In a relationship (is a quite personal)

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING ️ 

I do love him and just leaving isn’t that easy. I have a lot of my own personal things going on (yes he is aware of them). And some of those make it hard to just go “I can’t put up with this anymore I’m off” if you get what I mean. I sit there day in day out and think  it’ll change he’ll work things out and he’ll finally listen to what I’ve been saying to him what the rest of his family have been saying and I’ve just got to help him through it all. but I’m exhausted all the time and can’t be what he needs and my youth worker says it’s not my job to fix him, but I can’t help but feel like it is. He went through bas times with his kids mother ages ago and he says I’m the one for him and if it wasn’t for me he would have ……  himself. And he’s been saying it a lot more recently about how he’s been thinking about it. So I do believe that he could be depressed I really do but that’s a big emotional thing to tell me and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take information like that. 

I’ve never heard of that saying before I can’t lie and I’ve googled it after looking at the link and I’m not entirely sure what it means 

andi said:

he says no because he’s a man and I’m his therapist

Well that is a mysoginistic trait that you can't blame on autism or depression - it points to ingrained sexism that you are supposed to be everything for him and he doesn't have to be anything for you.

His behaviour does have a lot of depression about it from a range of factors (getting old, being unsuccessful, getting fat, faired relationship, having to move home etc) and if he is not willing to address these with a professional then I only see them getting worse.

The lack of respect if what is the biggest issue in my opion. You can be having a really bad time but if you take others close to you for granted repeatedly without trying to make things better then it reflects badly on your character. He has been doing this to you for far too long and this is in spite of you telling him about it, so he has no excuse of not knowing.

In your shoes I would be already packing my bags as while you love him, he has become an albatros around your neck  ( https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/640279/albatross-around-your-neck-literary-origins ).

So what can I do? It’s been 18 months he’s been like this and I try and help but he doesn’t seem to want to hear it. I listen and try and offer solutions and I get every reason he can think of as to why it won’t work. So I say why not and he won’t answer with anything than “it won’t trust me.”I say to him to go and try some professional help he says no because he’s a man and I’m his therapist he doesn’t need some stranger judging him. He says he’s got money issues  and I offer to help and he says no until the end of the month when I’m low on funds that I have to take it out of my savings. I don’t have an issue with him being depressed everyone will probably experience it at some point in their lives and it just depends on the serverity I have an issue with him not seeming to want to try. Maybe that’s the wrong outlook but it’s the way it seems after 18 months of this visoius cycle there seems to be no changes or willingness to try. Maybe I’m wrong for thinking this way but it is the way I think and I don’t know what else I can to do to help him. He’s stuck in a rut that I can’t pull him out off.

I personally think him leaving the job he’s at will help at lot but he’ll say I’ve had enough I’m looking for a new job look for 1 months and then say he actually quite likes it. Then the next month I hate my job I’m going somewhere else. Next month no I’m too old to start again I might as well stay. So yeah maybe I’m wrong but some days I get annoyed with the back and forth of he hates his job he likes his job. 

andi said:

As weird as this sounds and his dad has said it too I think he likes being miserable.

Yeah this is a kind of rubbish people with depression have to hear a lot. Because They don’t have the energy or a positive mental attitude or the confidence to do anything about the negative situations they’re seen as enjoying them, as using them as convenient excuses for laziness.

also you have to remember that a lot of depression relates to being affected by a problem you can’t solve. As human beings we are wired to solve problems and when you can’t solve a problem that you can’t let go of it because it’s too emotionally important to you your brain obsesses over it and you repeat the cycle of thinking about trying to fix it over and over again even though you know you can’t.

and people say oh you’re always obsessing over the thing that makes you miserable therefore you must love the misery and it’s total rubbish. it’s like chopping off somebody’s legs and saying oh you’re always obsessing over the times when you used to be able to walk you must love misery. just the difficulty of dealing with every day life reminds them they don’t have legs and sets them back into that cycle of wishing they had legs and is there anything they can do to make their life more like it used to be.

I didn’t want to go into to too much detail no one would read it haha. Yeah I’ve talked to him about it but it seems to be in 1 ear and out the other. 

It certainly feels that way but I don’t know how to change it his dad says I need To stick up for myself against him but he’ll go off in a paddy if I do and o can’t be bothered with it 

I don’t think he is. As weird as this sounds and his dad has said it too I think he likes being miserable. I’ve told him he needs help and I can’t be what he needs in that department. Ive said I’ll support where I can but I’m also only 22 myself and I’m honestly not that mature when it comes to the things he struggles with. How to raise his kids how to help him lose weight how to help him save. I don’t think he’s Interested in fixing things. I really don’t. All he does is look at football on his phone. Not at ways to help himself I get the need for downtime I do but then why ask me for help if he’s not going to listen to what I say? 

Relationships should be 50/50. You shouldn't be doing all the running, it should be equal effort between you both. It sounds like he's using you. You're not a doormat, you deserve to treated fairly and shouldn't be doing all the running. A relationship won't last if it's like that.

On the one hand doing things like spending time with your friends or playing games is the kind of thing people do in order to try and self medicate depression, to try and recharge my mental energy. so it’s not surprising he would do that even if he isn’t putting his socks in the wash.

it’s also entirely possible that you have highly different views of where you both see your lifes going. which is something you’re probably not able to discuss with him sensibly right now if he’s depressed because trying to pin him down about important and difficult topics will just stress him out and depress him more.

at the end of the day the big question is is he willing to get help. Because if he isn’t that does put dealing with his depression entirely on the shoulders of those closest to him. So you have to ask yourself are you and those around him up to that job and if you answer is no maybe that should be some sort of Boundry or condition, that if he wants the relationship to last he has to get some sort of professional help.

I’ve told him what I want in life but he does t seem to want the same he said he does but doesn’t seem willing to make changes. I get the spoon theory (in a sense) but what winds me up is that he will play with his friends online want to do different things and go on walks but can’t put his dirty socks in the Wash basket he walks past. Maybe I’m being too harsh on him but even before we moved he stopped doing things. It was getting left to me to do. I’ve said to him (multiple times) to try and find help it’s a waiting list but you’ll get help and he doesn’t he’s even said he doesn’t need therapy I’m here. I’ve tried talking to him about getting a car for me (I’d be buying it not him) and he said he’s not interested and went on looking at football on his phone. So part of me feels like he can’t be bothered because he knows I’ll do it eventually. But like you said maybe he does have depression and maybe I am being too hard on him 

Well it sounds like maybe he’s suffering with depression and indeed no one will listen to him. A doctor would probably give him pills but that’s not quite the same as listening. Getting one to one mental health therapy in this country can be quite difficult.

depression can create this situation in which you feel powerless to change your own life. What’s your seeing a spoon theory in application. Doing the washing or putting your own clothes away may not seem difficult to you but it’s another spoon that someone has to pull out of their mental energy bucket which has a finite supply. If you get really badly depressed just getting up in the morning and going to work probably uses up all of your spoons, housework, planning for the future, job hunting, that’s mental energy you just don’t have so you’re ration your mental energy and you don’t do it.

because deep down you know if you try to do all the things that everyone tells you you should do and that you tell yourself you should do That one day you won’t get up and go to work, you’ll stay in bed all day, and probably the next day and the next, you’ll burn out.

on top of that it sounds like you just have different expectations and aspirations regarding living your life. For example  there are plenty of people who are happy to live a life where the floor doubles as a clothes basket, where things get washed and cleaned at the last minute when they need to be. in my experience most students live this way.

you've said you don’t like sex but you also said

“My hardest part is that he used to be good and we used to be intermate but I just don’t enjoy at all.”

By which I assume you mean sexually intermate. So you two having a good sex life is possible. It’s just a problem the two of you need to solve if you want a relationship to last of course.

I’m all honesty at the moment it’s not I love him but it’s so difficult. I feel like a mum sometimes who wants to sleep with their mum? And it’s way too much for me I’m so overwhelmed all the time at the moment that I’ve started sleeping with a stuffed toy again. I’m struggling to see a future with him I want to think he’ll change. And I’m a highy guilty person so I feel like it’s my fault he’s not happy because I’m not sleeping with him. 

Yeah I’ve told him it hurts. I’ve told him he’s quite heavy. We’ve tried me On top and that hurts too. We tried again a while back and I said it hurts too much and he said we need to keep trying so it goes back to the way it used to be. We both wanted to move in with his dad and we did it to save he said he’d start saving and I’d be able to get my savings back but it only seems to be me doing the saving he always gets takeaways and wants to do things all the time I’ve said to him just because you have money doesn’t mean you have to spend it all. Like I’ve said in a previous comment above somewhere the amount of debts he’s got to pay is way too much and I have to help him out and I don’t get that money back…. 

Maybe I am being too harsh. But he always says he hates where he works but yet doesn’t seem to do much about it other than complain. He’s  applied for a few jobs they are all delivering and then he says he doesn’t want them. He got a loan which just threw him into more debt then decided to get a credit card now he’s blown. He has Sundays off witch is when he’s got the kids. He’s a butcher in a supermarket. I’ve been there I’ve done supermarket work I was on my feet all day and I still had to come home and do the housework. I don’t ask him to much especially when he’s been to work but even just putting away his own clothes would be nice or putting his clothes in the wash baskets rather than just on the bedroom floor for me to pick up. 
I have said to him before that I don’t really like sex and he says but it’s an important part of a relationship and I said maybe so but right now I don’t like it and he retaliates. I have said to him he needs help and I can’t provide the answers he’s looking for and all he says is no one will listen to him becuase he’s a man that feels like an excuse to me. Maybe I am being too harsh on him. We had a ‘talk’ last week and all he kept saying was do you think we are better off separated so you not think I’m dragging you down that’s when I said to him you need help. Then 2 hours later he says forget about it. Maybe I am too hard on him

If he won't wear a condom when you want him to, he doesn't deserve sex. End of. 

So the dynamics of your relationship are quite as uneven as your first post suggested. You’re both contributing to the family budget. You may be frustrated that he won’t leave his job too I don’t know go back to education? I can totally understand why he wouldn’t want to. These are turbulent economic times and qualifications are no guarantee of getting a job.

it’s weird that he’s expecting you to take more care of his children than he does, especially given they are his from a previous relationship and he doesn’t get to see them that much. But is it possible with the timing of when they visit he’s very tired because of work?

i’m playing devils advocate here.  As for your sex life it sounds like The issues are a byproduct of the other issues in your relationship. As you say before when you were having a few arguments your sex life was much better. From a purely pragmatic point of view you could just go with Girl on top positions. But I think what’s more important is addressing your different expectations in your relationship.

I reiterate communication is key. You seem to have different expectations of what the next few years are going to bring. Different aspirations perhaps as well.

what you’ve told me has not particularly convinced me that he is manipulating you or wilfully and deliberately trying to take advantage of you. It’s entirely possible that he is just a tired and impulsive and possibly bit depressed man who doesn’t feel up to doing housework, thinks rightly or wrongly that his job is more physically tiring than yours, and maybe feels overwhelmed by the thought of trying to engineer his future. Maybe counselling is an idea.

to me it seems you are as dissatisfied with the state he is in as much as the state the relationship is in. You need to discuss your issues together including the issues you have with each other and probably with some kind of facilitator or neutral party.

andi said:

I was wondering if there’s something I’m missing or if it’s common for folks that are autistic to be in this sort of situation?

It is unfortunately common for autists to be taken advantage of ny neurotypicas in relationships as we often don't really know what is normal to expect, we are often more committed to the other person because of they are our main social connection which we fear losing, we can turn them into our "special interest" which means the relationship can become quite one sided and finally because we often fail to stand up for our own wellbeing for fear of confrontation.

Your partners lack of empathy for your suffering during sex is a huge red flag to me - is he aware of the pain you suffer? To test the level of selfishness maybe make him be underneath (cowgirl style) and you can control the depth / speed to see if it works for you and also if he insists on changing just so he can finish the way he wants. Make sure he know the change would be painful for you and if he insists then you know he just does not care about your suffering.

I suspect the combination of his sense of failure of notbeing able to provide for you and his family plus the shame of having to move back home are big issues for him, but taking it out on you this way is completely unacceptable.

Only my opinion of course, but I suspect you already know your solution.

My hardest part is that he used to be good and we used to be intermate but I just don’t enjoy at all. He flopped so much especially since we moved back in with his dad (he looks after himself and hates the way my partner is being at the minute) and he drops me to work and picks me up but that’s kind of it when I think about it 

It’s me believe it or not I guess I posted it here because I was wondering if there’s something I’m missing or if it’s common for folks that are autistic to be in this sort of situation? I find it painful during sex but I also find it too much and I really plan everything and if I can’t get things done it ruins the whole day but he just brushes it off. Does that make sense? Same with the kids. I love them to bits and have no issues but when it get dropped on me oh we’re having them today as well I struggle to plan that in. Does that make sense? 

The picture painted by your words form o pretty bleak landscape. Going of your words you say you love him. You have invested your time and energy into this man and his baggage. He clearly does not see what a wonderful person you are. Have you told him to back of the bedroom and spend that time chatting? Have you told him about the physical pain caused by him in these acts? If he loves you he will be fair to you. When you go to the shop would you pay full price for a half eaten loaf of bread or 25% of a chocolate bar? Honestly the bedroom stuff seems like a red flag. I am very close to your partner's age and I think he should know better. We're all different at the end of the day. Hope you get things sorted out. Good luck