s just autistic” and “he doesn’t care” are both incomplete. Many partners who give little affection care a great deal and have learned that closeness is risky.
- Attachment patterns can shift over time with safety and support, which makes the outlook for a low-affection marriage more open than either familiar story suggests.
What the New Study Actually Found
In September 2026, the journal Evolutionary Psychology published a study by Andrzej Łukasik and Agnieszka Łaba-Hornecka looking at autistic-like traits and the everyday ways people keep a relationship going (Łukasik & Łaba-Hornecka, 2026). The researchers surveyed 796 Polish adults who had been in a relationship for at least three months. They measured autistic-like traits with the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, attachment style with a standard attachment questionnaire, and relationship behavior with an inventory that separates two broad kinds of effort. One kind the researchers call benefit-provisioning: affection, small gifts, attentiveness, the things that make a partner feel wanted. The other kind is more controlling and costly behavior.
Here is the part worth slowing down for. The popular coverage led with the idea that people with more autistic-like traits offer less affection. The authors’ own summary of their results says something more precise: no significant link was found between autistic-like traits and those affectionate behaviors. What the traits were linked to was attachment style, both fearful and avoidant. And avoidant attachment, in turn, predicted fewer of the warm, benefit-giving behaviors. The researchers had also tested an evolutionary explanation, that autistic-like traits reflect a faster reproductive strategy, and that explanation did not hold up well.
Put plainly: in this study, it was not the autistic-like traits that showed up alongside less affection. It was avoidance.
What the Study Can and Cannot Tell Us
A few honest limits belong here, because a single study is a starting point, not a verdict.
The participants were members of the general population, not people diagnosed as autistic. Autistic-like traits are measured on a continuum, and the researchers themselves note that they are not a disorder. The study took one snapshot in time, so it can show that these things travel together but not which one causes which. Everything was self-reported. And the authors acknowledge that the questionnaire they used for autistic-like traits can overlap with social anxiety.
So this study does not prove that autism leads to avoidant attachment, or that attachment work will change any particular marriage. What it does is take the most discouraging reading off the table. If autistic-like traits alone predicted low affection, the story would be “this is fixed.” That is not what the authors found.
Why “He’s Just Autistic” and “He Doesn’t Care” Are Both Wrong
I have been in a neurodiverse marriage for more than forty years, which means I have tried both of these stories on at my own kitchen table, sometimes before breakfast was ready. Each one offers something. Neither one tells the whole truth.
The Wiring Story
“He’s just autistic” can feel kind. It takes blame off him and off you. Many women I work with reached for it after years of feeling rejected, and it gave them real relief.
The trouble is what it quietly promises: that nothing will change, and that asking for warmth is asking him to be someone else. It also turns your longing into a problem to manage. Over time, a lot of partners stop asking at all. Then they wonder why they feel lonely inside a marriage that looks fine from the outside.
It is also not quite fair to him. Plenty of autistic adults are openly affectionate. They may express it differently, through information, time, shared interests, or deep pressure hugs rather than light touch, but it is there. Autism describes a different way of processing the world. It does not describe a person with no wish to be close.
The Indifference Story
“He doesn’t care” usually arrives on the harder days. You see the effort he puts into the car, the spreadsheet, the fence, and you think: he can clearly do things when he wants to. So the absence of tenderness must be a choice.
What I see in my practice is almost the opposite. The partner who gives little affection is often watching the relationship closely and caring about it a great deal. He may feel your disappointment very sharply and have no idea how to answer it without feeling exposed. Reading his distance as indifference gets the motive wrong, and a wrong motive leads to the wrong conversation.
This is also where the double empathy problem comes in. Damian Milton described how misunderstanding between autistic and non-autistic people runs in both directions, rather than sitting only in the autistic person (Milton, 2012). You may be misreading him in the same moment he is misreading you.
What Both Stories Miss
Both stories treat low affection as a fixed trait, either of his brain or of his heart. Attachment offers a third explanation: a learned way of protecting himself around closeness. What was learned can be looked at together. That does not make it quick or easy. It does make it workable.
What Avoidant Attachment Looks Like in a Mixed-Neurotype Marriage
Attachment describes the patterns we develop for staying safe with the people we depend on. The idea goes back to John Bowlby’s work on how early relationships shape what we expect from closeness later on (Bowlby, 1969). Avoidant attachment is one of those patterns. It tends to develop when reaching for closeness did not reliably bring comfort, so the person learned to rely on themselves and keep a little distance.
Why This Happens
I want to be careful here, because the study did not examine childhoods. What I can offer is what I notice in my practice. Many autistic adults grew up being corrected for how they showed feelings. They were told their hugs were too hard or too brief, their faces were wrong, their honesty was rude. Closeness often came packaged with criticism. It makes sense that someone raised that way would learn that intimacy is where you get things wrong.
For many of these adults, doing things for people became the safe way to love them. Therefore, fixing a broken fence in the backyard can’t be misread. Or a renewed car registration at the DMV doesn’t need to have the right facial expression.
What This Can Look Like
This is the pattern I see constantly, and Margaret and Jaroslav are a clear example. One partner does enormous amounts of practical labor and very little affectionate labor.
The reason is simple once you see it. Practical help keeps a comfortable distance. Affection closes it. When Jaroslav fixes the front steps, he cares for Margaret from across the front yard. When he holds her hand in the car, there is nowhere to stand except very, very close.
Some other signs that avoidance may be part of the picture:
- Affection is easier when it is unplanned and low-stakes, and much harder when it is requested.
- A warm evening is followed by a day or two of pulling back.
- Closeness feels fine in public or with others around, and harder when you are alone together.
- He responds to your hurt with a solution, because solving keeps the conversation at arm’s length.
- He can say he loves you in a card or a text more easily than face to face.
None of these is a diagnosis. They are patterns worth noticing, gently, and ideally together.
Telling Avoidance Apart From Other Things That Look Like It
From across the room, several very different experiences produce the same outcome: less warmth than you hoped for. Telling them apart matters, because each one asks for a different kind of care.
Sensory Needs
For some autistic adults, light touch is uncomfortable or even painful, while firm pressure feels wonderful. A partner who flinches at a stroke on the arm may melt into a heavy-blanket hug. If the difficulty is mostly about the kind of touch rather than closeness itself, you may be dealing with sensory mismatch more than avoidance.
Difficulty Naming Feelings
Some people have real trouble identifying and describing their own emotions, a trait called alexithymia. Research by Geoffrey Bird and Richard Cook suggests that many of the emotional difficulties attributed to autism may track alexithymia instead (Bird & Cook, 2013). A partner with alexithymia may feel a great deal of love and simply not have the words ready when you need them.
Shutdown
A partner in shutdown goes quiet because his nervous system is at capacity, not because he is keeping you away. That silence can possibly lift with rest, because the pattern is different from avoidance, and I’ve written more about it in autism and the silent treatment.
What Points Toward Avoidance
In session, I listen for one thing in particular: what happens after closeness. With sensory needs, the right kind of touch is welcome. With alexithymia, the warmth is there even when the words aren’t. With avoidance, closeness itself can feel like pressure, so a good moment is often followed by distance. Many couples are dealing with more than one of these at once, which is part of why an outside view can help. If you have been wondering whether you are married to an emotionally unavailable partner or a flooded one, this is the same question from a slightly different angle.
Why This Changes What Is Possible
Here is why I think this matters so much. A wiring story doesn’t move. An attachment pattern can.
Attachment patterns are not life sentences. In my practice, I see people become more secure in their attachment patterns over time, often through the steady experience of reaching for someone and having it go reasonably well. That is slow work. It is also real work, and both partners can take part without either pretending to be someone else.
It also changes what you are asking for. You are not asking Jaroslav to stop being autistic. You are asking whether closeness can become a little less dangerous for him. Those are very different conversations, and the second one has a path forward.
I want to be honest about the limits. Understanding a pattern doesn’t guarantee it will change, and it doesn’t obligate you to wait forever. Your need for warmth is not too much. It counts. Compassion for why he pulls back and clarity about what you need can both be true at the same time.
What Can Help, for Both of You
These are options, not assignments. Take what fits and leave the rest.
Name the Pattern Without a Verdict
One option is to describe what you see without deciding what it means. Something like: “I notice you do so much for me, and it’s harder for you to be close in small ways. I’m not upset about who you are. I’d like to understand it.” That takes the charge off and invites him in rather than putting him on trial.
Make Affection Predictable
For many avoidant partners, the hardest affection is the surprise request. Predictable, low-pressure rituals can help: a ten-second hug when one of you comes home, holding hands during one show, a goodnight that always happens. Predictable closeness asks less of a nervous system than improvised closeness does.
Ask What Closeness Costs Him
He may never have been asked. “What’s hard about being close?” is a very different question from “Why won’t you be affectionate?” You may hear about sensory discomfort, fear of getting it wrong, or old criticism. All of that is useful. Many couples find this conversation easier with support, and work on emotional intimacy for neurodiverse couples often starts right here.
Take Your Own Needs Seriously
This isn’t only his work. If you have spent years shrinking your needs to keep the peace, you might notice what you have stopped asking for. Some of the insecurity in neurodiverse relationships that partners describe comes from exactly this: asking for less and less, then feeling unwanted when less is what arrives.
Repair After the Misses
There will be misses. A hug that comes too late, a request that lands like pressure. What matters most is what happens next. Repair is often where two different nervous systems learn they can get it wrong and still be safe with each other.
Where This Leaves You
If you have been reading low affection as proof that you are unloved, or as proof that nothing can change, this study offers a third reading. In this research, autistic-like traits did not predict the drop in affection. Avoidance did. And avoidance is a way of protecting oneself that was learned, which means it can be understood, and sometimes it can soften.
That doesn’t make your loneliness any less real. It may mean the marriage has more room in it than either of your old stories allowed.
Margaret and Jaroslav did not have a breakthrough. What they have now is a hug at the back door every evening, and a conversation they had never had before about why the fence was always easier to repair than her holding hand. It is a start.
If you would like support sorting out what is happening in your own relationship, neurodiverse couples therapy is one place to do that together. Book a FREE 20-minute “Clarity & Connection” Zoom session.
If you have spent years wondering whether his distance means you are asking for too much, there is a free guide for that.
Get the free guide: You’re Not Too Much. You’re Just Alone in the Repair. Eight pages, sent straight to your inbox.
Barbara (Blaze) Lazarony, MA, LMFT #151788, works with neurodivergent adults and neurodiverse couples at Love on the Autism Spectrum.
Client stories referenced in this post are composites, with identifying details changed to protect privacy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this study mean autistic people are less affectionate?
No. The authors’ own summary reports no significant link between autistic-like traits and affectionate relationship behavior in their sample (Łukasik & Łaba-Hornecka, 2026). What they found was that the traits were linked to avoidant and fearful attachment, and avoidant attachment went with less affection. The participants were from the general population, not diagnosed autistic adults, so the findings are a starting point rather than the final word.
How do I know if my partner is avoidant or just autistic?
The two can overlap, and they are not opposites. One thing I listen for is what happens after closeness: with avoidance, a warm moment is often followed by pulling back, while sensory needs or difficulty naming feelings tend to look different. It is very hard to sort this out from inside the relationship, which is one reason an outside perspective can help.
Can avoidant attachment change in adulthood?
In my practice, I see people become more secure over time, usually through repeated experiences of closeness going reasonably well. It tends to be slow, and it works best when both partners are involved and neither is being pushed. Change is possible, but it is not guaranteed, and it is not a reason to set aside your own needs while you wait.
He does so much for me. Why is that not enough?
Practical care is real care, and it deserves to be seen that way. It is also a different kind of care from affection, and wanting both is not greedy. Many couples find it helps to name both out loud: what he gives, and what you are still missing.
Is it my fault that he pulls away?
Usually not. An avoidant pattern tends to be older than the marriage and shows up with closeness in general, not only with you. That said, both partners shape the dance, and looking at your side of it with curiosity rather than blame can open things up.
References
Bird, G., & Cook, R. (2013). Mixed emotions: The contribution of alexithymia to the emotional symptoms of autism. Translational Psychiatry, 3(7), e285. https://doi.org/10.1038/tp.2013.61
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.
Łukasik, A., & Łaba-Hornecka, A. (2026). Autistic-like traits in members of the general population and mate retention tactics: The mediation of attachment styles and reproductive strategies. Evolutionary Psychology, 24(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/14747049261473640
Milton, D. E. M. (2012). On the ontological status of autism: The “double empathy problem.” Disability & Society, 27(6), 883–887. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2012.710008
