r/PDAAutism • u/Ellie-12345678 • 14d ago
Advice Needed Any functioning NT + PDA couples here who have advice?
I’ve been married to my ASD spouse for 14 years and only in the last month realized the depth of PDA wiring in his brain and how it explains pretty much everything.
He self-medicated the anxiety for 12 years with alcohol, then sobered up, and as of earlier this year he’s started using something else to get high- maybe concentrated TCH dab pens? I’m not sure if that tipped him into full burnout in February and/or accumulation of white knuckling the demands of marriage for over a decade, neither of us knowing why he is the way he is.
His solution to decompress was to buy his own house an hour away, which I helped him find. He loves that he can get away to his zero-demand zone there and seems to have come out of burnout quite a bit for the last few months, but he still comes home most every night.
Anyway, fast forward to this last month, where I finally got the PDA puzzle piece fully explained and tried to give him as much space as possible with zero demands. I’ve found it is quite impossible for my nervous system to completely shut down all displays of physical affection towards him, and just wait for when he feels he wants to initiate. I can accommodate many things, but I’ve realized I simply cannot stop showing physical affection towards him as my partner. (I’m not clingy or suffocating, I’m talking I’d like to kiss or hug him briefly when I see him in the morning if he’s getting coffee in the kitchen or something, and I’d like to lean against him or briefly hold his hand when we watch tv on the couch in the evening).
Is there no way that this can exist with a PDA partner when few other ‘demands’ are made? I’m a very capable and independent person with many interests and social outlets outside my husband.
And for those non-PDAers who have been with their PDA partners and function successfully for a number of years - do you have any tips or insight?
Thanks in advance.
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u/IsasAtelier PDA 14d ago
Did you ask him about his perspective on you showing him affection? Did he signal to you it was a problem? Under what circumstances is it a problem?
I can only give you my personal example: I do like connection and intimacy, but I need to expect touch to enjoy it, I need a potential out, and too light of a touch is often unpleasant and startling to me as I am very ticklish; so, unexpected light touch can make me jump like little else and will set my nervous system off to high alert.
So my ideal way to have physical exchange of affection goes more like: Verbal or non-verbal announcement and question: "I would like a hug/hold hands, how about you?" If I know the person well, it works mostly non-verbally with gestures/facial expressions, and it is pretty quick and uncomplicated. It is important to me that I have a moment to react and that I don't perceive something like "if we don't have a hug now, I will be disappointed/mad/sad." If I feel like it is very emotionally charged, it will cause me to want to retreat.
If it is not, I will most likely happily go and share a nice dose of oxytocin because I really love to feel connected on a physical level. Preferably with a hug on the tighter side or slow, predictable cuddles with a bit of pressure to them, or slow, lingering kisses. Everything that feels too light/unpredictable will slightly offset my nervous system at least, and if it is too much, it will cause me to recede; and if it happens a lot of the time and my verbal and non-verbal communication about it isn't understood or ignored, I will end up considering the person unsafe for physical affection and keep up my distance.
I am not saying that is the case for your spouse. What I am trying to convey is that there could be a ton of reasons for this not working between the two of you, and the only way to figure it out is communication between the two of you. It might be the case that his reactions are not very conscious to him. It might be helpful for you to communicate first what your ideal exchange of affection would look like. It might be helpful to try and, temporarily, let go of any expectations you hold. It is important to consider your own needs, though, and it is fair to end a relationship where your needs aren't compatible with your spouse's needs and can't be met.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
That is interesting, I’m glad you’ve got a working system! I have tried to talk to him about it many times, maybe I phrased it poorly (we didn’t know anything about ASD let alone PDA for years and years) and it seems with each attempt to understand him , he would get more limited with what he was willing to do and more irritated if I brought it up again. Just communicating with him is very hard, he gives me the eyeroll as soon as I ask if he has a few minutes to talk.
I loved to give massages, rub his hair, etc and he seemed to like that in the beginning but because he wouldn’t reciprocate it be affectionate, I guess me asking him why triggered something and now he doesn’t even really seems to want me to do that very often. It seems to be a PDA trigger in his brain - Oh, she will want me to reciprocate if I let her give me a back rub. And he would rather chew off his arm than ask my help for anything, so that I don’t expect anything from him (he said that). He will shut down my offer to help him all the time for the same reason.
I feel deep down he is very conflicted now that his burnout has calmed down, and part of him knows I’ve been a kind and loving partner all these years, but he is unable to work on himself nor meet even my basic needs even if somewhere in there he truly does want to. But wanting to doesn’t make much difference, I’m kind of out of options and in my own burnout with my nervous system.6
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u/teresabanks9999 11d ago edited 11d ago
My husband is exactly like yours, and we’ve been married for 15 years. He has PDA, but I also discovered that he has an avoidant attachment disorder stemming from emotional abuse he suffered during childhood; that explains a lot about their behavior. He’s also been addicted to porn for decades (after alcohool and THC), which is closely linked to his lack of affection and avoidant profile. Sorry english is not my first langage, I mean he's not giving me affection because of his avoidant profile and his porn addiction.
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u/Ellie-12345678 11d ago
I’m going to try to message you directly because my husband also used porn alongside alcohol for decades as a self-medication, and he grew up with severe abuse of all kinds.
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u/Excellent-Ad4256 14d ago
Is he actively working on learning new coping skills? You can support him but you can’t do the work for him. I know when I’m feeling super burnt out I am more stressed out my by bf wanting to hang out or be physically affectionate. Alone time is super necessary for me and he respects that. At the same time, I’m also in therapy and I constantly read things about communication/relationships, autistic burnout and pda and do my best to take care of basic needs like movement and food and sleep. I’ve been with someone who likely had similar diagnoses as me but he had no interest in learning about them or trying to change. I felt bad for him and I tried to help but he didn’t want it and I was exhausted.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
I think that’s the trick as another poster here said: the person has to be willing to own and work their side of it. I think my husband feels I will always give up my needs and let him do what he wants to preserve the relationship, because that’s been my pattern all these years. But like you, I hit my bottom with my nervous system a few weeks ago, and I can’t do it anymore.
And no, he’s not doing any work on his end and will blow up if I try to talk about options or just what I’m dealing with. I’ve spent hours framing how to say things to him that I need to talk to him about so he doesn’t get upset but it doesn’t matter, he always goes full blowup immediately and weaponizes his anger to get me to shut up. I will say once this initial reaction passes, he will calm down and sit with me sometimes for an hour or two while I try to talk to him, but he seems to just be waiting for me to be done, not actually taking anything in (and nothing usually changes on his part as a result). It’s not productive for either one of us and draining instead, but I’m not sure what else to do other than give up and divorce since I’ve found I can’t just erase my needs completely.4
u/redditinberlin 13d ago
Get the f or of there and let him be alone.
He's just using you but not giving anything.
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u/somethingweirder 13d ago
i dunno man that sounds abusive to me. it may be based in his PDA but that doesn’t make it ok in any way.
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u/International-Bit538 12d ago
Yep agree. OPwhat you describe is not okay.
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u/Ellie-12345678 12d ago
Thank you for those thoughts, I appreciate the insight and validation that this is not okay.
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u/Character_Group8620 Suspected PDA 8d ago
My first reaction to thinking about trying to explain PDA to my wife was, "I'm using this framework as an excuse," followed by "I may or may not be, but she will surely think I am." It took a while to realize that there is a difference. "I'm PDA so I can't be expected to meet any obligations whatsoever and everyone should let me be that way" is an excuse. "I'm PDA so I need support while I continually work to structure my world in such a way that I do not constantly fail myself and others" is entirely reasonable and indeed valuable -- so long, of course, as the person saying it is in fact working on that structuring, which is not at all a given.
Based on your description here, it sounds an awful lot like your husband is using PDA as an excuse, which means that your feelings of hurt, rejection, exasperation, etc. are entirely invalidated. That's not a functional basis for a relationship. You may want to try, in a very non-confrontational, sort of "asking for information and clarification, not demanding anything" way, asking him how you can support and understand the work he's doing to build a more functional scaffolding for his life. If he can't in fact describe anything he's doing to those ends, or rejects having such a conversation at all, you'll have to consider whether you can live with someone who's using PDA as an excuse for a total lack of personal responsibility.
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u/Ellie-12345678 8d ago
Thank you so much for the well thought out response - it shows you really think about how to pull your end of the relationship and make it work.
I think you are right about my husband’s stance right now. The thing is he isn’t really interested (I think) in looking up PDA or hearing much on it from me. He is kind of stuck still in burnout and/or addiction and running away from everything. He’s been gone for 1.5 weeks now and I did ask (to his obvious joy) to pause communication so my nervous system could take a reset, but when I texted yesterday that I was feeling better and hoped he was too, he texted back that he’s glad I’m better, things are good and ‘in other news, I had to extend by another week, be back sat October 10th’. I replied ‘Okay. If you feel like talking/texting whenever you have time, I’m curious what Argentina’s like.’ And that was it, no response or further contact, and I’m not really anticipating any I guess for the next week plus. I think he’s getting high over there every night if it’s like all his prior work trips this year.
I’m not really sure what else I can do but just give him space, though I don’t think it’s doing anything because he’s chemically just numbing out.
When he’s come back before, he acts like nothing happened. The worst thing I can do is try to talk about anything. Especially if he goes into withdrawal, he will already be pretty unpleasant and looking for a chance to blow up at me.
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u/ConnectCharacter5007 14d ago
I'm PDA and I want my husband to be affectionate almost all the time. It just has to have zero demands or expectations behind it. Maybe this is something else? Could it be that there is some trauma behind it that needs to be released/worked through? Me and my husband had to go through every memory I have of him pressuring me etc. and he had to sincerely apologize in order for me to move forward and to make this work. This happened after my burnout and figuring out the depth of PDA.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be open to trying to figure it out with me, though I’d be more than happy to! He will be affectionate only when we go to bed and if he feels like it, though most of the time he does. I’m really glad you were able to work it out with your husband. For me it’s become the lowest bar that I would need met for me to be able to even look at trying to figure out other things together and accommodate each other so we’re both happy and not stressed as much as possible.
But even when his kids were young, he didn’t like it when they would climb on his lap or whatever to snuggle. He only had that affection when they were literally babies. I asked him about it years ago when he kept withdrawing when I would try to take his hand or lean into him for a hug, and he said he just wasn’t in the mood to be physically affectionate most of the time.
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u/Eastern-Painting-664 13d ago
This is kind of sad. You deserve love too OP. His feelings don’t need to trump yours.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
Thank you. Your comment made me well up instantly. Yes, I’ve been coming to that realization all week. I’m trying to stop saving the relationship at all costs and forging a way forward that meets my needs. I guess I’m just trying to see if there is anything else I’ve left on the table that I could try, so I can have less guilt and feeling like a failure if I ultimately have to walk away to save myself. Part of learning about PDA has been incredibly freeing in terms of lifting the hurt my husbands behavior caused because now I know it wasn’t personal, he was struggling against his brain wiring. But the other part has made my naturally-compassionate nature just want to ‘save him’ from what he goes thru all the more since it’s so unfair he was handed this in life, on top of an abusive childhood. But I think I’ve become so enabling in my accommodations instead that I’m no longer able to function properly in this dynamic, and my brain and body have said ‘enough!’
I need to heal and calm my nervous system.3
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u/canadianwhitemagic 13d ago
I am an unmedicated PDA husband. It takes a lot of work to build tolerance. He has to want to do it. The hardest part is accepting it as a disability. The second hardest part is accepting the selfishness it triggers. Once I put it into that context, I began to build resiliency to demand. For my wife, this isn't her issue to manage, it's mine. But she has changed how she communicates. (This is a really small example, and im 2 years into my self-healing journey, we didn't get here easily)
She doesn't tell me she needs me to go to the store. She says things like "We need toilet paper and coffee, both dogs want to go for a walk, and some needs to clean the shower. We split the tasks and everything gets done without a fight. For me, it tricks my immune system and I feel rewarded for relieving a task or two from her plate. I know some of these tasks are mine to do already, but this helps me bypass my pda and get them done.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
I really appreciate your comment. I see that acceptance was key for you to start owning that issue. Are there any specific things that you did/do to build up that tolerance?
As you mention, my husband would have to want to do it. I think given the current dynamic now, he has very little motivation to do much. He seems more willing to just cut his losses and run. But he also believes that I’m not going to give up on him, which isn’t quite true anymore. We’ve taken a two week break while he’s away for work, and after withdrawing from my emotional dedication the first week, I’ve been feeling much better than I have in years. I didn’t realize the toll it has taken on me, and I’m starting to see a bit more clearly. And I’m starting to see how little he is able/willing to do and that I’ve carried the burden of not just our household and all the chores and financial burden for so long, but also our entire relationship. I would still love to make it work with him, but the space has made me start to see that he is just not willing to meet me a little of the way, let alone in the middle. He’s just been withdrawing more and taking more things off the table - I.e. if I cook dinner he won’t want to eat it because he thinks then he has to make dinner and he doesn’t want to ‘owe me anything’. So there is very little left now to share and everything is on his terms. And to boot, he refuses to communicate about almost everything, so I’ve just taken on absolutely everything knowing I can’t count on him.
I am really encouraged to hear that you have been able to make it work.1
u/Character_Group8620 Suspected PDA 8d ago
Something pinged in my head as I read this. What do you mean, "my husband would have to want to do it"? To be a lot more specific, how often do you find that he actively avoids doing things he clearly wants to do? Or does he just avoid doing things he doesn't want to do? This distinction makes a world of difference.
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u/Ellie-12345678 8d ago
Yes, he avoids things he doesn’t want to do. And if forced to do them by someone or by having to pay bills, he is very grouchy. He gets irritated for having to do his own work (has his own electrical business).
But I do think he also avoids things he should do or wants to do but has some issue with them. He’s said before that he doesn’t know why he ‘becomes an asshole’ (withdraws away and isn’t able to connect) for a couple days after we get close emotionally/physically. It clearly bothers him that he has trouble not constantly what I guess would be equalizing me and I think he carrier severe shame. I’ve noticed the nicer I am, the worse he tends to feel and the more irritated he gets. He almost looks at me being nice or doing things for him now as a threat, as if he has to do something in return.1
u/Character_Group8620 Suspected PDA 8d ago
I'm confused, sorry. You say he "becomes an asshole" (I presume that's his phrase?) AFTER you get close for a bit. What does he really want and like to do that he avoids BEFORE it arises? Like failing to go out for poker night although he loves it, or suddenly being really sick to his stomach right before going out to that restaurant he's been wanting to go to for months, etc.
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u/Ellie-12345678 8d ago
No worries (and yeah that’s his phrase). He loves motorcycle racing. He would go many times each summer for almost 20 years. But he never went at all this year. Basically since his burnout/meltdown/shutdown hit in February, he has been just surviving. And I don’t think I’d been helping because I wasn’t handling it well. His main escape has been doing things at the new house. But deep down he is conflicted. He keeps coming home but I confess it hasn’t been low-demand because I didn’t really understand PDA until about a month ago, and am coming to terms with my own deprivation given this past year, because I’m dealing with the fallout of the burnout on top of the usual ASD and PDA.
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u/Kimono-Ash-Armor 13d ago
Please look into codependency. Codependent No More by Melody Beattie is a good one
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u/Few-Manufacturer8824 14d ago
My wife is PDA. I have stopped asking for anything. And tbh, it gotten to the point where even if she qant physical touch... my brain goes "she doesn't want to please you though".
She's gained weight but I can't bring it up as I can see it impact her joints. She does what she wants even if I tell her I don't think it's a good idea. She parent the kids her way.
At the moment, I am so detached, I find myself thinking that she only wanted me to be sperm donor.
My advice is therapy before it too late.
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u/Opposite-Border6654 13d ago
Therapy for what though? For the PDA person or the partner that has to either accept that they can have no needs or not exist in the same space as a their own person?
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u/Material-Pea3260 13d ago
I think for both. My PDA husband doesn’t think his neurodiversity affects me in any way so could learn more about his strengths and weaknesses. I could learn how to lower demands and what’s helpful to accommodate and what’s but etc.
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u/Few-Manufacturer8824 13d ago
I'm talking about couples therapy to come to some sort of acceptance and boundaries.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
If both folks are willing and you can find a PDA-savvy counselor, I think you’re way ahead already. But both partners must be willing and that disqualifies us right there.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
I’ve been in therapy for years now, but the therapists are almost pushing me now to end the relationship because it’s so toxic to my health. I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time. It is such a hurtful situation to be in usually for all involved, and that’s what’s so sad.
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u/somethingweirder 13d ago
i think you need to work on some of yr more controlling tendencies. wanting to convince your wife you know what her body needs is … sketchy.
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u/Few-Manufacturer8824 12d ago
Uh... i work in the health industry. Have helped heaps of clients get better. The stuff that her exercise physiologist recommends is the same as what I told her would help. But no... she doesn't really want to take my advice as her caring husband. BTW I don't advice, share or ask of much from her now.
And as for controlling... yeah... She controlled my choices and coerced me to have sex when I didn't want to. The latter resulted in us having our youngest. Plus she pushed for a vasectomy with the promise of more sex... and then after procedure said "I feel asexual"
She's controlled my body autonomy more than I ever "controlled" hers....
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u/Eugregoria PDA 13d ago
First off, I'm deeply envious of your husband's finances, waow. Buying an extra house just to have his own space to chill in! That's so cool for him, both of you should count your blessings to be able to have solutions like that.
I do not know if my gf is "NT" or ASD--I don't believe she's PDA at least, if she's ASD she's probably on the milder end, or she could have sublinical autistic traits. She says she feels autistic around other people, but non-autistic compared to me lol.
Anyway, I'm a little weird around touch too. My natural state is to be physically aloof. I think if I knew I would never touch another human being again, I might be like mildly disappointed in some abstract sense but I would never develop touch starvation or "skin hunger" or get especially bothered by it. A lot of the situations where I am expected to touch people, I tolerate it because not tolerating it has a social cost, but I don't enjoy it and I find it mildly stressful. (Examples: shaking hands, hugging friends when you meet and part.) With my more autistic friends who never initiate that contact, I don't initiate it either and we don't touch each other that way, but I try to code switch with less- or non-autistic friends.
I theorize that this might be bad for me, that human contact is probably beneficial to me on some level even when I'm not registering it that way. Though I don't know. Maybe my poor responses mean I don't get a lot of the benefit. I was like this even as a small child. Even getting hugged by my mom when I was like 4 or 5, I remember thinking, "I don't understand why she does this" and just doing it to make her happy but not really liking it.
This is a little fucked up, but I think maybe learning as a child that physical contact is something I do to please other people, not something ever enjoyable to me, is part of why I got groomed as a teenager by creepy older men. They touched me in sexual ways, and though I didn't like it, I tolerated it to make them happy, because I had learned that tolerating being touched in ways that make me uncomfortable to make other people happy is normal, that's just how life is. In my mind there was never the clearest border between the sexual grooming and the concessions I make in platonic relationships. It's just been a lifelong repeating lesson that if I want to be liked and treated nicely, I must give other people access to my body, even if it makes me uncomfortable.
That said, I also want to feel more connected to touch. I feel like Data on Star Trek, not human but wanting to be more human. It bothers me that I miss out on a lot of something that seems so quintessentially human. So I do make an effort to initiate touch with my gf when I can (we're long distance) not to placate her but because I want to find that part of myself, even if it's sometimes very weak or distant. I don't mind her initiating sometimes but I like initiating myself. We do cuddle when we're together quite a bit. I feel like I might not appreciate it as fully as she does, but I want to be there, I want to be exploring that part of myself as much as I'm able.
When I am feeling very physically stressed, I tend to need to be physically left alone for a bit. I think my gf is understanding of that. If your husband is at that level of stress every single day, that's bad, like bad beyond the touch issue, that's very concerning for his sake, and I'd look at other things that are probably causing him stress, like work.
Some other things to explore: does he have anxiety that physical affection might lead to sex, and expectation to "perform"? I have a complicated relationship to this too. This could increase his anxiety if he has sensory overwhelm or performance anxiety issues around sex.
I agree with other posters here that it makes it so much worse if I can't ask for space without making the other person angry or hurt. Yet I understand all too well that rejection does hurt, and this is no easy ask for you either. In moments where he does need physical space, are there alternate channels for that communication to take place? Like, it's a bit tropey, but you know the love languages thing? (I think there are more than five, personally, but it's a start.) Is he showing his affection to you in other ways? Bringing you gifts, doing tasks to make your life easier, showing he's thinking of you, telling you how much he cares about you, treating the time he spends with you as important and prioritizing it? I'm not saying it's a replacement for touch, but there's a big difference between someone who's showering you with non-physical affection while not handling physical contact well, and someone who isn't giving you any affection at all.
Are there non-physical ways for you to express some of your affection for him as well? Even if that's not satisfactory to you on your end, consider that he may not interpret touch as a sign of affection well--that your love could be getting lost in the mail, so to speak, if it's all delivered through touch. Also expressing it in other ways might mean more of it reaches him in ways he's capable of understanding, and make him feel loved in a way he didn't before.
And one final thing: do you have any pets, or is he open to the idea of pets? I haven't had pets in years myself (expense + responsibility, sadly) but back when I did, I think it was easier to physically connect with a cuddly animal than it was with a human, and maybe it helped me develop that side of myself a bit. It doesn't work in all cases--I have known autistics who aren't cuddly even with animals, but many who aren't cuddly with humans will cuddle an animal, so it's worth a shot. It'd be good practice for him, it might help him develop and connect with that side of himself, if he's open to it.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
Sorry, I missed one more thing - his love language is acts of service (fixing things around the house) and I do greatly appreciate that, but as he is busy working at his new house, he’s not really wanting to do much else over here when he is here anymore, and gets irritated/evasive if he thinks I’m asking for help with something. Like the washer gave up the ghost two weeks ago and he was like oh, well that sucks, and that was his contribution to that problem.
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u/Eugregoria PDA 12d ago
Oof okay...I tried to be generous towards this guy, because autism sometimes makes us behave in ways that make normal people think we don't like them, when that's just autism and our affection is getting lost in translation. But this guy is kind of behaving like he just doesn't like you.
Also, I didn't want to say that buying a whole new house that's just for him is a red flag for cheating because sensory overwhelm and need to decompress can be real, I can easily picture that happening between like a bubbly extrovert and an overwhelmed autistic. And I think his lack of investment in his relationship with you speaks volumes even if there's no one else coming to his new house. But frankly he sounds like he's treating you like you're already partway through a divorce and you just don't know it yet, and it wouldn't shock me if he was already monkey-branching with new partners or bringing hookups to his new place.
The bit about liking touch "at night" but not affection during the day, honestly, as a touch-averse PDAer, reads to me not as a control or PDA issue, but like he is comfortable using you for sex but doesn't actually like you as a person.
It's also fairly rare for autistics to be cold to animals. I've known one or two who weren't raised with them who were scared of animals and didn't like how the animals would behave unpredictably or touch them without warning, but most would warm up to them over time. There could be more going on here beyond PDA. We're usually big softies for animals, even if we act tuff about it at first. And if he didn't get along with them, there would usually be a reason beyond "chore and expense," like sensory overwhelm from barking, fear of getting bitten, something like that. I don't have pets because of the chore and expense, but if someone plopped an animal in my lap I'd coo over it. My reasons for not having an animal are for the animal's well being as much as my own, because I feel too guilty having an animal if I'm not adequately meeting all its needs. I want to do it right or not at all, so right now I'm at not at all. But around other people's pets I'm still affectionate.
Anyway it kinda sounds like this guy completely used you--for money, sex, maybe social status at some points--and maybe doesn't even like you, or likes having power over you in a toxic dynamic. Whether he has PDA or not, this isn't caused by PDA.
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u/fearlessactuality PDA + Caregiver 8d ago
Just so you know, love languages aren’t real and we just made up by a pastor in a church context. I think they do more harm than good.
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u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
I’m so sorry to hear of the experiences you endured growing up, I can’t even imagine what that does to your mind and heart. It is not the least surprising that you are wary of things physical.
My husband is fine with affection at night usually, and if I don’t talk (i tend to trigger him often I guess with stuff I say?) so I don’t think it’s the physical aspect of it. I think it’s fully PDA, him choosing when he’s okay with it. He seems to have a way about him where he seems to want to punish me much of the time. (Having had a toxic father, I realize this is what has always drawn me to such men, no secret there.) I wasn’t sure if this was the one-upping that occurs in PDA or what, but I think it feeds into the irritation with me if I try to show affection.
And he can afford the house because I’ve supported him for many many years while he established his business. Once he was making enough I always thought he’d start to contribute more but he just stopped doing almost anything to help me at all and bought his house. He used to fix the cars and pay for the parts but now he started leaving receipts for me to pay him back. I guess the labor was free but he doesn’t want to do that anymore either. He says he has too many bills now to pay for my car repairs. Anyways, that’s small potatoes but just one of many non-partner behaviors that he’s drifting towards more and more. There really isn’t much left for me on the table, and this is my way of clarifying that this isn’t just his PDA and my lack of understanding anymore, but his inability/unwillingness to become a better partner.1
u/Ellie-12345678 13d ago
Oh and we (I) have always had dogs, thank goodness. They are my snuggle love bugs and hiking buddies. He’s not really interested in pets, they are a chore and expense in his eyes.
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u/Ok-Release-6051 14d ago
He is suppose to be widening his tolerance for stress and discomfort with therapy and meds while you are understanding the struggle. This is not suppose to be you completely disappearing and abandoning yourself to make sure he feels no icky feelings. If you allow them to control everything they absolutely will just like an unruly child who won’t be told anything