I (27F) have been with my partner (25M) for one year. We live together and I love him dearly. He came from a very controlling family that used a lot of isolation and financial abuse to keep him dependent on his family for a long time. He has only lived away from his family for about a year and a half.
One of his family’s tactics was to refuse to let anyone work – unsurprisingly, several of his siblings have been unable to move out due to this. My point in saying that is he is doing really well compared to several other people from that household, some that are older than him. Imo, it is understandable that he is behind on learning some general life skills as he has adjusted to living away from family and working full-time. I’ve tried my best to help him figure out how to adjust, how to engage in effective self-care, and how to develop routines. He just cannot seem to figure it out.
There have been several times where important things have come up (like some of my family’s events, or meeting my friends) that I will give him weeks or months notice, will do a ton of cooking to make sure he has food for the whole week before the event, and will pick up most of the chores for that week. The goal there is to make sure he has enough time do to basic self-care activities so he will be ready for the event. And even with all of that, he will still struggle so hard to take care of himself that he will end up being too rundown, exhausted, or ill to attend the event. I want to be compassionate and understanding, especially since I did not come from an abusive household. But it’s getting to the point that I am starting to get resentful.
When things like this happen, we’ll have really good conversation about it. He is loving and kind, he does not get defensive, and he recognizes that this is a problem. We’ll come up with plans for how he can implement a self-care routine. He’ll get excited and thank me for the enlightening conversation, and then it happens again. It’s getting to the point that I feel frustrated even when he says positive things about how much I’ve helped him realize in the conversation, because to me, it’s like having the same conversation over and over without seeing a changed result.
What can I do to help my partner figure out self-care? I did suggest seeing a therapist about it. He wasn’t keen on that, said it’s “not the type of think you get therapy for.”
I also wonder if he might have ADHD? I know this is often thrown out, but i don’t know anyone who is struggling with these kinds of basic tasks this much.
Thanks in advance!
TLDR: My partner is a survivor of a controlling family and has been struggling to learn basic life skills for a year and a half. I want to help him and I am starting to get resentful.
7 comments
We cannot help you if you don’t tell us anything about what is happening.
What do you mean by self-care?
The only thing you’ve told us is that he doesn’t go to your family events or plan with your friends. It seems pretty obvious that he has social anxiety and/or that he does not enjoy socializing the way that you do. Why are you trying to make him go to things when he doesn’t want to?
This is really a matter of working out your relationship and learning to listen to him. You cannot just demand that he attend events.
Is anything else happening other than that? Is he unable to bathe himself or something?
Inability to function due to childhood trauma is precisely the kind of thing you go to therapy for.
You would not be an asshole for leaving a person who will simply not make the effort to treat their mental health issues. You can’t fix him. No matter how much you meal prep or make chore charts, if he’s decided he won’t make choices to improve his life and that you must be his new mommy to make up for the one that failed him, nothing will change.
You won’t remain sexually attracted to him under these conditions.
I don’t understand what you mean by self-care?
What kind of behaviors are we talking about?
Is he like… not clipping his finger/toenails, and not brushing his teeth, and not paying his bills?
Or is he like not hanging out with friends as much, not going to the gym/whatever as much, a little more quiet after work than usual?
In your opinion, what kind of self-care activities does he need to be able to go to your family events and function?
It sounds like there is some other issue that is involved in why he doesn’t want to attend your family events.
Idk. Need more information.
What exactly do you mean by self care?
Refusing to see a therapist is not a good sign, imo. It sounds like you take care of him a LOT, and correct me if I’m wrong but you probably act as a stand-in therapist too. It’s not fair to you.
Trauma is difficult to deal with, but it doesn’t stop you from learning skills, if you want to. If he doesn’t (or isn’t able to) leave his comfort zone to put in an effort and help alleviate the pressure on you, you must realise it may be like this for an indefinite amount of time.
I used to date someone like that too and I realised that no matter how much I coached him, no matter how much he acknowledged he needed some accountability and to get some life skills, nothing actually changed because it was all words and no attempt at action without me holding his hand through it.
Your partner is an adult, he is capable of realising the pressure you are under, and past trauma is not an excuse to keep taking advantage (consciously or unconsciously) of his partner’s generosity, especially if he won’t seek professional help to learn to cope with it all. You are not obliged to be his caretaker.
What advice are you expecting when you’re not providing any actual relevant information?
If you need to cook him an entire weeks worth of meals and do all the chores just so he has enough time to prepare/get ready for something like meeting your friends, then that is a significant level of not being able to look after himself. Yet he goes to work every day?
Are you sure this isn’t just learned helplessness and he’s falling back into old patterns? At some point you have to stop being his mum and holding his hand through all this. All the motivation for catching up on general life skills should be coming from him. If he doesn’t actively want to improve (and his actions sound like he’s not interested) then you’re not going to be able to force him to.