So… I don’t even know where to begin because it’s such a mixture of things… but I’ll try!
I’ve been with my partner for around 9 months. We live around 45 minutes from each other, and he stays here on his days off which tend to be around 2 nights a week on average.
I’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and currently at home on sick pay (but doing fine financially thankfully!) because I’m so fatigued and burnt out all of the time. On top of that, I have an autistic son who has no contact with his dad and I care for full-time (apart from when at school of course).
Partner admits that he doesn’t like cooking, therefore when he stays here, the cooking is all on me otherwise he will just snack all day long and not eat properly, and I can hardly cook for just me and DS and leave him out. Partner also doesn’t clean up after himself when here - I cook every meal, he won’t go and wash up the dishes for example. It honestly feels like I’ve got another child to care for at times and I just don’t have the energy for it.
When we’re not seeing each other, he is a very eager texter and if I take a break from texting, he is checking in every couple of hours - I think it’s genuinely a needy thing and not having anyone else to speak to (very limited friend group). I feel like I can’t just lay in bed and binge watch tv or read for a few hours without being on my phone. I just feel like I’ve got no routine because of seeing him or speaking to him, as mad as that sounds!
AIBU to just take a huge step back - meaning cutting wayyyyy back on overnight visits and how many times in a week and cutting back massively on texting so I can actually have some time to myself, build my routine back up and feel like I’ve got some independence?
There’s also some other issues including personal hygiene and just feeling like he is a bit of a pisstaker (for example he will always find someone’s house to have dinner at - either friends or mum’s so he doesn’t have to cook), and not very thoughtful (if I’m having a bad day health wise, will still expect me to cook food for him, won’t offer to do it for once or order in etc).
There’s a lot of good qualities about him, on the flip side, such as always taking me to my appointments and really comforting in other ways when I’m having a bad day physically, which is making me think of taking a step back and seeing if anything changes rather than just ending the relationship completely.