relationship bs

[Glides]

I'm in a situation where I can't tell if something is my fault or not. My therapist says that my issue is I'm not being present enough in the relationship, which I largely agree with. It's been an especially difficult couple of months where I almost wasn't able to make a rent payment on time (I BARELY made the cutoff), had a bunch of crap go wrong with the apartment I moved into (i inspected it like crazy and the leasing office was good about it, but stuff began breaking down a month in). The new job/fellowship/whatever is incredibly taxing (which I expected) and so I've been all over the place trying to get my work done around all of this.

In the middle of this is my longest partner, who expected me getting fulltime work for the first time in three years to mean that I'd have more time with them. Of course, this actually means that I have less time rather than more. My partner does a mix of sex work and tutoring to pay their bills (it's all virtual, thank god) and I genuinely don't care about all of that. But they have a LOT more free time than I do as a result of this. A lot a lot. Which is great, good for them. I'm only a little jealous. They're hard-of-hearing, they're on the autistic spectrum, this world is not built to accommodate them, I hardly want to discount that. And I also need to note that unlike my previous partner, they have never once treated me in a way I'd classify as abusive. My issues with them don't make them a bad person, just a person who I'm increasingly scared I have a major incompatibility with that we can't address.

One of the issues that has become more of one across the relationship is that they have an EXTREME sensitivity to light and sound. I always thought I was. If I drop my phone on the floor by accident when we're talking, they will have a panic attack. Too much noise of any kind, they will have a panic attack. This goes to any kind of negative emotion expressed at any time. Again, to be fair to them, they have been in past abusive relationships far more severe than my own, in literal life-threatening situations. But it's gotten to the point where if I am anything other than 100% in a good mood around them, they will either shut down or burst into tears. The flip side is that they will also do this if they're the one in a bad mood and I don't sufficiently comfort them in that moment. Them having additional partners other than me lessens the blow of this, because they have other people to go to if I'm not around. But my only response has been to distance myself even more because at this point I can't tell if they're being hyperbolic or if everything just sets them off.

The end result is that despite them constantly framing our dynamic as a relationship, it just feels like an incredibly intimate friend with benefits. And I do love them, in the sort of muted and distorted way I'm able to feel that emotion. The other major incompatibility is that they're aromantic and I'm asexual, and we both figured that out after we started dating. They classify romance as people they want to fuck gently and I classify romance as people I don't mind doing sexual things with to feel closer to them. There is a GREAT deal of frustration on their part that my sex drive is so low. I told them right out when we first met and they insisted it wouldn't be a problem, and it is a problem. I very rarely want to do anything beyond cuddle these days. They are in a near constant state of hypersexual horniness. Our reactions to our sexual abuse was to go in complete opposite extremes, libido-wise. But I know the alternative was repeatedly forcing myself and being forced to do sexual acts I didn't want to do, and they've been really good about my boundaries. But they're deeply frustrated by this. I can tell.

And this is all an improvement to who I was with last, but my frustration is their abject refusal to engage in the relationship on any grounds that isn't being flirtatious or sexual. They love sex work, they love what they do, they're probably perfect for it as far as I know. Ironically, they expected their sex work to be the biggest issue with the relationship and that feels like the part of the relationship that's the strongest. But I'm not sure we have been or ever will be romantic partners. I am their only romantic partner, and everyone else they're currently "dating" came after we started dating. We became polyamorous at the very start and I'm not really dating anyone else and at this point, I'm too tired to care. I have way too much stress because of work and trying to pay for my own shit. They're immensely frustrated at how I keep having to rush in last minute to get things done. The rest of their partners all have consistent schedules and jobs but mine is still not, even though it's 40 hours a week. But those 40 hours are almost never the same. I have no control over this. I needed to move out to get away from my toxic family and I largely have.

And so what happens is they try to call, and I either don't answer because I'm doing something, or I do and I'm so exhausted and depressed that they don't like the vibe and try to force conversation anyway. Any attempt to get any kind of emotional support for anything leads to them fully shutting down. So the solution has been to distance and only see them when I know I have time off, and all we do is get high and cook food and laze out in front of the TV and (possibly) fuck. They don't want to do anything else. They want to be in a near constant state of inebriation (to be fair, they don't drink, just smoke), and they're increasingly jealous of the fact that the other dates I've gone on have been far more varied than what we do. See the issue?

And again, they don't ever take any of this out on me, but it's this weird thing where if I go on a date, they turn into a jealous mess, and if they do, then I don't react at all because I know that's what we were agreeing to do. There's never any arguments about it, they'll just shut down for the day and then I have to wait for the next day. They need to be in a constant state of validation in order to function, and I have been forced to learn how to go years without any kind of validation at all. They can't be physically alone for longer than five minutes, but what mitigates them being clingy is how much they cling onto everyone else. Which is ironically why I like them dating a bunch of other people, because all we're good for is meeting up twice a month for a day or so and smoking ourselves silly. Anything else is ignored, like their cat really needing to go to the vet (she's got pretty severe breathing problems) and them being too anxious to be around other people, so the cat has now gone months without being able to properly breathe. These little things just pile up, so it's one more reason for me only to see them twice a month, because they only clean up their apartment when I'm about to show up. It's just all of this. And for a while, I was happy, and now I'm not, and I don't think they are either, but since neither of us are abusing the other, I'm scared we're in this out of a sense of sunk cost fallacy. Neither of us enjoy talking to each other anymore. I'm constantly thinking about what to do next and being reminded of any level of ambition gets in the way of their aspiration to never be sober for a single day of their life or to go more than one day without someone in bed with them. And that would all be fine if they didn't seem to be so put off by me not only wanting to do that.

So I don't know how to untangle any of that at this point. I don't feel emotionally supported at all, but I also know that they're so averse to any negative emotion being expressed by a person who isn't them that I no longer bother talking to them about my problems. Then they ask why I never confide in them. So all we do now is send each other silly memes and barely have conversations about anything. Or they'll just call me while blitzed off their ass and babble gibberish about whatever. And I can't always be in this place with them. I don't mind being there briefly, but I can't be there as often as they want me to. I want something more substantial than what they're offering. I don't plan on ever being monogamous again, but a really evil part of me is realizing that this is probably going to fade away at some point, and it'll hurt like hell when it does. I'm going on two dates in the next couple weeks and they're absolutely consumed with jealousy about both, despite the double standard. They haven't told me not to, they're not stopping me, but they'll just feel insecure. Oh well.

I think the biggest frustration I have, not just with them but relationships in general, is that people often assign meaning to things that have no meaning. I don't like being told by someone that they love me when what they want is a distraction. I'm sure they're attracted to me on some base level, but they're aromantic and they're being more dishonest to themself than they are to me about what they want. And multiple relationships they've been in have already ended because they just will not emotionally function with people. Or one of their other partners will feel a negative emotion in response to anything and they react badly to it. And it's not being aromantic that's the problem, it's them wanting to have their cake and eat it too. And the more this goes on, the more I have to distance because I just don't have the emotional bandwidth to handle this and not even enough time to have the tough conversations we need to have. I don't feel like we're a couple. And I really want to be in proper romantic relationships with people. I want partners who aren't just going to pretend the bad times aren't happening. And obviously that support has to be reciprocated. I probably won't stop talking to them, but I am feeling so ignored but I also know they value their near constant state of seeking out validation and getting high than anything to do with me. As long as I provide validation, I will continue to exist in their sphere. So now it's in limbo. I have no idea how to address this.

[Enail]

This sounds like a lotof stuff that, tbh, it's hard to see a way through long-term.  It's one thing for one's partner to have a hard time with negative emotions or emotional support, but to be completely unable/unwilling to engage with those things at all means that it's impossible to address or solve any problems with the relationship. That's a very large problem. And it's not healthy for you to have to never express any negative emotions with them in any way.

And it sounds like not only is what each of you wants to do with your time together incompatible in pretty serious ways, they are unhappy with you wanting a different kind of life for yourself, or even with you doing different things with the other people you date even though they don't want to do those things with you.  It's good that they're not taking it out on you - and if they did, that'd be pretty abusive - but I'm not sure it's possible to have a close relationship with someone who wishes you'd shrink your world to fit inside theirs, at least not without it having some level of chilling effect on the rest of your life. The people in your life should wantyou to pursue the things that make you happy and fulfilled, who want you to get to be your best self.

It does sound like you're busy and stressed enough that that it's probably hard for you to be fully present in a relationship for now, so I don't disagree with your therapist on that, but at the same time, a lot of the problems you describe don't seem like things that being more present would really help.  

A small thing I'd suggest is that you try not to make assumptions about what has meaning to them or what they really want; you're not the person who gets to judge what someone else feels or whether it's meaningful.  But for the most part, this relationship sounds harder than relationships should be, no matter what you do. Sorry, this sounds really rough and I'm not sure there's a good solution here. Look after yourself, whatever you do, don't shrink your world for someone else or force yourself into a space you don't want to be in for them.

[Hielario]

I am sorry for not being able to contribute anything else to the discussion, but I really need to ask: Seriously, where are you / how the fuck do you keep meeting these?

[Glides]

I am sorry for not being able to contribute anything else to the discussion, but I really need to ask: Seriously, where are you / how the fuck do you keep meeting these?

that is a fantastic question and i don't entirely know how to answer that.

i mean, if this helps: i'm using a queer dating app and i have seen a LOT more success on there than i did with tinder/okcupid. i have met exactly one person off of tinder (5 years ago, woof, i lost my virginity to her) and i'm supposed to be going on a date with someone from okcupid in two weeks but that's the first time in 5 years i have ever gotten that far on that app.

so yeah on tinder/okcupid/etc, i'm basically invisible except to that one person in 5 years of using the app who i am meeting two weeks from now?

unless you're asking why the people i'm dating are so loopy, to which i say, c'mon, i'm the loopy monarch of this forum!

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