cutting off nose to spite face: unreliable partner

[slavetoloverhythm]

I feel like I am being stupid but I can’t rely on my partner lots of the time.
i have chronic health conditions as do my kids and he’s offered to help out lots of times but let me down.
equally he has help out with things and I’ve really appreciated it.
recently I was in a situation where I really needed help and I didn’t get a chance to ask before he upped and left (we don’t live together)
I was annoyed as he knew it was an escalating situation (child health) and it felt like he left before I could ask.
he then went away for a few days and offered to help on his return which I turned down as felt he would be unreliable on return ( from previous experience)
as it turned out he stayed away an extra day anyway and never let me know until I chased him up later.
He is now back and offering support where I really need it, am disabled and in pain but honestly I don’t want him around, I am still angry at him for leaving me in the lurch the other day and I think it’s a trauma response to hate asking for help if it’s not freely given plus I am having second thoughts about the relationship on the whole
i Feel taken for granted in lots of ways and have been rethinking the relationship for some time.
i often tell him the ways in which i feel let down or ask him explicitly for more reliability or tell him not to offer if he can’t follow through and he just seems incapable.
also in other ways, not just practically.

but am I being stupid to turn down his offers of help when I really need it?
I don’t have family here.

When relationships are on and off, there's generally a good reason for that.

How many times are you going to go round on the not so merry merry-go-round?

It sounds like it's tipped into being more detrimental to you than beneficial.

It’s so difficult living with a chronic condition and being responsible for kids, work house etc.
a previous poster said up thread ’He is not reliable but possibly better than nothing’
and that’s kind of what keeps me here. I’ve done it alone and really struggled all day every day and cried through the nights.
I’ve had other relationships where the guys are either nomarks or treat me as a separate entity from my kids or disabilities.
this ‘partner’ has always been the easiest, most fun and seemingly understanding but not perfect, not consistent and sometimes not honest as well as getting his feet under the table and treating my home like his won.
lots of things don’t feel reciprocal anymore and I don’t know if it’s a glitch worth working through or if I’m flogging a dead horse because I need a partner .
having no family or close friends makes it
Feel simple and complex at the same time.

Feeling equally conflicted today. I cba to have another ‘talk’ with him as I’m not saying anything new each time.
i think it’s about his capacity to support and be an equal partner and my capacity to trust him or to accept he will never be the person I need him to be.
do I adjust my expectations and make the best of what he can offer or do it all alone again?
and what if his offer only applies when I am providing the space ?
im giving myself a headache!

Only you can decide whether to stay with him or not. What you do know is that he cannot provide you with any reliability and that is constantly disappointing for you.

You could potentially try to reframe the relationship and start to see him more as a casual hook-up. But that doesn’t appear to be what you are looking for so I don’t know how easy that would be to achieve. Good luck however it pans out.

Move him out, go back to dating. He's started to take you for granted. It's completely unacceptable that he's not contributing whilst living with you. How can a grown man expect to live for free? I would be asking him to pay me back what he owes me since he effectively moved in.

If you settle for what he's prepared to offer and dial down your expectations of the relationship, I guess it's whether that's really enough.

While he fills a space in your life, he also blocks that space that could be filled by someone better.

Obviously dating is hard and there's a lot of frogs - but is this frog a good enough frog to give up opportunities for testing out other frogs?
(Sorry too many frogs 🐸 there 😂)

You say you don't have close friends or family. Maybe you'd be better off putting more energy into your friendships and building a wider social circle than spending all this mental and emotional effort on this man? Again, he's kind of blocking a space that might be better filled by other people in different ways?

I know friends don't keep you warm at night, and I appreciate your disability may limit your activities, but maybe redirecting more of your energy outside of the relationship would ultimately enable you to let go of him.

Yes everything you say makes sense. It is hard with friendships as I have such intermittent periods of wellness it’s as though the space I took up has been filled and I also don’t have much energy to instigate things.
i fully appreciate this could be partly down to the drain in my froggy relationship!
I do regularly dial down expectations and it feels like he dials down even further each time I do , like a game of cat and mouse

we don’t live together. Just all our interactions are at mine unless we’re out and about dating.
he’s made multiple promises and attempts to change things , offers of holidays, hotels etc but they never come to fruition.
our only trips away have been organised by me except for once in our very early days

Thank you. No I don’t know either, I’ve never been into hookups despite having had many in my youth!
I have to really dig deep and it’s hard when I have so many other things crowding my head.
it becomes hard to trust my judgment, I see other women in relationships with people who are offering less than but they seem generally happy.
i am very high needs in terms of my health, are my expectations unrealistic?
am I throwing the baby out with the bath water if I chuck him back into the sea?

If your expectations are someone who follows through with what they say they will do then, no, that is not unrealistic.

you cannot say it any plainer than this

am I throwing the baby out with the bath water if I chuck him back into the sea

Doesn't sound like there's very much baby - more like a homeopathic trace of baby.

I laughed out loud to this. Funny on multiple levels, thank you . I have not felt very laughy lately

I think it’s difficult to judge without knowing what your expectations are of him in terms of your health needs. I don’t think he sounds like someone you can rely on.

the basis is don’t make promises you can’t keep.
in terms of my health it’s more the broader picture So:

don’t offer to do anything unless you actually intend to carry it out.

equal approach to chores if you’re using my house like your own,
Replace what you use or offer to pay towards something,
don’t be lazy in bed and get me doing all the physical work,
don’t sit on your phone when I’m ‘entertaining/ hosting’
dont promise me breaks away and get me to do all the research and not follow through
don’t suggest sexy time then start scrolling through looking for a football match
don’t complain you don’t like the milk I use but not consider bringing your own etc

so not strictly health related but the minor stressors all add up and become major stress which impacts on my health , fatigue and pain levels

Yes, you're flogging a dead horse here.
I've read the whole thread and he's just a waste of space. He consumes your time and energy for his own needs without giving much back.
Time to be solo.
Be brave and let him go.
Once you free up your time ( that he used to consume ) then you can develop your own interests/ friends/ connections .
He's a drain on you and is sapping your precious energy.
It won't be easy as you've been 'settling' and accepting very low standards of behaviour from him but, be strong, give it 6 months and you'll be clearer in your head and wonder why you bothered with him for so long.

Ugh. I don’t know how I got myself into this mess. I have high expectations and make them clear, I think it’s just my tiredness and overwhelm that makes me take the path of least resistance, plus probably an element of sunk cost fallacy, and of course the need to be less isolated and have a connection

For the future op, it’s ok to talk clearly and set boundaries. You can say in one syllable words: my bills are more due to the time you spend here so you can contribute or not come here. I simply can’t afford the extra, and can’t imagine why you think I should be paying it for you. Anyway, for the time being you may come around every second Saturday for a few hours and we will see what else you organise. There are lots of other issues, I’ve talked about them regularly and I’m pretty done talking and I’m also very done watching you lie in bed while I clean and many other things. You can do that at your own place.

Yea I can speak clearly and do but then things creep in and I might be at a low ebb or loved up and boundaries come down but I have a LOT of food for thought here.
thanks
I discussed it with a friend yesterday and all her responses matched those here and confirmed that it isn’t all me thinking I’m hard done by for no reason .
complacency and inconsistency are the keys here and the inconsistency is what really affects my health and brain capacity