Who moves in with who in these circumstances? Or do we just break up

[TheBunnyLover]

I really don't want to break up

Been 'together' a couple of years now but long distance.

A assured B at the beginning of the relationship that they had absolutely no problem relocating-nothing much keeping them where they were. If the relationship worked out they'd be the one to move, definitely. However they've now changed their mind on this for various very valid reasons. Not totally changed their mind, but reluctant and confused.

B was reluctant to start the relationship at all. Didn't want long distance. They'd had a turbulent time where they didn't really have a proper home for a long time (long story!) and had just got one when the relationship started. They'd also been living a long way away from family for years (over a decade) and had just managed to get to be able to move back near them and definitely did not want to entertain the idea of moving away again.

I'll describe each party's situation further.

A lives with parents. No assets or savings. Left school very young with no qualifications although did go to college and get one later on in life. Despite this, they have a job that in terms of these circumstances is very good. Decent pay and perks, four day week, they're comfortable there.
A is also autistic which presents in ways meaning finding work in a new location would be very stressful for them and quite difficult. No money to fall back on. Finds new situations and changes very stressful. A is however a bit fed up of their job and in some ways would like a change. A is very close to some family members and spends a lot of time with them and would really miss them. The area A lives in is a seaside town, high crime rates and low house prices. A wants B to move to their area and rent a place with them for a year or so then maybe think about moving to B's area.

B has a house with a mortgage in a decent yet inexpensive area. Also has four buy to let properties. Not much in savings, roughly £3-£4k but some nonetheless. Only close to one family member really. Quite high qualifications in different areas and would likely be able to find work in a new location easily-a lot of jobs in their fields would be WFH too. A bit of £ to fall back on if couldn't find work straight away. B is not working much at the moment anyway due to recent redundancy so will be looking for new work in a few months when a contract ends. B feels that A would have a better life here with them, they're understanding about A's autism and take care of their affairs a lot. B does not want to rent due to being a landlord themselves and it seeming silly (not to mention expensive) but doesn't want to buy in an area they see as undesirable (and wouldn't be able to for a while anyway due to work situation).

Neither of us want to split up-we love one another. We're not young either.

But this conversation began happening a few weeks ago and we don't know what to do-neither of us want the other to be unhappy.

Any opinions at all welcome.

Oh, he’s not awful, he just needs his own space and routine which is not compatible with small children (or indeed, living together!), and of course one doesn’t realise this until one has a small child. That’s the short answer. There is of course a much longer, messier one, as it was all very damaging, but I am out the other side.

He has a ‘new’ partner now, new in apostrophes as they have been together about four years but it is an LDR. He still lives 300 miles away and she is here. He’s got a flat here now as well, which is a replica of his own house, but it is his flat, she has her own place. So it’s a relationship with no pressures and in an environment he can control. It’s funny, it’s the things which have happened since which have clarified it was never going to work; but at the time, because there are good parts, your focus is on ‘if I do x, or if I do y, then everything will be fine’. And it was never going to be, unless I set myself aside completely.

It’s not just that one doesn’t realise, one gets future faked, intentionally or unintentionally. But I need to get ready for the day, so cannot expand on that point.

Op

i have read the whole thread and even before seeing that her father was abusive, I thought “what adult woman would want to visit their partner at their parents much, if she had a house of her own that they could be fully free in (even just not sharing the tv or kitchen!)”

The fact that her father is abusive makes it even more hurtful that she won’t move to you. She’s not being asked to give up a mansion and a free pony, she’s putting that toxic environment above your loving home.

I realise it’s not that straightforward for abuse survivors but on a visceral level, your heart feels this.

@MaryMcI glad to hear that. And glad you came out of the other side. When relationships have problems things get so painful and are so damaging. If we do break this up I'll need some time to recover and work out who I am again I think
Sounds as if the 'new' woman is okay with that but who knows.

i wish you well whatever you decide to do.
I just thought I would explain my experience, as I have posted a lot on your thread and obviously our experiences shape the way we look at things.
For me, the relationship with ex messed with my head and felt like it eroded my identity. It’s quite hard to explain. I hope you can get some clarity over time and find a way forward which works for you and puts your needs into the picture.

*whether that is separated or (somehow) together.
I think the latter is probably harder, but it’s not up to me.

@MaryMcI I definitely recognise that 'erasure of identity' feeling although I didn't realise it until recently. I've changed myself quite a lot for her. Not sure how I'd start to remedy it! I guess It's all experience-as you said about your ex, my DP is far from horrible too. She's actually very kind and loving, but being autistic she does a lot of things (including the usual 'meltdown') and behaviours that are hurtful to me and I have to remind myself that she can't help it and doesn't mean it in the way an allistic person would.

@SheilaFentiman thank you for taking the time to read the thread.
Yes, It's not nice going there. Even regardless of her Dad being one of the worst men I've ever encountered in my entire life, just being at someone's parent's is hard. I wake up early but I don't want to use the kitchen to make a drink-her parents are always sitting at the kitchen table arguing or in silence and it feels odd. They're one of those rare families that still keep the sitting room uninhabited.

It's definitely on a visceral level or was before, I went through a phase of really feeling angry and upset at how he's treated his wife and children but that wasn't helpful.

DP does not see it as abuse at all (to his children albeit she does to her Mother!) She mentions it in passing as if it isn't shocking. She says 'just normal back then wasn't it' (NO)!

But there's definitely an element of 'Why doesn't she want to move here where she's safe from all of that?'

I am projecting I think.

Her autism, again, is part of that 'pragmatic' attitude.

I even offered for her Mum to come and live here as a means of escape!
They (her and her sister) have actually engineered their Mum escaping before, but she went back.

I came to the conclusion, and there are things I haven’t gone into here, that the intent was not what I had to consider, but the impact (particularly as I also had an older DD to consider). That was of course after a time of trying to fix things. I came to the conclusion either I needed to accept the impact or we needed to separate. He didn’t accept the latter, so it became very messy.

But the point is that in emotional abuse (and here again, intent is not the issue, there is emotional harm to you), I think you have three choices (or this is how it seemed to me). You submit to the situation which avoids the abuse (ie keep the other person happy); you resist the abuse (ie state your needs and act on these, which leads to conflict); or you remove yourself from the situation/relationship.

Where I think it tips from emotional harm to you to abuse on her part is that she knows that the situation with her father causes you distress. And yet, she continues to argue that it was normal back then and stay in his home where you were expected to visit, and indeed, be abused yourself.
(I also imagine that possibly some of the behaviours you are putting down to autism are abusive; you are excusing things damaging to yourself which in other circumstances you would not).

And if it's 'not abuse', I suspect she'll be quite comfortable doing it once you're away from all those pesky friends that influence you not to put up with the shit she already puts you through.

That’s true isn’t it. I don’t think DP has meant me any harm, no malice there (although I do find it difficult to believe on some occasions when she’s really hurt me, I understand a bit about autism so finding it difficult to believe doesn't mean I don't believe her ) but it is the actual impact it has had on me that doesn’t change, intent or no intent.

I put a LARGE boundary in place regarding her behaviour recently too. And weeks later I feel so proud of myself. For context, this was regarding her rushing off early on a Sunday morning to pursue her hobby. It upset me so much, when we get so little time together, to play ‘second fiddle’ to something, even something she loves doing. I said if she’s here for the weekend she’s here for the weekend and if the hobby is so important, she stays home, I’m not being left at 08:00 for her to go and do something else.

She didn’t mean this as abusive, but she’d done it multiple times and seen how much it upset me, but not offered to change it so I had to do it myself. It hurt because I wanted to see her as much as possible, but it ws just becoming not worth that emotional reaction I had.

As a therapist I would say ‘your body was telling you something was very wrong’ and that’s what mine was doing. As you’ve said, those feelings of abandonment.

Historically, all her matters of mistreatment toward me (apart from the one mentioned above) have taken place in her neck of the woods. Like she was a different person. But I will give her credit that recently she has changed that for the most part, not all, but most.

I don’t know if it really matters if people mean things to be abusive - do any abusers really think they are? I’d say most see their actions as reasonable/justified. Either way, you’ve made clear the impact on you and she’s not changing it (at least certain aspects).

I am married to a man who probably has autism. He’s lovely in many ways. It’s very lonely at times- he can’t quite process that something IS a problem, if it’s not HIS problem. He has an inner certainty about things that mean if he’s ok, we should be. If he likes it, we should. If he doesn’t like it, we shouldn’t. He accepts when you challenge it, but it subtly shifts the ground to things going his way unless I energetically ensure they go my way.

It’s as though a selfish, mean person wants to get their own way even if it upsets or harms someone else.
Someone like my husband, and perhaps your partner, doesn’t really process that there is another potentially better way.

I’ve gone off at a tangent, but you just sparked a train of thought.

This, til the cows come home.

Bit bamboozled trying to picture what is appealing about this person who's barely functioning as an adult in life. It does NOT sound promising. Whatever you do, protect your lifestyle, your mental health and your finances.

@pickledandpuzzled , er wow. I'd never have thought about it in those words, but that is exactly what my DP is like. This isn't her problem, because she's quite content (although she does say she wants us to be together and wishes it was simple to do that) so because she's not really got a problem with how things are, the fact that I have is alien to her. I am sorry it is a lonely existence for you but I do empathise.

One thing that really stood out for me is, DP was once really, really awful to me on a day out with her friends. She 'shut me up' when I tried to speak, turned her back to me when we sat in a group, went off with someone else to do something for an hour and sort of 'forgot about me', was mean in front of her friends when I did speak, plans changed (decided by her friend) and she didn't tell me and I didn't realise until we got where we were going... Etc etc-this went on all day, we were out doing things from lunchtime until nearly midnight. It was awful and I just about managed to keep my composure.

Bear in mind for this, I didn't know anyone there other than her and her sibling who I didn't know well. I was in her hometown, staying at her siblings, had nowhere to go.
She went to bed not long after we got in but I stayed up, was too addled/upset to sleep for a while. The next day I broke down and asked her WTH was going on!!?

She had no idea she'd done anything wrong. Still, when it has come up since, she fixates on ONE instance that happened that day that she acknowledges (although she makes excuses for it) but the other occurrences/the fact that she was very mean to me all day, she cannot acknowledge. In her mind it is as if it just didn't happen.
I guess by your definition, she had a great day/night out so it is my problem if I didn't?

More, it was a great day out. Full stop.

There’s no- It was a great day, but I accidentally upset bunny; It was a great day, what a shame Bunny didn’t enjoy it.
Just ‘It was a great day. Bunny was a bit weird afterwards, which is unfortunate.’

We had an absolute classic. Family holiday, DH and 4 yr old DS.

DH wanted to go to a local attraction. DS was having a lovely time at the campsite, playing in the pool, chilling out with other children. DH tried to round him up to leave, DS (who is very like DH) had a total meltdown.

DH wouldn’t go later, go tomorrow, go in a minute. It was time to go now. More hysterical meltdown.

We didn’t go anywhere in the end. DS very happy and relaxed, we had an easy day. DH still feels hard done by. The right thing to do was to go. He’s really bad at planning what we would like to do and would work well for the family. He plans what ‘makes sense’- cheapish, accessible and of interest to him. I seem to have spent every holiday in the last 30 years looking around castles.

What I’m saying is your needs will second, unless they coincide with hers.
You will have to fight for yourself every day.

The energy you had to exert about her hobby will be every day of your life, every area where you have different preferences.

If you go ahead, you have to learn to be self centred in ways that don’t come naturally to you. For me, love is doing meeting the other person‘s wants and needs- going the extra mile for them. It has to be reciprocal- if not then one person becomes a doormat and one person a princess. It took me many years to stop prioritising the people I love, and focus on pleasing myself.

Those lovely moments where she gives you her last rolo and you cook her favourite meal aren’t going to happen.

@Mmhmmn she does function as an adult in many ways, has lived with her ex partner and brought up her children for 7 years too, has hobbies and friends, a job, drives etc and we do have a good time-that said, I do take your point about it'd be me looking after her. She does look after me in other ways though....
But yes, my MH in particular has taken a thorough bashing

It’s not impossible. It’s a big adjustment in terms of attachment style, I’d say. You have to be incredibly secure and confident, assertive. Which is great if you are. It’s an adjustment, as I say.
My ideas about relationships were very poor when we met and married. I was a people pleaser married to someone who never noticed the nice things I did (and so couldn’t be pleased) and never did nice things in return.

You’ll have to see how it works for you- it’s ok to settle and it’s ok to move on. Whatever you need. But don’t significantly disadvantage yourself.

Maybe there is something about building a shared culture in your home as well. Could you see that happening? A kind of ‘household values’, like ‘abusive people don’t stay with us’ for example. How would you feel about her dad visiting?

That does sound lonely @pickledandpuzzled . I think I'd want to cry in that situation to be honest-so avoidable but your DH was 'I want, and that's that' ? Bugger everyone else? Of course, he may not intend it to be that way but...

Sorry I am working at the moment but I will come back and respond to the rest as soon as I can

It’s not ‘I want to see the castle, bugger what you want’. It’s ‘why wouldn’t we want to see a castle? It’s a castle!’. ‘Why would we want to go to a craft fair/look round the shops?’

When we do, he hovers a step behind me looking bewildered as I point out all the pretty things the month before my birthday! 😁

I thought I was getting better at expressing my needs, but our last holiday was a disaster. I got very cross on a couple of occasions and told him not to speak to me. I also went and did my own thing a few times.

He feels like I am getting at him a lot at the moment. I explained today that he constantly overrides us because we are wrong, so I’ve decided to just keep telling him. It’s him overriding us or assuming we’re wrong that’s resulting in him being told he’s wrong. If he stops doing it, then he’ll stop getting told.

We’ve been married over 30 years so we’ve found our ways of coping.

Where are the children now? Or do you mean her ex-partner’s children?

But actually I wanted to ask about your MH taking a bashing. I am wondering if you mean just from the point where your DP said she was not wanting to move, or from all the other issues in the relationship too?

I mean, you are only two years in so if your MH has taken a bashing in that time, how or why would living together make that better?

All the other issues won’t go away just because she moves. The issues would still be there. So is it is the case that having her with you would sort of balance out all the emotional hurt? That’s not necessarily a given. You don’t know that more difficulties wouldn’t be layered on top. Your DP is who she is. I had the impression earlier in the thread that you thought you could sort to take charge of financial things and sort everything out, but you cannot sort out your different needs and ways of communication and experience of trauma. That takes two of you, and only one of you sees the problem(s).

@pickledandpuzzled You’ve obviously developed a much more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of your DH’s behaviour than I currently have with DP. So some autistic people I guess, just cannot see beyond their own frame of reference at all?

And then when you get cross with DH I suppose he’s confused as doesn’t see that there’s anything to be annoyed about?

And you’re ‘training’ him with your repeated comments about how he overrides you. He can’t see that he can be in the wrong by just doing what he wants-despite having a family to consider? When you’re in a relationship you take the other person’s needs into account-you may not be fully responsible for your partner’s feelings but you ARE somewhat responsible for someone else once no longer single. DP can’t see this and nor can your DH.

I see what you mean about the being a people-pleaser as I am one too. I try to please DP all the time, I am not sure she even notices. And weirdly, she tries to please me in ways that are nice but don’t give me what I need, I am showered with gifts regularly for example-and they’re lovely and I do appreciate them, but I’d rather be loved and they do not at all make up for feeling important, or for her running off and leaving me on a Sunday morning, or for her mistreatment of me many times whilst in her hometown.

She’s here at the moment and we were up late last night so I know it is normal to not wake up early but she’s still asleep, which is irritating not least because I know if I hadn’t have put that boundary in place, and she was going to do her hobby today she’d be up with the lark and out of here not much later than.

@MaryMcI yes, he ex partners children. When they split, ex didn’t want her to keep seeing the children although they expressed that they wanted to but recently ex has been contacting DP to ask if they can meet up because the children are still asking if they can see her.

It’s from both of those matters really. She’s been a lot better recently I have to say that. But up until recently there were some horrible instances-and my putting my foot down about her rushing off early when she’d been here for the weekend has made things easier, I used to get really upset and if I dare say it, very pissed off! When she’d do that. We’re long distance, it couldn’t make sense to me that she’d not want to be here as long as possible, and I do not want to play second fiddle to a sport. Plus before she began that hobby she'd be in bed most of the bloody day-I wasn't worth getting up for but that was.

Aside from that, she’s never mistreated me while here. She’s great when she’s around me here, great around my friends and family, she’s lovely. In her own neck of the woods she used to be quite awful quite regularly, the issue I detailed above on the day out being the worst.

I appreciate we’re all different and some things that may upset me may not upset the next person, but another instance was when we were at a ‘do’ with all her friends and family. It wasn’t far to walk back to her sibling’s where we were staying (after I, for a long time refused to stay at her parents house) but it was absolutely chucking it down so when we came out, a friend of theirs offered us a lift back.

DP said to me to get a lift back, and she’d walk (there wasn't room for all of us in the car so some walked some didn’t). This was nice of her I thought-but what I didn’t know but DP did, is that friend wasn’t taking us to sibling's, she’d decided we were going back to her house for a drink. I didn't want a drink, I'd had some wine at the do and was a bit tipsy already, and very tired. So I found myself at this random person’s house, no idea where I was. I messaged DP asking her to come and walk me back to her sibling’s house as I didn’t’ know where the bloody hell I was.

DP had already got back home (well, to her sibling's house) and was in bed!

I was really really upset at this. Felt like I’d been ‘dumped’ and/or she’d tried to get rid of me. She’s done similar things to that where she’s just totally disregarded the fact that I am there and there to see her and it’s a long drive.
She said 'just come here, you're only closeby' and explained to me how to get back and she was right, I wasn't far but I was so annoyed. I asked why she'd left me there, why she didn't come back there with me if she knew it was happening? And she was just saying 'It's fine, come here if you don't want to be there!'

Not my proudest moment and again I am very non-reactive and mild tempered, but I may have said something to the lines of 'Get off your backside and come and get me!'

I’ll try to think of another example that's easy to explain on here! But yes, it has (weirdly perhaps) only been when I’ve been in her area, never here. Practicalities come into it of course, I mean I am obviously more in control of what our times look like when I am at home, but of the dismissiveness toward me, the cold attitude etc, she’s a different person while here.

After the aforementioned day out which was related to her hobby, with her ‘hobby friends’ I actually felt I had been subjected to trauma. This might sound melodramatic but I obviously didn't do it purposely, it just happened. For months and months afterward I couldn’t even have her mention her hobby without having an emotional response. I couldn’t see it on TV, I was absolutely heartbroken.

I’d really looked forward to that day out and meeting her friends too, and there was more to it than I exemplified and explained upthread-she was horrible.

I didn't expect this thread to end up with my talking about this, it was literally just to get opinions on what I should do living-arrangement wise. But thank you again both (and everyone) who's given me their experiences and advice to consider.