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Am I Overthinking?

NAS63171

I thought I should seek extra thoughts on this as its bothering me and causing me distress.

My partner is giving up her dream of writing a novel in order to care for me, however I feel she is overreacting as I function fine on my own. Household chores, kids etc are fine. Yes sometimes I get stressed but who doesn't? 

It came to a head when I told her she was being stubborn and tried to explain that the majority of household upkeep is done by me and I don't need a babysitter. I think she expects certain things of me but she seems to also pick and choose what those are at any given time. In addition she also critersizes alot of what I do (despite almost never doing it herself) and now she is telling me I am too much and hard to live with.

I am doing my best, yes sometimes I have a meltdown but those have become extremely rare at this point and I have reached out to charities, mental health etc. I feel like I'm stuck in limbo.

Thoughts?

Parents

  • Disagreements, arguments and relationship problems are by no means unusual. That happens all the time. The whole art and culture is about love and things that happen around love, right? There are loads of relationship advice around, people pondering exactly the same problems, how to accommodate one partners dreams, possibly both partner's dreams within the practical constrains of life. The description I relate to a lot was given to me by my therapist: it is a three legged race. You are attached together, to make any move you need to coordinate and cooperate and communicate with each other. It doesn't say it is all nice and smooth, can you picture the sound track of the three legged race? 

    The other thing is, you can't have infinite number of rigid anchors that constrain your freedom of movement, especially in a three legged situation. You as a couple have to choose which anchors to cut, which expectations to drop and frankly what doesn't matter, so that you can make progress on the few things that do. you have to keep negotiating a three legged workable compromise. All you can do is not to give up, try to accommodate aspirations of both of your, be patent and flexible.

    But it sounds like you feel you have to apologise and fix yourself for being autistic. This cannot be right. Relationship is supposed to be a safe space where you should be able to be yourself and accepted for who you are. You both need to accommodate each-other, it takes two to proverbially tango. 

    Does she feel the work is so hard because there are too many anchors she is trying to keep? Who needs them?

    But indeed it seems there is a particular difficulty for autistic people. I personally relate to the the body of work developed by autistic researchers that the difficulty arises from the double empathy problem, a mutual misunderstanding that can be compounded by some unhelpful stereotypes. https://network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight-opinion/double-empathy-problem

    Maybe you could discuss it, if your partner is not yet familiar with the double empathy problem, 

Reply

  • Disagreements, arguments and relationship problems are by no means unusual. That happens all the time. The whole art and culture is about love and things that happen around love, right? There are loads of relationship advice around, people pondering exactly the same problems, how to accommodate one partners dreams, possibly both partner's dreams within the practical constrains of life. The description I relate to a lot was given to me by my therapist: it is a three legged race. You are attached together, to make any move you need to coordinate and cooperate and communicate with each other. It doesn't say it is all nice and smooth, can you picture the sound track of the three legged race? 

    The other thing is, you can't have infinite number of rigid anchors that constrain your freedom of movement, especially in a three legged situation. You as a couple have to choose which anchors to cut, which expectations to drop and frankly what doesn't matter, so that you can make progress on the few things that do. you have to keep negotiating a three legged workable compromise. All you can do is not to give up, try to accommodate aspirations of both of your, be patent and flexible.

    But it sounds like you feel you have to apologise and fix yourself for being autistic. This cannot be right. Relationship is supposed to be a safe space where you should be able to be yourself and accepted for who you are. You both need to accommodate each-other, it takes two to proverbially tango. 

    Does she feel the work is so hard because there are too many anchors she is trying to keep? Who needs them?

    But indeed it seems there is a particular difficulty for autistic people. I personally relate to the the body of work developed by autistic researchers that the difficulty arises from the double empathy problem, a mutual misunderstanding that can be compounded by some unhelpful stereotypes. https://network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight-opinion/double-empathy-problem

    Maybe you could discuss it, if your partner is not yet familiar with the double empathy problem, 

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