Partner can't deal with my mental health

[Justexhausted]

I'm 29 and my fiance is 32. We have been together for 4 years and we got engaged last year. In this time I have had some very poor mental health, essentially culminating in periods of extreme distress. I acknowledge that when these episodes happen I am not very nice, I say things I don't really mean. But mostly it's inconsolable crying.

My partner has always found these episodes difficult to deal with (who wouldn't) but in the last few weeks he has expressed that he can't deal with it any more and wants to have a "big think" about our relationship. We started talking, him saying he wants to be honest with me, and he says that whilst he loves me unconditionally and will always be my best friend, he isn't sure he wants to be in a relationship with me, as he just doesn't know how much longer he can cope with this. In the past couple of years I have been taking medication, which is working, I am having counselling and I have made a lot of progress with myself. However, the odd meltdown still happens. I have significant autistic traits so believe this to be the reason behind this. When the meltdowns happen he will sit with me and try to calm me down, but will be upset with me for days after, and whilst it's happening he will tell me how many hours of the weekend have been wasted, which makes me feel worse. He takes it all really personally.

My partner has been seeing a therapist for the past 14 weeks and it seems his sessions with her have lead him to this conclusion of no longer feeling he can cope. He is not coping at the moment, he is very different to when I met him, for example he used to be meticulous about cleaning but now he has given up (I think because cleaning is a big trigger for upset with me, mostly because he always tells me my cleaning isn't good enough). It is clear he is unhappy, and I do get that.
He says I don't meet his emotional needs and that if something big happened I wouldn't be able to cope. I think I would be able to, I just have never needed to prove this.
He says he doesn't want to decide until January what to do, and has put a pause on conversations at the moment, but I feel I'm just living in constant anticipation of the fact things will end. I desperately want us to go to couples counselling to help us communicate with each other, but he says he just doesn't have the capacity.

I feel like I have too much hope at the moment, and it being a global pandemic is obviously not helping. I just feel frustrated that he can say he still loves me but not want to work on things, especially when I've worked so hard on myself. I just feel so gutted that we planned a whole future together and now it likely won't happen. Am I being silly for hoping? Am I actually a really awful person?

@ScabbyHorse

Weird question here but how bad really is your cleaning- you mention that it was a big trigger for him being upset with you- that seems a slightly odd thing to trigger him?

I wondered about this too - what really is going on here?

Is he very critical of your cleaning, is that the only thing where he criticises you? Unfortunately I think maybe this is just a symptom of how incompatible you are in terms of living together.

Living space can really influence somebody's mental health. Maybe mess or dirt are overwhelming him on top of the difficulties with your meltdowns.

What kind of things do you say when you are having a meltdown? Do you lash out at him? Or do you talk about hurting yourself? Both of these are very difficult for a loved one to cope with.

You are absolutely not an awful person, just a human being struggling with pain. However this relationship sounds quite unhealthy for both of you in different ways

@scabbyhorse
That’s a good point. Did he contribute to the tension himself?
OP maybe you should have some counselling to help you to see how you each contributed to any problems in the relationship. If only to help you to either modify your own behaviour going forward or to avoid other people who are not good for you.💐

OP please don't start haranguing him about his cleaning requirements. It's neither here nor there.

The fact is he has realized that the relationship he is in, isn't working for him.

That isn't your fault, nor is it his. He is just being honest with himself. Of course he "takes it all personally". This is his life. It is personal. For examle, he lives with someone who is occasionally nasty to him for reasons that he probably has no control over. Who takes up a chunk of every weekend - time that he would, in more normal circumstances, use to recover from a week at work - having high needs which he feels he needs to help address. He presumably is starting to run on empty. Wouldn't that be very very personal to you, if you were going through it?

He would be foolish to marry someone who takes from him without giving him enough back to make up for it. Eventually, he will run dry - people's energy is finite.

You need to split with him properly and find someone who has very strong mental health and a broad, deep support system - this guy can't cope, and that isn't anyone's fault.