A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:I have a 'partner' who I have been 'with' for 30 years, since I was 26 years old. I am now 56, he is 51.I apologise sincerely for the very long post but I am at my wits end and don't know how to summarise things concisely.When we met I was going through a divorce from a man that I am now certain had Autism - he never had a job - and I had a 5 year old daughter. I was also estranged from my family which I now understand was a highly toxic family. I had no help at all from my ex-husband, either financial or any other form of support. My parents both died when I was in my. 20s and 30s. I've never inherited anything as my family were very poor. I say all of this to try to illustrate something of the context that I met my 'partner' in and what I've tried to move on from. I feel his behaviour re-traumatises me over and over again and stops me from really moving on from the past and really flourishing.Around the time we met and started going out - we were in a long-distance relationship - I became diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. I remember I'd manage to go an see him even though childcare was really difficult for me - and then I'd come home and feel like I'd had a great time but it would always take me several days to settle back into a routine because his behaviour was fun but so extreme - lots of heavy drinking, staying up really late, no routine whatsoever, so I don't know if that's what triggered the condition. Since then, I've also developed IBS, due to constant stress.Developing this condition on top of being a single mother with no support from anyone, has been problematic for me ever since in terms of joining in fully with things like work and friendships. If I had good health, I'd be in a position now to bring in a huge salary, but I can't because I know from experience as soon as I go into offices full time I am constantly ill and have to leave.At school I was a very high achiever but didn't go to university straight away because my home life pulled me under. In some ways, despite everything, I would be considered a 'high achiever': I own property, including a property abroad, I have a doctorate, I have a few'friends' although I don't see them very often and I could not rely on them for real support - believe me I've put 'feelers' out about this and I know for sure they would not be there for me. My daughter and I get on well although she hated me for a while for letting my 'partner' ruin what was for her a happy childhood, she lives far away with her husband and my grandchild. I have interesting well paid jobs but these are all on precarious contracts and I've no sense whatsoever of colleagues. In short someone with good health would really love to have my life and would be able to really 'go for it', develop a fabulous career and probably meet a wonderful partner and thrive.However, I am driven almost to the point of insanity by my 'partner's' ADHD, which he was diagnosed with by a private (not NHS) company 3 years ago. He is on a NHS waiting list to get a formal diagnosis. It was me who realised, 11 years ago, that a lot of his behaviours were ADHD behaviours, but it took 9 years for him to finally agree to do a screening. I also think that he has Autism, as I've done quite vast amounts of research into both conditions in order to understand my own family's behaviour; I've realised my mother, in particular, had ADHD that went undiagnosed, and this wreaked havoc in our family life. A counsellor has said to me, without me knowing that either my mother of 'partner' had ADHD, that my partner is basically a replacement for my mother and that I am trying to resolve unresolved trauma that she caused me, by staying with a 'partner' who is not really a 'partner'.ADHD presents differently in different people, and I really don't want this to sound like I have a bias against anyone with that condition, but I also know that partner's of men with ADHD can really suffer.As I write I am wondering whether it is even worth me listing some of his behaviours because they will seem so obviously appalling that anyone in their right mind would say I should have left years ago. I know the problem is ultimately me, and I hate myself. The thing is I am literally terrified. When I met my husband I had never had a boyfriend, and I went into this 30 year 'relationship' without having had any other relationship. The things I read online about dating over 50 sound really such hard work and so horrible that, after what I've been through with this person, I know I couldn't take it at all. I keep thinking it's simply easier to stay and grow more numb every day. And then I hate myself for thinking in that way too.To give you an example of the kind of thing that now sends me 'over the edge' and makes me shout at him that I can't take anymore and go into 'flight' mode where I internally start thinking "I have to leave, where am I going to go, how will I survive, what if I get so ill I can't cope?": this morning, sleeping in my own bed - we sleep separately because he snores and won't address it - I woke knowing I was ill again and we'd talked about this the day before because I felt I was coming down with a bad cold. It's a Sunday, and he'd already said he was going out to meet some old colleagues - not friends as such - on Sunday morning. This kind of thing is not at all unusual - there's usually something that eats into part or whole days of our weekends.I got up early and made myself a cup of tea and when I went back to bed I heard him get up. He popped his head around the door and asked if I was okay and I said I was ill. We chatted a bit and I jokingly (most of my requests to him are 'jokes' because he somehow makes me feel like I have to ask for everything and that I don't really. deserve it) -if he would make breakfast. I usually do most of the cooking and food organisation because in all the time I have known him he has never once, of his own accord, tried to make a single recipe of his own and his cooking of even basic things is really bad, as well as his domestic (and in the past his personal) hygiene. He said yes, he would, but he was going to have a shave first. So I waited and waited, feeling a bit happier looking forward to breakfast even though I knew it would not be nice but at least it would be something and also noting that, as is usual, he hadn't actually offered anything, I'd had to ask, and trying to figure out what to do with the day given I'd be alone and unwell for at least the morning - and he is completely unreliable about what time he says he's coming home so I couldn't really plan anything for the afternoon as a 'couple', so I feel kind of lost, which I feel most of the time.About 40 minutes later he pops his head around the door again and says he's going.I ask where breakfast is and he says what do I mean. I say that he said he'd make breakfast because I'm not well. He says "Okay, I'll do it", but I'm aware he's got his coat on and is on his way out so I don't want to stop him going but I also feel hurt (because things like this honestly happen constantly, about 10 times a day, no exaggeration) that, yet again, when I'm unwell, he's gone back into 'single man mode' and he's also doing what he continually does - making me feel bad and confused because I've asked for something that I think any normal, caring, male partner is capable of doing even without being asked and would actually just offer or do in order to make his partner feel cared for. I feel 'held to ransom' in a very familiar way; that any simple request on my part means him really going out of his way to accommodate it in a way that inconveniences him. He always makes me feel like this and always has.So, as is familiar, all the years and years of hurt at feeling like I'm just someone 'on the side' whilst he behaves like a single man, come up and I say I don't want breakfast that I will do it myself, because I'm already so confused and sick of this kind of scenario that I just can't engage with him anymore. From thereon, a screaming match emerges, where he keeps saying "I've got the eggs out" and I'm thinking: this is the kind of half-baked thing he says to me all the time that doesn't make sense". I say things like "I cannot handle this anymore, your brain is wired in a way that I can't cope with, the stress of it is making me ill, just leave me alone" and he keeps saying "Okay, I won't go out then", whilst I say "I don't mind you going out, you just said you'd make breakfast first because I'm ill" and he keeps saying "I've put the eggs out". I don't know how to describe this kind of response and behaviour from him other than a very weird kind of gaslighting. It's literally as if the dots don't join up in his head. Whilst I understand he can't help it, it happens so continually that the stress of it, I am sure, makes me ill.Eventually, when I'm screaming at him to go, he does go and I go downstairs and there are three eggs sitting in a small bowl next to the cooker.This kind of nonsensical situation happens continually, on top of a past history of very extreme behaviour on his part - alcoholism, very extreme procrastination, being over-boned with his mother to the point of it feeling Oedipal, never once organising a single day out somewhere, let alone a weekend or holiday, draining me absolutely dry using my skills and ability to support him in every possible way that you can imagine, making everything revolve around his needs, making me do without anything that I think is normal in a relationship - in 30 years I've had barely any bunches of flowers for example, no imaginative or remotely expensive gifts whatsoever. There is not a single act of pre-emption of my needs or the needs of a normal couple ie. all of his money goes on paying for his own things. In 30 years he's never had a car and only recently learned to drive, so I have been driving him around for 30 years. He has ignored my daughter entirely as she was growing up, had multiple affairs, often staying out all night, there's been physical violence, very extreme emotional abuse. He charms birds of the trees, people meet him and think he's absolutely lovely. But he has no close friends at all and we have no friends as a couple because his behaviour, when we are in public, is awful - at my daughter's wedding recently, he was abusive towards me in a way that was 'hidden in plain sight' because I kept having to laugh it off so as not to spoil the wedding. I have to plan absolutely everything if I want us to do anything beyond simply surviving with him - he would never think to plan anything at all, even from one second to the next, where it involves anyone other than himself.The thing is what's been mind bending is that, from a very young age, he became highly successful in his very particular field, which I won't mention but which involves drawing a lot of attention to himself and which he has received awards for and a lot of status in that field. He is very extroverted and charms people. People really admire his work and know his name - he's not majorly famous but is 'known', even globally. He has based this career on an idea I had originally and which we still argue he stole from me but which he denies. In fact, he 'steals' all my ideas and my hard work constantly because he has an extremely limited idea of life; if I take up a new hobby, he will then want to know all about it, in a way that I used to find endearing but now realise feels like being 'mined' for information. In return, he will bring absolutely nothing to the table himself. I don't know what it feels like to have a partner who can teach me something, or show me new experiences, but I crave this. If I learn how to do some new skill, or how to get the best our of an everyday experience such as shopping for bargains in a particular department store, he wants to know all about how to do that but wouldn't dream of figuring it out for himself. If I discover a new pub or restaurant he will - although he constantly complains about money - want to know about it and will go there with me and say how lovely it is, but he does absolutely nothing to find anything himself or show me anything himself. Worse, because he's a man and because I've shown him literally how to do a lot of 'man' type skills - renovating property etc. - he gets (and is happy to assume ) credit from other people, whereas they have no idea what I've gone through behind the scenes. We are very intellectually mismatched and always have been. I'm attracted to quiet, honest, deep thinkers who love being outdoors, in a way that I've only just understood is valid, though less usual. He simply loves being the centre of attention anywhere and everywhere.For 30 years it's been 'on' then 'off' / 'up' then 'down'. A complete rollercoaster because all I actually want are basics. I want to feel safe and loved and I can't with him because although he has a condition and he can't help it, he is not like a fully fledged mature man. He is literally like a teenage boy. You will ask why I am with him. I quite literally don't know anything else, and he keeps insisting he loves me and wants a future with me. But offers no plans, ever.People have always said I don't look my age. When I was younger people were always telling me I was beautiful but I had such low self esteem I couldn't imagine being pursued by a nice man - men would constantly stare at me but never act, never once asked to take me out on a date. At my daughter's wedding recently, people said I looked 'stunning'. Despite a lot of colds and flus I try really hard to stay fit, and I know if I made the effort I could probably attract someone, but I've very little energy in the evening to go out to meet anyone. I've never had a relationship in which I've been treated nicely and I absolutely cannot see that happening. I can imagine doing a huge amount of hard work to appear younger, confident, attract someone, and feeling loved for the first 6 months, and then even more pain and heartbreak kicking in after that early phase because I still can't imagine being pursued in the sense of having a choice of nice men, let alone even one, and can only imagine it falling apart whilst meanwhile he will have attracted a younger woman and, now that he's used me to learn to grow up at least a bit, will simply move on.I just hate myself for not having the guts to move, but every time it really comes to that point I honestly feel like trauma kicks in. I feel so awful, as if I'm experiencing real trauma, and I can't go through with it.Do you think it's best that I see a therapist or simply move out of the area and try to begin life of my own before it really is too late and I am so ill I really am trapped? Money is very tight, and despite me owning property, it always has been a struggle.
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (23 November 2023): Thank you to Honeypie - again ! - and to the 3rd anonymous female who wrote in. I appreciate the advice and I have already made an appointment with a doctor to start the process going.I should say I have usually always ended up being that 'listening ear' or free (but totally unqualified) 'counsellor' - countless 'friendships' saw me assume this role, because I was always terrified of being left out or rejected if I didn't provide something that people weren't getting from other friends. This is one of the roles I was put into literally as a child; my earliest memories are of my father telling me all his problems and memories of his impoverished childhood without his father around and his brother bullying him; his sense of boundaries was completely out of whack, and I see clearly that this paved the way for me being abused in other ways, because even as a child I had to go into a passive and caring role in order to feel loved. Recently, I started to assert myself more with 'friends' because I was fed up of being treated badly; no surprise that I lost several but, prior to that, I'd been very much used for emotional support then dumped.I do understand about therapy being needed sometimes. I also feel though, that there's a strange knock-on effect where people generally are all too quick to say "he (or she) needs therapy" rather than try to actually relate on a deeper level; it's far easier for wealthier people to pay for therapy, and poorer people then become even more looked down upon if they show need for emotional support. It's almost like helping someone emotionally became like doing someone's cleaning / dirty laundry for them - increasingly, no one wants to 'go there' and I think it's part of the reason that so many young people are extremely lonely.Anyway, that's my 'ten cents' as it were. Thank you all again, I appreciate it so much.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (17 November 2023): Optibac is just one of many probiotic mixes. You also need prebiotic foods to be eaten just before you take them, and it can take at least six months to notice any improvements if you take them properly each day.
As for needing to move so that you can meet caring friends. You need to get fixed first. I am an experienced therapist who often gets women I barely know want to be friends with me, they ask me to meet them for coffee or lunch or let them phone me, I've learnt they are more interested in getting a free listening ear and shoulder to cry on, or advice, from a professional, than true friendship. They are not whole enough to get true friends, you need to be a fixed person first, not someone who seeks a shoulder to cry on, even if from total amateurs. Friendship has to be two way, where both give and receive equally, not one being there to prop you up when you struggle. You can get more idea of how this works at one of my very busy websites askagonyauntsadvice online.com where whole people get paid to give advice to strangers online, some give free advice on there, just like on here, and those who are not whole pay for advice or get free advice from the amateurs. It is a great site.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie  +, writes (16 November 2023):
 Glad you clarified "moving out of the area" :)
Yes, it would make a lot more sense to be closer to your daughter and grandchild IF you can find accommodations and a job that pays enough for you to live on.
Still, I think your first priority should be a visit to the doctor.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 November 2023): Thank you to the 2nd 'Female Reader Anonymous' who has also taken time to write in. The recommendation for Optibac seems excellent - I am going to put an order in immediately, and cannot thank you enough for recommending this.It's honestly not like me to moan - I'm not a moaner, I'm a do-er who tries to see the positive in everything and, ironically, that has often caused me huge problems - having been abused, including by my own mother, I really can't bear the thought of upsetting others, or even complaining about things - I try too hard, I now think, to see positive in everything and I have a tendency to be very extremely empathetic, to the detriment of my own wellbeing. I do think I need guidance about that and I do think I may need to move to a different city because I'm located in a city where everyone is 'on the make'; I've spent 28 years trying to believe otherwise and have ended up very used by 'friends' as well as my 'partner' who is from this city originally.Anyway, having said all of that, thank you for reading my extremely long 'moan' (!) in this site, I appreciate it very much.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 November 2023): Hi there,
You’re a similar age to myself.
I also suffer with IBS and a daily probiotic helps me a lot with that from the Optibac website.
If you read the reviews on there they are excellent.
I have had 2 long term abusive relationships in the past and I think rather than keep moaning about this man it is time that you accepted some responsibility that you remain in this relationship, and you know that he’s not going to change and so yes I agree start your plan to leave.
You say you have property abroad then why not go there for a while and have a change.
Time to do something about your situation because no one else will do it for you.
All the best
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (14 November 2023): Thank you, Female Reader Anonymous, for your time and consideration in writing in. I have read 'When the Body Says No' by Gabor Mate and it made complete sense to me, but it's been harder to put into practice because my partner's behaviour is overwhelming, especially as it's his place I live in - he is extremely chaotic and I find it virtually impossible to get into a healthy routine because of it. It's like living with a very undisciplined child and stresses me out so much.
I do find it very, very hard to identify things that I like, but I know I respond extremely well to nature and the outdoors, and to being able to create my own work schedule as much as possible. I don't think I'm in the right city to find more caring friendships - I'm very aware of the kind of patterns you mention and I realise I've tended to be overly giving to people in the past, only to have this backfire entirely if, one way or another, I say "No". This is a big part of why I thought it might be a good idea to start afresh in a new place. I will definitely take up your suggestion of meditation, I need some initial training in it though as I've tried it before and it didn't last long - but I can sense the benefits.
I can't believe two people have written in to try to help ! I thought I'd be ignored, so I'm really so pleased and grateful that you and Honeypie have bothered to answer me. Thanks again !
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (14 November 2023): Please, PLEASE take care of yourself!
If you decide to move, do it ONLY if it's going to improve your financial situation (e.g. if you can get a better paying job elsewhere). Moving ALWAYS costs money.
Your life, the choice of partner, decisions to educate yourself (or not), taking on more and more responsibilities... all those things are CONSEQUENCES of the way you think, the way you were brought up... meaning that even if you moved you are most likely to repeat to a certain extent some of the negative experiences.
IBS is a real thing BUT our mindsets contribute greatly to it. Please read and listen to lectures and interview of Gabor Mate. His a Hungarian-Canadian doctor and speaker, author... You can find him on YouTube, not to mention articles and books online. One of my favorites is When The Body Says No. We (mostly women) keep saying yes to things we don't want to do. With some people (me included) it is so ingrained that we do it automatically. At some point, after decades of not saying no, our bodies start saying it for us. We fall ill. So even our illnesses are consequence of the way we were brought up to think and act.
Therapy will help you as much as you are ready to help yourself. Even very expensive therapists cannot push their clients unless they are ready to do the work.
There are many things you can do for yourself that will cost you nothing - educate yourself on your "conditions": IBS, codependency... and everything else that comes to mind. Find a way to feed yourself the way it does not hurt your body ("eating healthy" doesn't mean a lot, broccoli is healthy, but if I eat it my intestines get inflamed). Try meditation. Walk every day. Do things that make YOU happy. Whenever somebody asks anything of you, no matter how insignificant it may seem, force yourself to say that you will think about it or practices for 2 months saying no to everything.
Also, owning property is great! Now you can focus on earning money. Think about what you can do to enhance your earning potential.
Also... we usually tend to repeat our patterns, so make sure that you're not fostering unhealthy relationships with your friends and family. When you start taking care of yourself and saying no to needy people, they will complain. Focus on yourself.
Good luck!
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (14 November 2023): Thank you Honeypie, I appreciate the time taken to write and I also admire the way you consistently offer extremely good advice to so many people who write in.
I think because my abusive mother would say. I was 'selfish' any time I dared to express a normal need for anything resembling care, effectively punishing me very severely, I have in the past been extremely unwilling to ever label anyone as 'selfish' - I haven't wanted to inflict that pain on them. But you are right and it's right to 'call a spade a spade'. He is ultimately so self-centred that he's like a single man with a fake 'relationship' on the side.
When I said 'move out of the area' it was intended as meaning to be closer to my daughter and grandchild. I should have made that clear.
I am putting together a plan for leaving.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (13 November 2023):
Start with a therapist and go get a full checkup at your GP.
Save up, if you can find a job you can do.
Exercise if you can. Nothing over the top, but go for long walks, a run or to a gym (if possible). Working out can help "energize." you.
And for whether your partner has ADHD diagnosed or not, is kind of irrelevant. He seems kinda selfish and a bit uncaring. That isn't ADHD, that is him.
Moving out of the area isn't going to fix your health issues or financial issues - that would be you running from your issues. The IBS would still follow and the chronic fatigue too. You need to deal with the IBS which is probably causing the fatigue. So SEE a doctor should be priority #1. Then look into a therapist and make a plan for WHAT you would like to do with yourself and your future. A REALISTIC plan. "Moving out of the area" is not a realistic plan.
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