How to handle arguments better

[Gottaquestion]

My partner has what I consider to be moderately severe mental health issues - ADHD with emotional dysregulation, and anxiety/panic attacks with catastrophising/cognitive distortions.

The first part of each of those is his actual diagnosis, the second part is me highlighting the part I want advice on.

When we argue, and I try to point out that some of the issues he is raising, and his emotional reactions to them, are related to or exaggerated by his mental health issues, he gets very upset, says I'm just deflecting from my own faults and behaviours, and claims that he does not have any emotional dysregulation, does not catastrophise, and that there is nothing wrong with any of his reasoning facilities or the conclusions he reaches.

I've agreed to stop mentioning it, because it clearly doesn't do any good and just makes him more upset.
Does anyone have any strategies that have worked to create a more harmonious home with someone with these issues?

And because it's always asked, no children between us.

I mean I'm glad you stopped mentioning it because it quite possibly comes across as you trying 'win an argument', by constantly bringing his severe mental health issues up so that must be pretty awful.

How long have you been together and how have you coped in the past?

Do you feel his mental health is getting worse?

A relationship with regular arguments is a flawed and dysfunctional one to start with. Are you sure this is what you want for your life?

Also you say 'no children between us'.

But does that mean you two have DC separately and do you live together?

If I was you I'd probably try couples therapy. If you're right with what you're saying, bringing in a third perspective might make it easier for him to see his part in it.

Well it all sounds like a lot of hard work…

I would not dive into how to handle the arguments better @Gottaquestion . I would take a few steps back, and think of why the arguments happen and if they are a regular event. If they happen often, I'd try to fix what is causing the arguments, rather than making them more tolerable, if that makes any sense. If you two argue all the time, is it a good, working relationship? I am not sure.

This.

What are the trigger points for arguments? What do you argue about?

From my perspective, the arguments are pretty much because of his emotional dysregulation.

If I make a comment which is not fully positive, however gently it is phrased, I get what seems to me an extreme reaction. And from my perspective, it comes out of nowhere and is entirely disproportionate to whatever went before. I couldn't actually really say what the arguments are about, because I feel like there's nothing, which then explodes.

Because of the ADHD, there are a lot of forgotten things, him turning up late, not telling me about plans, not replying to messages etc. And I understand that's part of the ADHD. But it's extremely wearing, so when I try, no matter how gently, to ask him to please make an effort to do those things, there's an explosion. Or if I want to plan a night or a weekend away and ask him to commit to a date, even something positive like that seems to somehow become a source of stress.

It's bad when he's stressed and he's stressed quite a lot of the time. But when he's not stressed, he's a very lovely and considerate person. When he is stressed, he's a lovely person with a narrowed perspective and very low resilience.

I've tried this, and for that exact reason. Also to see if I had blind spots in my perspective.

It took me months to persuade him, and then the therapist wasn't the right fit and so we stopped after not many sessions. And then I wanted to find a new therapist to continue with but he refuses.

He constantly tells me "you won't accept accountability or deal with it", but when I ask what he wants me to take accountability for or deal with, he says "I've already told you", or "You know, I'm not telling you, figure it out".

I believe he genuinely thinks I do know, and that somehow me asking is a weird tactic to avoid my alleged issues, but I have absolutely no idea what he's upset about. And I don't understand his approach, because if I thought my partner was intentionally avoiding something, surely it makes more sense to spell it out explicitly and then they don't have that excuse?

I believe he genuinely thinks I do know, and that somehow me asking is a weird tactic to avoid my alleged issues

You are giving him way too much credit here.

It’s a deflection tactic. He doesn’t name your issues because he can’t, because the issues are his issues.

You’re beating a dead horse here, I’m afraid.

I've considered this, but I actually think it's part of the cognitive distortions which go with extreme anxiety, and that he does believe what he's telling himself.

He's a very emotional person, so whatever he's feeling in the moment is absolutely true for him then, but it will change when his mood changes.

Which circles back to the original question - anyone have any tactics for dealing with it, when I can't raise to him that I believe it to be a symptom of his mental health issues?

I think he's really quite unwell, but I do think he's lovely aside from these issues, and since he won't accept that it's at all related to his mental health, if I don't want to leave, then I have to figure out a way to deal with it.

Gently, if you really think this is the case, there’s really no way around it without mentioning his mental health issues. You’re avoiding the elephant in the room.

I’ve had experience with this and I’m sorry to say that if a person can’t recognise their own mental health issues and take responsibility for themselves, they’re not fit to be in a relationship.

It doesn’t matter how nice they can be (and the nice times are inevitably paired with very unpleasant times), they lack fundamental relationship skills. If you try to take on the management of it yourself, you may well end up with an autoimmune disease like I did.

It’s difficult to accept, but the truth is that if “mental health” wasn’t what you were attributing his behaviours to, you’d call them abuse.

I don't think that's true. Maybe it depends on how you define 'argument'. It's normal for people to disagree. In a long-term relationship, there is often work involved in trying to learn how to disagree more harmoniously with one another.