Grief, Compassion, and Emotional Boundaries
We enter into relationships with hope, positive intentions and lots of puzzle pieces we gather along the way. We usually focus on the positive traits of our loved ones and imagine a life mutual care, reciprocity and balance. However, most people discover that our differences start causing misunderstandings, hurt feelings, grief that at times lead to separation and resentment.
If you find that your loved one is a neurodivergent person, you may encounter extra challenges due to their symptoms, as well as your loved one’s commitment to manage their symptoms.
Loving someone who is doing their best — and still struggles to show care, attunement, or emotional presence — can be quietly painful. When a loved one has ADHD and/or ASD, relationships may feel uneven, confusing, or lonely, even when there is real affection and effort on both sides. This article explores the often-unspoken grief that can arise in these relationships, and how to hold compassion for another’s limits while also honoring your own emotional needs.
Understanding what’s happening (without pathologising the person)
From a neuropsychological and attachment-informed perspective, what you’re describing fits with a well-researched pattern seen in some people with ADHD + autistic traits:
a) Limited relational bandwidth (not lack of care)
Many neurodivergent people experience:
- High internal load (sensory processing, emotional regulation, cognitive noise)
- Reduced spare capacity for attunement to others in real time
So it can look like self-centredness, but often it’s more accurate to call it: self-occupation due to overwhelm
This doesn’t mean they don’t care. It means their nervous system is often already at capacity.
b) Perspective-taking is effortful, not automatic
Research on autism consistently shows that:
Cognitive empathy (understanding another’s perspective) requires conscious effort
- Under stress, fatigue, criticism, or relational demand → this capacity drops sharply
So when things matter most (conflict, intimacy, parenting), the very skills you need from them are the ones that temporarily collapse
c) Rejection sensitivity amplifies defensiveness
In ADHD especially, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is common:
- Feedback feels like global failure
- Criticism is experienced as threat
- Shame responses activate fight/flight/freeze
This can make relational repair very difficult—even when the person is genuinely trying and reflective.
Why this is so painful for you
Here’s the part that often doesn’t get spoken enough.
You are not only dealing with difficulty. You are dealing with chronic asymmetry.
You are:
- Tracking their inner world
- Adjusting, softening, contextualising
- Holding compassion for their limits
- Making space for their struggles
While your inner world is often:
- Unnoticed
- Unmet
- Not fully held or reciprocated
Over time, this creates:
- Loneliness inside the relationship
- Grief for mutuality
- A quiet exhaustion of always being the “bigger nervous system”
That grief is not selfish. It is a healthy response to unmet relational needs.
A crucial reframe (that protects your heart)
One of the most important psychological distinctions here is this:
Effort ≠ capacity
Someone can be:
- Insightful
- Doing therapy
- Meditating
- Wanting to change …and still not be able to offer consistent emotional attunement in close relationships.
Accepting this is not giving up. It is seeing reality clearly.
The grief often intensifies when we unconsciously hope that more insight will eventually turn into more relational presence. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t — at least not in the way we need.
The hidden cost if this isn’t acknowledged
When family members don’t name this grief, they often slide into:
- Emotional over-functioning
- Self-abandonment
- Minimising their own needs (“they can’t help it”)
- Spiritual bypassing (“I should just be more compassionate”)
But compassion that costs you your own aliveness eventually turns into quiet resentment or sadness.
What is within your control (and what isn’t)
Not within your control:
- Their neurological wiring
- Their relational ceiling
- Their pace of integration
Within your control:
- How much emotional labour you take on
- What level of closeness you expect
- Where you seek reciprocity
Many people in your position find relief when they:
- Stop seeking primary emotional nourishment from this relationship
- Diversify sources of connection
- Allow the relationship to be imperfect but real, rather than almost enough but painful
This isn’t distancing — it’s right-sizing.
A gentle truth to sit with
You may love this person deeply. You may admire their effort. You may see their goodness.
And still say, quietly and honestly: “This relationship cannot meet some of my core relational needs.”
That sentence is not a failure. It is emotional maturity.
See Part 2 for more practical strategies.
Ilana Gorovoy is also able to provide counselling to clients via phone call or video call in certain circumstances. To make an appointment for counselling, try Online Booking or call M1 Psychology on (07) 3067 9129.