Hi all, I wanted to get some advice/vent a bit as well. Please do not crucify me and try to be kind. So for my whole life I’ve struggled with my mental health but pretended to be “normal” and tried to live my life as if I was ok. It obviously wasn’t working; I was already disadvantaged but being judged to the same standards as people without the alphabet soup of diagnosis guaranteed a losing position. I’ve always had an opinion of smart but lazy which wasn’t really laziness but my mental health issues which I kept under the wraps.
My parents never looked for help when I started to show symptoms of depression and attempted suicide as a teen then again later in my early twenties. I was shamed for it. There was loads of traumatic things that happened in my childhood and I was eventually diagnosed with CPTSD. For 15 years I’ve been in a relationship with a man who would watch me cry and be depressed and who expected me to just fix myself somehow. I think he just didn’t know how to deal with this. As such I never got a specialist help and always struggled with working full time. I have three (!) degrees, so I know I’ve got the “brains” (three completely different fields: information science, economics and art) but I never built a career. After the breakup with my ex my whole world flipped on its head. It was so traumatic that it triggered a need for a change, exposed all the lies in my life. Finally after a year on a waiting list I’m getting an assessment with the psychiatrist. I’m also doing self therapy. But it’s really really hard living with this; I’ve got good days and bad days. I’m still managing working part time as a librarian but interacting with people takes its toll on me. It’s not such a chilled job as people like to think, especially when you’re struggling with Cptsd (being around people is hard, masking is hard)
But to the point; I’m 37 and I have no career to feel fulfilled in. Working in the library is draining and repetitive. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the worse job ever but I feel like I’m wasting myself there. The pay is not that great either especially working prt time.
Last year I started seeing someone. He’s an established professional with his own house and all the other “adult” features like car and investments and career. And here’s the problem: I feel inadequate and poor around him, often struggling to pay the rent (I’ve got an old dog that needs treatment ). He would regularly splash out on fancy stuff for himself and I envy him because it will be ages before I am in the same place as he is, providing the therapy helps. He is very serious about me and wants to get married but I cannot imagine being married to someone with such a financial discrepancy. I would always be the poor one that can’t afford the nice things whilst he gets himself another suit for £200. Every time he spends anything on me he does this sort of begrudgingly or always goes for the cheapest. For Christmas he got me a “funny” gift for £17 that I really had very little use of whilst I splashed out on him. He never gets me anything fancy. It makes me feel like I’m not worth the money. And watching him treating himself to whatever he wants while I’m struggling breeds resentment in me. I know that this is his money and he can do whatever he wants. Yet being me and struggling with my mental health I may never be able to match him financially and I’d rather be with someone on my own financial level if we supposed to get married.
Otherwise we get along well and I love him but this aspect is making me upset. What would you do if you were me?