Marina Sarris

Date Published: August 4, 2026

From the beginning, having a child with autism invited scrutiny of one’s marriage.

No sooner had an American psychiatrist first described a condition he called “autistic disturbance,” then he had a few things to say about the parents of the 11 children he diagnosed with it. He said that three of their marriages were “dismal failures,” and “even some of the happiest marriages are rather cold and formal affairs.”¹

That was 1943, but relationship concerns have persisted well into the 21^st Century. As recently as 2023, a psychologist posted on a popular website that parents of autistic children had a divorce rate of 80 percent. That statistic has been mentioned for years, but is it true? What do we really know about these relationships?

Certainly, decades of research say that having a child with any disability can add to parents’ stress.^2-6 But does stress doom these relationships, more often than not?

The short answer is no. Several research studies going back more than a decade have found no evidence of an 80 percent divorce rate.

Different studies have found divorce rates among parents of autistic children that were similar to, or higher than, divorce rates of parents of typically developing children. But these rates were well below 80 percent.^7-9

How often do parents of autistic children split up?

In one of the largest studies of this topic, researchers found that parents of children with autism split up as often as parents of children who don’t have autism. This study used data from almost 78,000 parents, 913 of whom had an autistic child, from across the United States.⁷

This study is important because of its size. The bigger the study, the less likely the results are due to chance or something unique about the group of people studied.

About two-thirds of the children lived with their two biological or adoptive parents. That was true whether the children had autism or not. The severity of a child’s autism symptoms had no effect on the likelihood that parents would divorce, according to the researchers, who were from Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.⁷

Why do these parents stay together, despite the social, emotional, or financial stress of raising a child with autism? Maybe parents can’t afford to divorce. Or, given the social isolation that many families report, perhaps spouses rely on each other more for emotional support. Other factors, such as parents’ older average age, may also play a role, according to the Maryland researchers.⁷

Another study found similar results, but used a very different method. Led by autism expert Catherine Lord, Ph.D., researchers followed 219 parents of children with autism and other developmental conditions over a 28-year period.⁸

Almost two-thirds of the parents stayed married, similar to the large study from the Maryland researchers. The rest of the parents, or 36 percent, divorced, with most divorces taking place when children were younger than 5 or older than 15.

Lord’s study did not include a comparison group of parents of typically developing children. So it’s not known how those marriages would have fared over 28 years.⁸

A different study found a higher divorce rate among about 400 couples of autistic children, compared to couples with typically developing children. But the divorce rates for both groups, 24 percent and 14 percent, respectively, were lower than the average U.S. divorce rate at the time.^9,10

How happy are parents who stay together?

Are couples with an autistic child generally satisfied with their relationships?

Some studies say no, while others answer yes.¹⁰

“Couple relationships are an important part of family life, but we still have a lot to learn about the experiences of parents raising an autistic child,” says Chrystyna Kouros, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas.

Kouros and Naomi Ekas, Ph.D., co-led a study comparing couples raising an autistic child with similar couples whose child did not have autism. They recruited the parents of the autistic children from the SPARK autism study.

The research team wanted to look at more aspects of a couple’s relationship than previous studies had examined, explains Ekas, a psychology professor at Texas Christian University.

So they asked couples to answer surveys about issues such as conflict, communication, intimacy, power dynamics, overall satisfaction, and coping with stress. Each couple also participated in a 60-minute video call in which they tried to solve a problem.

Ekas expected that the couples raising an autistic child might be less satisfied with their relationship than the other couples, based on earlier research.

“But that’s not at all what we found,” Ekas says.

Instead, the researchers found no significant differences in the relationships of parents of autistic children compared with the parents of children who did not have autism.¹¹

“What that tells us is a story of more resilience,” Ekas says. “What is helping to build resilience? How are parents working together? Do they have a good, extended family support network that’s helping them? Do they have good community resources?”

Future research may answer those questions, she says. Those answers could also be used to help couples who are “really struggling” in their relationships as they raise an autistic child, Ekas says.

Difficulties with studying couples

Researching relationships can be challenging, especially if both partners must agree to participate. For example, couples who are having marital problems may be less likely to join a study about relationships, says autism researcher Connie Anderson, Ph.D., a Towson University associate professor and former marriage and family therapist.

“If someone is overwhelmed, they don’t even want to say to their husband, ‘Hey, do you want to take part in a study?'” A couple may not want to argue or look bad in front of researchers, Anderson explains.

In the study that included SPARK parents, researchers found some differences that had nothing to do with autism. Mothers were generally less satisfied with their relationships than fathers were, whether their child had autism or not. This may be linked to how parenting duties are distributed between mothers and fathers in the U.S., they speculated.¹¹

According to the Pew Research Center, women spend significantly more time a day on housework than men do. Also, women spend more time with caregiving than men from ages 20 to 49 — when they are more likely to be raising children. Men spend more time working for pay than women.¹²

How parents respond to a child’s autism diagnosis may relate to their early expectations of their roles in the marriage, Anderson says. If one spouse expected to be a stay-at-home parent, and the other planned to be the sole breadwinner, a child’s diagnosis may not disrupt those plans, she says.

But the couple’s expectations for their relationship may be affected if both partners planned to work, and one has to give up a job or career goals to manage the child’s therapies, Anderson explains.

Research shows that mothers are more likely than fathers to quit a job or reduce work hours if a child has autism.

What do couples have to say about their parenting and partnerships?

Three psychologists sought to go beyond the numbers to see how parents felt about their experience, in their own words. The psychologists collected answers to open-ended questions from almost 500 parents in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries. Like many studies, mothers participated in greater numbers than fathers.³

Many parents said that caring for their child placed a “huge strain on the marriage.” Some said they didn’t have time for their spouse. One wife reported, “My husband experiences cycles where he actually avoids us and our home.”

Some parents said such problems led to divorce. “Husband took off due to stress,” one mother said.³

But not all parents had negative things to say about their marriages. Some said that raising an autistic child strengthened their bond. “My husband and I have had a tough patch of it, but we’re much better and our family is very happy,” one mom said.

A husband told researchers, “My wife and I hold a stronger bond to keep the family together.”³

What might affect how couples approach raising an autistic child?

One small study, by researchers in France, suggested that the quality of a couple’s relationship before having a child influenced their relationship after their child’s autism diagnosis.¹³

One couple, Beth and Robert, told the researchers that the problems in their relationship began before their son was born.

“I think there was already a distance between us before he arrived, the autism just added to it,” Beth said. Robert agreed. “Our relationship was already a little distant, so it didn’t help, it didn’t bring us closer…. Because we didn’t have the same vision at all, and we couldn’t understand each other’s perspectives, including that of our child’s education.”¹³

Several couples told the researchers that their already-solid relationship became stronger after their child’s diagnosis. One mother, Fiona, said, “Even before his autism [diagnosis], we were always a tightly knit couple, we have no problems and we get along very well, his autism has only strengthened our bond.” Her partner, Luke, agreed. “Yes, I insist on communication and of course trust. He is the child of two partners, so it is natural and normal we both take care of him.”¹³

Interested in joining SPARK? Here’s what you should know.

Photo credit: iStock

References

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