What Love On The Spectrum Teaches About Honest Connection

A reality dating show wasn’t supposed to hit this hard, but 'Love on the Spectrum' season 4 cracked something open for us. 

What initially started as discomfort and scepticism about autism on TV turns into a surprising reset on what love can look like when there’s no game playing, no ego, and no performance. Watching neurodivergent dating up close brings the focus back to the basics most of us forget: clear communication, real effort, and the courage to say what you mean.

We talk about why Tyler's thoughtful proposal can feel like a gut punch when your own history is full of “good enough,” and how healing changes what you notice. Once you stop romanticizing the bare minimum, you start recognizing intention, consistency, and presence. We also reflect on the powerful role of steady parenting and accountability, and how maturity can look like loving someone while admitting you are not aligned.

From there, the conversation widens into dating after divorce, betrayal, and the moment you realise someone isn’t who they presented themselves to be. That kind of experience can make you guarded, and we wrestle with the line between healthy boundaries and shutting down. Along the way we connect the theme of change to David Bowie’s Changes, especially “turn and face the strange,” because growth is rarely loud. It’s subtle shifts, quieter choices, and learning to trust your intuition before your logic talks you out of it.

If you’ve been questioning your patterns, letting go of what doesn’t fit, or trying to stay open without being naive, this one will meet you where you are. Subscribe for more honest conversations, share this with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review with the biggest lesson you’ve learned about love.

Transcript

A Different Kind Of Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:12

So this episode is gonna be a little different. I don't have anything mapped out, and there's no real true outline in front of me, and this is where I'm at right now in my life, and I'm letting it come out the way it actually needs to. So I'm gonna start here. I started watching season four of Love on the Spectrum, and I did not expect it to hit me the way it did. Last year at CMA Fest, my daughter was so excited because Tyler from the show introduced one owner Judd. She knew exactly who he was, and she was over the moon. I had no idea who he was. I remember thinking, who is this guy? And that was my first segue into Love on the Spectrum. She explained it to me. It was about finding love for neurodivergent individuals. And I was like a little skeptical. It didn't sit right with me. I mean, I'm like, why are we putting people with autism on reality television? It just didn't feel right. It felt uncomfortable. And I felt it could be exploitive. And then I kind of realized that, hey, we're not in the Archibunker days where, you know, racism, weight, facial looks, appearance were criticized and ridiculed. Well, we all laughed at it. So, and it is run by Netflix. So I said to her, what the heck? Let's sit down and start watching it. And when I started watching it and watching Tanner and Connor and Tyler, and then I'm like, oh, that's Tyler that we saw at the CMA Fest. And I started going through my photos to see if I took any photos of him, and I have yet to find any. I sat down and I realized pretty quickly that I've been completely wrong. This show isn't about spectacle, it isn't about connection, it's about people trying to figure out love in a way that is so direct, so honest, and so stripped down that it forces you to look at how complicated the rest of us has made it. There's just no game playing, there's no pretending, there's no overthinking every text or analyzing every move. They have fears and they have natural fears. They have, I don't know what the word is. I want to say ticks, but that's not the word. But they're overcoming, they're trying to overcome all of this to find love. And I'm watching that, you start to realize something. Learning how to love actually matters. It's not just feeling it, it's not just saying it's saying it, but understanding how to show up in it. And honestly, I think people who aren't neurodivergent really need to watch this more than anyone because it kind of reset me. It makes me think, it makes me smile, it makes me realize that love is possible for anybody, but you also have to look within and love yourself in order to give the love that's deserved to somebody else. It shows you what communication actually looks like when there's no ego in the way. It shows you how painfully honest when it's not dressed up. And it reminds you that innocent isn't weakness. It's it's actually clarity. Speaking your your mind and sharing your thoughts should be a natural process with anybody. Whether you're falling in love or not, the honesty, the innocence really should shine through us. And the part that really stayed with me this season was Tyler Tyler's proposal to Madison. Spoiler alert. You could feel it, the nerves, the buildup, the emotions sitting right under the surface. And I laugh about it because let's be real, he probably had help pulling all that off, but it suited them perfectly. It was thoughtful, it was very them. And that's the part that made me go, hmm. Because it made me think about my own life. You know, my ex-husband proposed to me in a gravel pit. And I can laugh when I say that now, and I do laugh, and I I always actually did laugh about it, but I knew in my heart that there was no intention to it. But when I watched Tyler's proposal, I had tears in my eyes. And not because I'm comparing the moments, because they were far apart. It was contrast, it was seeing what intention actually looks like, what it feels like when someone considers the moment, the person, the meaning behind it. And realize I just realized that I I don't think I really had that ever in my life. That doesn't mean what I had wasn't real at the time, though. It means I just didn't know the difference yet. And I'm 53 and I'm looking at it now and saying, I really didn't know what to look for, and I didn't know what I deserved. And that's the piece that kind of shifts when you start healing. You stop romanticizing the bare minimum, you start noticing effort, presence, consistency. You start asking, is this actually aligned? Or am I making it work in my head? And then, oh my god, there's the two moms, Connor and Tanner's mom. They stayed with me. They look like Barbie dolls, put together, competent, the kind of women you know can walk into a room and own it. You know they like to get down and party. You know they're a lot of fun. But then you watch how they show up for their sons, and it's steady and it's patient, and it's so grounded. Their empathy. But it's not soft in a way that lets things like slide. They're not raising their boys to be handled, they're raising them to be accountable. They want them to be loved, yes, fully loved and supported. But they're also very clear that respect matters, honesty matters, how you show up matters. You don't always see that in real life. These boys are learning how to navigate life, how to navigate relationships, how to navigate their disabilities, and they're doing it with guidance that says, hey, you're capable, but you're also responsible. And at the end of the day, that's all we want. We want to be understood, not under as underestimated, to be supported, but not carried, to be loved, but still expected to show up as a good human. And if you watch from season one to season four, you see how much they've improved and grown and just become the most wonderful people ever. Like Madison went from requiring dolls when she went out because she needed that to feel safe and secure, to a young lady that no longer required that when she went out. And then you had Tanner, who was looking for love, but then realized, you know, I have a lot of dreams of my own, and I'm not interested in dating or getting married again, and he's on a little bit of the season four, but you don't see him as much as you do the other seasons. And then you got Connor, who was very much in love with the partner that he was with, but then realized that it's okay to love someone, but realize that you're two different people. And that made me think a lot. You know, that took a lot of maturity for him to realize that, and although you're sad, you realize that you just don't have the commonality that you need and want to feel truly loved. And watching all this doesn't just stay on the screen, it actually comes back to you. And for me, it brought me right into where I've been dating. Because I don't date the same way anymore. There's a time where I would overthink everything, try to read between the lines, try to make sense that didn't actually make sense. I would chase, I would fill in gaps for people, give benefit of the doubt when there was no reason for it. And if I'm being honest, I worked harder than the other person more times than I wanted to admit. Trying to hold something together was never really solid to begin with. But now, if something feels off, I don't investigate it to death. I listen. If someone shows me they're not aligned, I believe them the first time. If someone tells me they're looking for something casual, I take that at face value. Someone once said, if you go through the dating sites and see long-term relationship, but also see okay for short-term or casual, then they're not really looking for a long-term relationship. I just no longer turn it into a challenge. And if someone is coming in too fast saying things that don't match the level of connection, I don't get swept up in it. I step back because I've learned something the very hard way. Effort, consistency, and intention. They always show themselves over time. And the saying that Oprah and Maya and Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Is just such a true fact. And I'll say this too. I swipe left a lot, like a lot, and I don't second guess it anymore. There was a time where I'd pause and think, am I too picky? Should I give this a chance? Not anymore. Because your intuition is usually ahead of your logic. You can feel when something doesn't align, and I trust that now. When I look at someone with mischievous eyes and a little bit of fun in them, I realize, okay, that's trouble. Swipe left. And it's not being harsh, it's not about thinking you're better than anyone else. It's not knowing what fits in your life and what doesn't. And I have no doubt that I'm not incorrect. And there's another layer to all this: the disappointment when you realize someone isn't who they present themselves to be. And that shift changes you. It's made me guarded. I've become skeptical. And I'm trying to be careful of not becoming cynical. Because once you've seen behind the curtain, it's hard to unsee. You start questioning intentions, you start looking for what's underneath instead of what's being shown. And listen, sometimes that's necessary and it keeps you from repeating the same patterns, but there's a line. Because if you stay there too long, you closed yourself off from something real. And that's where Love on the Spectrum brought me back. It reminded me that while all of that can creep in, the gardenist, the skepticism, the edge, you still have to breathe. You still have to allow some light to come in. Not because everyone is operating with hidden motives. Not everyone is masking the underneath something underneath. Some people are exactly who they say they are. And if you shut everything down, trying to protect yourself, you miss that. So for me, it's not about going back to being naive. It's about staying aware while still staying open. You know, kind of a side note, kind of not, but for years I I chased Jacob Hogarth from Headley around just to photograph him in concert. I was in the pit, he knew I was there. He even took my camera at one time and shot the crowd. And that was the image, that was the perception. He was just a great fun guy who entertained teenage girls but was a lot of fun to watch and super fun to photograph. And whenever they came out in 2018, I didn't believe it at all. I was one of those women who didn't stand behind other women. I assumed there had to be something else behind it attention, money, something. And that's hard to say out loud now, but it's the truth. Then later this same year, my own life showed me something different. My ex-husband showed me who he really was. And that's when it clicked. People can appear to be this incredible person, someone who knows how to earn love, earn trust, earn admiration, and still have a dark side filled with manipulation. And once you experience that, you don't unsee it. And it's so funny because I've been watching the Nicole Arbor and Jelly Roll conflict on TikTok, and I love jelly roll. I even have a blog post listing the reasons why I love jelly roll. And Nicole Arbor is probably not one of my favorite people because of things that she posted way back on YouTube when she was in Canada. But the more I watch, even though I'm not jumping to conclusions, I don't blindly defend anymore. I pay attention because people in powerful places, not just with money, but with influence, possibly a past where they're able to manipulate easily, they have ways. And I've lived enough to know it's possible. And when I look back over the last eight years, there's been a lot. A spouse who left and chose drug abuse, a partner who chose to go back to something unhealthy and toxic. And you start to understand it's not about forgiving in the way people say it, it's about understanding. Understanding how people work. And I do a lot of driving. Damn gas prices, but that's another story. I do a lot of driving because driving is a time where I can actually sit with a clear mind and think and analyze, and sometimes write my podcasts in my head, and I'll write down notes or surrey notes actually. And it really is about not about forgiving the way people say it. It's about understanding. And it's about understanding how people work, understanding how trauma works differently for everybody. And because sometimes people just don't want to heal and they want to stay with what's familiar, and you have to accept that. You just have to want it. And I know today, you know, that my ex-husband and I absolutely had nothing in common except for two children and 24 years together. And I've actually thought about this a lot. And I I, you know, I often ask myself, if he didn't have those addictions, we we probably would have stayed together, but would have that been enough? Would that have been fair to either of us? Two people moving forward with nothing in common, just history and children. Who would have we have been as we approach retirement? Would if we have been truly happy or just comfortable? Would have we have sought therapy to try to come together? I I don't think so. I think we just would have been the norm and just live life like that until one of us died. And I'm thankful now. I actually look at and say, and I'm God, Spirit, whoever you look at, actually presented this as a trauma, but it was also an opportunity for the both of us to grow. And I think when that saying, I can't remember exactly how it goes, but when God takes something out of your life, it's for a reason. And sadly, it caused a lot of damage to me and a lot of trauma and probably a little dash of end mental illness here and there, PTSD. But I'm actually thankful that it all happened because I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be staying in that house for another 10 years and never looking at his tablet because I never did it in that house. Everything unraveled, and that's what caused me to get the realization of what was happening. And we really weren't a pair. Two peas in a pod, if you want to say. And then I look at my last relationship, even though it was very short, it was very deep. We went through more in that time than I ever did in my marriage. The death of my parents, the death of my ex-husband. We saw the solar eclipse together. You know, I watched things that I just couldn't see. I watched such horrible acts of unkindness towards them. I saw how families can be when someone just wants to feel included and instead they're shut out. And you could see how that wires someone, how it shapes them, how it makes them shut down. And I had compassion for that, and I also had a lot of anger at that time for that. I really, I really did. But my God always told me there was something there. And I'm so pleased now that we didn't go into the future together with that something sitting underneath everything. Because that would have been wouldn't have been fair to either of us. And I feel now that I didn't have before. I actually have closure. He's actually stopped stalking me every night, maybe every second night or every third night, but nothing drastic. And I'm so thankful for that. Because I didn't realize how much that mattered until I saw the decline. Because when that finally stops, it just releases you. It releases you, releases you from all things in the past. And it's so crazy because I do see friends who, you know, have broken up with boyfriends, and they'll go, Oh my god, look who's in my you see my stories. And and I and in a way it triggers them, and I and I think that's a commonality that we all have. You know, when it's time to let go, it's time to let go. And I think, you know, like looking back at Love at the Spectrum, Connor and Georgie, they stayed friends, but I mean, how much friends? Who knows? But they come out with the realization that it's over and they had to move on. And moving on and releasing what you need to release and staying still for a while to allow yourself to heal is just so liberating and so good. It's horrible, I'm not gonna lie. Going through healing is horrible, but it's also so good because you stop, you think before you react, and it's such a great feeling as you're moving forward and moving ahead. So thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for releasing me. Because now I feel free. And as I'm talking, thinking, driving, you know what song comes into my mind when I think of everything that's happening to me right now? It's Changes by David Bowie. Because it's funny how a song can hit you differently, depending on where you are in your life. You can hear it for years, and then suddenly one day you just actually understand it. And that line turn and face the strange. That's the whole thing. Because change always feels strange at first, and with healing, a lot of changes happen. It's uncomfortable, it's unfamiliar. It feels like you're losing something even when you're. You're actually stepping into something better, you may not realize it, but you are stepping into something better. And most people don't like that feeling, and I certainly didn't many times. So they most of them people stay. They stay in relationships that don't line. They stay in patterns that hurt them. They stay in versions of themselves that don't even fit anymore. Because it's known, it's predictable, and it feels safer than stepping into something they don't understand yet. But what I'm realizing is that you have to turn and face it. You don't get to grow without that moment. And there's another line in this song Time may change me, but I can't trace time. And that's the truth about healing. You don't always see it when you're in it. It's not big, obvious transformation. It's subtle. It's in how you respond differently. It's how you walk away faster. It's in how you stop explaining things that don't deserve your energy. It's in the quiet shifts. And then one day you look back and realize you're not the same person anymore. You know, this experience moving to this cottage has made me realize how much I've changed. And there's been nights where it's been very scary. Rather than thinking before responding, and I don't anymore. There's the girl that just sees life for as it is and accepts it for as it is. Or before I'd be trying to change it and shift it and mold it and control it. But I'm not that anymore. I'm not that girl. And then there's that part, the one about how people have dismissed change, how they judge it, and how they resist it, especially when it doesn't look like what they're used to. But the reality is those are usually the same people who feel it later, the ones who stayed too long, the ones who didn't evolve, the ones who didn't want to face what was uncomfortable. And I think that's why this song resonates with me now more than ever. Because I didn't just move on, I changed. I looked at my patterns, I questioned my choices, I stopped ignoring my instincts, I stopped chasing what didn't align. And that's just not on the service. That's a full identity level change. Because change isn't something you wait for, it's something you actually choose. But I think it's very silent because every day I'm like, whoa, I actually did that. That was pretty cool of me. You know, you it just it just happens when it's uncomfortable, when it's unfamiliar, even when it means letting go of people, patterns, versions of yourself that you once thought you were that were permanent. And maybe that's a real takeaway of this song, that it isn't just a song, it's a mirror. And for the first time in a long time, I can actually look into it and recognize myself. I've got six and a half minutes left before I have to knead my dough, my sourdough again, so I'm just gonna end with this. This week I had the flu. And it was amazing how people came to me with so many hurdles this week. And I was very clear on my intentions. I said, right now I can't think about it. I need a couple days. I don't want to talk about this right now. And of course, in my own leadership way, I did think about it. I did work on it, I did come up with a plan, but I just didn't want to talk about it because I needed to take care of me first in order to be effective with what I was working through. So when I look at all of this that I shared with you tonight, love on the spectrum, the relationships, the loss, the growth, the music, it all comes back to the same place. Knowing yourself. Not the version of you that's trying to make something work, not the version of you that's chasing or convincing or holding on. The real version. The one that listens, the one that listens clearly, the one that doesn't ignore what's right in front of you. Because when you get to that place, things don't feel like chaos. They just feel honest. And honest might not always be easy, but it's steady, just as we've seen on Love and the Spectrum, and the way they communicate with one another, it's real, and it gives you a foundation to actually build something that lasts, whether that's love, life, or just the way you move forward on your own. So if you're in that space right now where things feel like they're shifting, where you're questioning, where you're letting go, you're not lost. You're changing. And that's exactly where you're supposed to be.