Christine McGuinness reflects on dating after receiving autism diagnosis
Christine McGuinness has revealed how she has been finding her dating life, after receiving her autism diagnosis.
The TV personality previously tied the knot with comedian and presenter Paddy McGuinness in 2011, but the pair chose to end their marriage in 2022.
The former couple still live together at their home in Cheshire, and they are continuing to co-parent their three children together – 11-year-old twins Leo and Penelope, and eight-year-old daughter Felicity.
Two years on from her split from Paddy, Christine has slowly started to date again, and has admitted that she is enjoying having a “busy dating diary”.
However, the mother-of-three has also revealed that her autism diagnosis played a role in her readiness to get back into dating. Christine was diagnosed with the condition in 2021, and her three little ones have also been diagnosed as autistic.
In an interview with OK!, the 36-year-old was asked how she has been finding dating since receiving her autism diagnosis.
“I only started dating this year and I think I delayed and delayed it, because of the worries. Not just because of how I am, and my sensory issues, but I wasn’t in any rush at all,” she explained.
Christine then went on to reveal that she started seeing someone new in March, as she teased: “And then it just kind of happened – I met somebody on my birthday, and we started dating.”
The model was then quizzed on what she has learned about herself, since choosing to start dating again after the end of her marriage.
“That I’m completely different when I’m comfortable around someone, and I’ve learnt that the nervous feeling I used to carry – that kind of anxiety – is a physical feeling, which I didn’t realise,” she noted.
“Yet when you stop feeling that and you are comfortable in your environment, it’s not there any more. I thought that was part of my autism – that walking on eggshells feeling. I haven’t got that any more,” Christine detailed further.
