I'll try my best to prevent this turning into a mini rant, but I am conscious I am turning into a grumpy, argumentative so and so with my partner - as much as I try to be amicable and conscientious, I feel like I am battling against a tirade of things that sends me into a mini-melt down spiral.
My partner is very impulsive and I have to let go of my structure and routine to save completely trying to control his life - that wouldn't be fair to anyone, but lately there just doesn't seem to be any structure or forewarning of what is to come.
I like to know what to expect in the day and what times things should be happening - I can relax this to a point of just knowing what the tasks are for the day and roughly what order we will be doing them in. Lately however, I find my partner is more just talking at me rather than conversing about what we will do. He throws multiple scenarios and choices into the 'conversation' without any real understanding of why we are doing them or which is more important. He then takes it upon himself to make said decisions, without telling what the 'plan' is and then starts to get agitated because I am not ready to leave the house or help with a certain task, when I haven't got the foggiest what the hell I am supposed to be doing.
This is making me become more reclusive and not want to do anything, because I am just so overwhelmed and confused. It is also exhausting!
I spend my working day planning to military precision just to get me through it in one piece, so I am happy to let some of the planning relax or be decided by my partner due to me being mentally fatigued, but I cannot process having no plan and a whatever goes plan all at the same time depending on what he feels is right at the time. He will also change his mind about what we are doing and it seems like I apparently supposed to know psychically!
I have tried to confront him about this, but it is usually at the point I am on the verge of snapping, so I am stroppy and argumentative - hence the point doesn't get across at all. I have tried to explain that I need to run through in my head what we are doing and what my part is in it all, but he doesn't seem to understand how serious this is for me and how stressful, anxious and exhausted. It's interpreted more like how people joke about OCD (I don't agree with this one either), where people say we are all a little bit OCD about things, you just have to learn to relax and let some things go. Well guess what I can't - I need structure and I need to play out in my mind what I need to do and go through some possible variations of a scenario, just so I can deal with it.
How do you explain this to someone who is NT and make them understand?
I always find it ironic how ND people are labelled as lacking in empathy, yet getting NT to understand your perspective is impossible sometimes - or trivialized.
We are a good couple who love each other, but our relationship is struggling. We are drifting apart and are getting more and more ratty with each other. This isn't the relationship either of us signed up for and I know we are both better than this.
