Please can anyone help us figure out the why??

Once I bought a house with a girfriend, and we had a similar situation. Like your partner, I didn't want to lose autonomy of my finances, however I also did want to participate in what my girlfriend saw as normal. I also earned more money.
The experienced lawyer doing the house contracts suggested this:

Setup a joint account, and pay into it proportionally for the shared costs.
I earned 3x as much, so I paid 75% of the shared costs, and she paid 25%.

This worked out brilliantly as it was equitable.
I kept control of my income, the shared costs weren't a burden for me. My girlfriend wasn't burdened with an unfair proportion.

Yeah, it was not right for him to treat you in a disrespectful manner. I mean you had to pay for all the repairs, but you didn't need the kick back from him. 

I just want to say that I am honestly amazed by your ability to upkeep the household and paperwork and make food, even with ADHD, which I can imagine is not easy, so I can see the level of effort you have put into your relationship.

Yeah, I can see how your age would matter when it comes down to the ability to have a child. And not being married yet, or having complete commitment of your partner, can make the entire ordeal that much more stressful. He sounds like he's dragging his feet about it, being indecisive. Maybe he's fearful of the changes he'd have to make, and how a child would impact his personal freedom, and how much he'd have to sacrifice for that child.

Hopefully you two can work things out though, through thorough discussions, but I can imagine they will be difficult discussions to make.

thank you this was very helpful. I am not sure this totally fit him as he doesnt internalise blame this way but he does think things are doomed to fail, he just blames both of us and mostly me. This is better than it used to be when it was only me who was in the wronge. He has high anxiety and assumes the worst, if his isn't totaly sure he wont go for it, but you can move forward in life like that, nothings ever totally certain. So we just get stuck.

thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

Saddly no child yet, he has always said he wants them but he isnt ready. He promises we will have them (im 35 so its scary to wait)

Hullabaloo said:

My tablet suddenly stopped working one day, but I just went out the next day and bought a new one. I don't think I involved my partner, because I didn't think it was their responsibility to pay for something that I owned. 

We have spoken befor about how he makes more money as I felt guilty but we concluded that my work does good in the world and his earns the bulk of our household income so it works if we think of ourselves as a unit. So thats what I thought we did, not thinking in terms of yours and mine but ours. not only our money but our chores/tasks, our responsibilities.So I do feel the money should also be pooled.

 As it stands we have a very uneven divisioin of labour because he is always very tired. I do 90% of the housework and deal with all the life admin stuff, I make apoinment s for him, sort the car insurance, make his lunch before i go to workor he eats crisps and nothing else. I do this because it isn't his and mine but ours, like how I wash all the clothes not just mine. I dont want a tit for tat relationship because in that case I am getting a bad deal.

Also to clarify I wasn't offended at paying for the laptop, I have spent a lifetime being feircly independent. I was offended that he wanted to teach me a lesson that a) i felt was unrelated and b) Im a grown up and his equal he doesnt get to 'teach me a lesson' im not under his control. By using money to 'punish' me and (inadvertantly) cause an uneven power dynamic infanalised me and I honestly expected better of him

thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

Fiona said:

what is the difference between that and what you currently have?

sorry I wasn't clear enough, the idea would be to have a preagree fun budget each but that the rest was joint money to pay both joint expenses but also just to live

We have spoken befor about how he makes more money as I felt guilty but we concluded that my work does good in the world and his earns the bulk of our household income so it works if we think of ourselves as a unit. So thats what I thought we did, not thinking in terms of yours and mine but ours. not only our money but our chores/tasks, our responsibilities.So I do feel the money should also be pooled.

 As it stands we have a very uneven divisioin of labour because he is always very tired. I do 90% of the housework and deal with all the life admin stuff, I make apoinment s for him, sort the car insurance, make his lunch before i go to workor he eats crisps and nothing else. I do this because it isn't his and mine but ours, like how I wash all the clothes not just mine. I dont want a tit for tat relationship because in that case I am getting a bad deal.

Fiona said:

It feels like there are issues behind it...

Honestly of course there is, if he was letting our relationship progress in other ways this would be far less emotive. with rejection sensativity dysphoria its hard to be constantly turned down, to have to ask for a compliment or affetionate touch. Its hard after 8 years to still be told he isnt sure it could work long term. I thought this would be a tiny thing to show me some forward movement, give me hope. But his reluctance has scared me

I'm not sure if you're just thinking of a hypothetical childcare situation for sometime in the future, or if you're already pregnant with a baby on the way. 

If you're not pregnant, and just trying to get a main joint account, to secure that hypothetical situation for whenever you have this hypothetical child in the future, the both you are not even married yet, so why have a main joint account like this? It doesn't make much sense to do this (at least to me),  especially if everything is working fine at the moment, in terms of bills and other expenditures.

However, if you are pregnant, and he's not taking this seriously, in terms of committing and setting up for marriage and securing a joint account to prepare everything for the baby that's on it's way, that would be a little concerning. I mean, a joint account would just make paying for the things for the baby easier, but if you already have one, so I'm not sure if a main joint account is needed, but I suppose that depends on your situation.

My tablet suddenly stopped working one day, but I just went out the next day and bought a new one. I don't think I involved my partner, because I didn't think it was their responsibility to pay for something that I owned. 

I think that finances and commitment are huge parts of a long-term relationship, and serious discussions about these topics are not always going to be very pleasant, but they are important to have, especially if you are planning to settle down and have children with him one day. 

Relationships need a lot of communication and compromise. Which is hard! I hope you get through this tricky period, as you have probably worked out so many things like this before. I think Iain's reply makes a lot of sense.

I'm not sure I understand the relevance of making the change. If both your salaries are paid into the main account, where bills are paid, and he has a direct debit to move his balance after expenses to his 'fun' account, what is the difference between that and what you currently have? Does it make a legal difference, or is it a trust concern? It feels like there are issues behind it...

NAS84074 said:

he needs to been 100% himself to love somebody and somehow this challanges his identity

Is that a cow I can smell? Horse? No, its bull.

Joking apart, this is an issue I can identify and have discussed in both individual and couples therapy.

Commitment to a relationship tends to make us look at how it impacts us - what we have to give up when the healthier way is to look at what we gain, how it also helps the other person be happy and that together we are more than as individuals.

Now we understand this and in kicks the autistic traits of low self esteem and "I break everything I touch so we will end up apart like I have always been". It is the little demon on our shoulder telling us we will never succeed.

He would be helped in this a lot by dealing with this issue with a therapist as he probably doesn't realise his identity is not fixed in stone - he can be more than just him buy being a partner and a father.

It took me a long time to come to terms with the fatherhood idea but in the end I wrapped my head around it and embraced it - but he probably needs help in processing the ideas to reach his own conclusions on all the committment issues.

I would also recommend taking time to set up the "rules" of the relationship for where it comes to where money is coming from, who can make decisions on it, who sets budgets and when, how housework is distributed, how chores will be distributed in the event of a child and all the other tasks you can think of down the line.

With you both being on the neurodiverse spectrum then it helps to have clear cut plans for this stuff as the assumptions made about them are a big source of problems in even neurotypical relationships.

Deciding on them often involves negotiations and even arguements, so I would recommend agreeing on the rules for this:

https://www.therapistaid.com/therapy-worksheet/fair-fighting-rules

Save your spontineity for other, more fun things.

These are a few thoughts to start with - I'll stop rambling now