Hi all, hopefully this is the right thread to post in. Me and my girlfriend have been together for a couple years now. She was very upfront with me about her autism and how it affects her, and I've been trying my best to be understanding and supportive in our daily lives together (e.g I do the dishes because of her sensory overload, she does the dusting which I hate etc etc).
About a year ago, she quit her job in graphic design due to it being too overwhelming. She was telling me she was on the verge of self harming and having suicidal thoughts, so I agreed with her that this would be the right decision. Unfortunately, this put all the financial responsibility on me, leaving me to pay all the rent, electrcity, internet, and food bills. Of course this put a bit of stress on our relationship because on the one hand I wanted to be supportive and understanding, on the other hand we had the real life implications of only one of us earning, especially exacerbated by cost of living etc. A couple months after quitting, she found a job in a coffee shop. Unfortunately, she was let go at the end of her probation due to issues relating to sickness and lateness. Luckilly she managed to find a gig as a waitress in a hotel pretty much the same weekend. This is even worse than any of her previous jobs as she works crazy hours, has to deal with noisy customers, and terrible managers. She's already had to come home early from her shift a couple times already due to meltdowns. Today, she was sent home early again. This time due to her getting overwhelmed by the noise, causing her to get orders wrong amongst other issues. Her manager called her in, and told her that she should go home because he can clearly see she's not performing at her best.
Essentially, what I'm trying to say is this whole situation is not doing good for my mental health. I have a whole lot of stress going on from my side, having to manage my job, the bills, organising her calander (she constantly forgets to write things down and ends up missing / making conflicting appointments). I understand the sitaution must be way worse for her than it is for me, but that actually makes me more stressed as I don't want to show how bad it's been for me in order to not upset her, because she doesn't want to be stressing me out. I'm constantly worrying if she's going to message me to ask me to come pick her up, and who knows if/when she's going to get fired again.
We're still waiting for PIP to get back to us about her claim, because if she gets that then at least she can cut down her hours somewhat, but in the mean time this whole situation is putting a massive strain on our relationship. I'm trying to remain calm, be understanding and thoughtful, but at the same time I can't help but feel stressed, frustrated and annoyed.
Any advice would be very helpful.
