I've been with my partner for four years and we have a 2 year old child together. When we first met, we fell head over heels for each other. It wasn't until we moved in together when I was pregnant that we realised we were very fundamentally different, and those differences have only been exacerbated over time.
I'm pretty sure he has ASD & ADD, and this is something I've spent two years trying to get him to explore, he's only recently agreed he thinks I may be right, he's was just "too stubborn" to admit it.
I begged and pleaded with him 6 months ago to seriously take this under consideration, personally and with the doctors, but here we are 6 months later and he's don'e nothing about it (apart from read two articles) and now he's using lockdown as his much sought after excuse.
Our relationship has been bitter sweet for the last year, the only thing we bond over is our child. She's a credit and a joy to us both - but beyond tending to our daughter, our relationship seems hopeless.
If you were to ask me why, I'd say it's because I can't cope with his extensive symptoms of ASD & ADD, and he would say it's because I don't have enough patience - both are true.
From experience, I know it takes 6-24 months of asking, nagging, reminders and arguments to get him to follow through on even the most basic of requests. He spends all his time thinking, but no time actually doing anything. He says "sorry" all the time, but I'm sick of hearing sorry, I just want him to follow through on basic requests and promises... at this point "sorry" is just an empty word.
We can't communicate, and I don't think the majority of the communication problems are mine (although I know some are). I try to tackle things logically, but when he knows he's made a mistake or forgot something again, he just freezes up and can barely speak at all. He struggles with the most basic of conversations, and this extends to interactions with all people.
Personally, even as an introvert, I have never had these same social or cognitive problems. He's always forgetting things at such a rate, the only thing he can be replied upon is to forget something. Our relationship dynamic has changed a lot, he no longer feels like my partner, my equal. He feels like another child and I feel like his mother.
I'm changing as a person, I've become more hyper critical and irritable than ever before in my life, to be fair to me, it's because he cocks up 4/5 tasks and I'm used to expecting the worse. That's not an exaggeration.
Talking never seems to resolve anything, actions plans don't seem to resolve anything. He never keeps his promises, although he promises he tries his best. I just don't have any faith in him at all.
We both wanted to do right by our daughter and maintain a traditional family unit... but these communication problems are tantamount to daily torture for us both, and I feel like we need to split up.
Problem is, he left everything behind in his old life to start this one, and he's just been made redundant due to Covid19 effects.
He was renting a room from a friend of mine before when things got bad between us and we needed space, but she had to take a family member in, so now he's back in the baby's room. Our communication is still pretty bad and rather than working on it like I've asked, he wants to sit on his phone or computer playing games all night - despite asking him today to focus on the communication "project".
We decided we would try for baby #2, despite our problems because we want our daughter to have a sibling, but I've been so unattracted to him (over the broken promises), we've barely been physical, despite me viewing this (in this instance) as a mechanical action... but tonight I was just left wanting out, wanting to be single again, not having this stress in our lives, even skipping baby #2. I've had enough.
Problem is, he literally has nothing and no support network (ASD loner) I don't even know how I can leave him right now, without leaving him homeless and destitute - which would be cruel, but every day together seems like death by a thousand cuts... it's not fair on any of us.
We're both sorry as we both wanted it to work, but when communication & trust seem impossible... when are supposed to call it a day?