My AuDHD partner (F36) gets overwhelmed by life and then has no capacity to be considerate and kind to me (F25).
I would like some advice on how to navigate supporting an autistic & adhd partner who struggles a lot with overwhelm. As soon as she gets overwhelmed, she loses capacity to care for me or be considerate at all. We are planning on moving towards being each other’s life partners and moving in together with the other two members of our polycule but I am worried that she isn’t able to be a reliable partner for me.
I know she loves me a lot and cares for me. But she also avoids the things that are hard to deal with (usually something to do with bills, money, forms, her ill cat). When those things come too close or become unavoidable, she gets overwhelmed and I have to step in to help her out of the mess. I have said to her before that I am more than happy to help but I don’t want it to be an emergency, that stresses me out. She agrees and seems to get it and then does it again.
This weekend we were at a festival together. We agreed that she wouldn’t get blackout drunk, no matter what happened, because this has caused conflict before. I paid for her ticket so we could go together with our group of friends. I provided all the camping gear (including my meta’s tent and my partner’s sleeping bag which I borrowed from them). I told her that we need to be careful with everything because it’s fancy gear and it’s important to me that everything makes its way back to them in good nic.
First night, she gets blackout drunk, never checked in with me, never asked me if I was okay when I got lost, pissed on the tent, and spoke badly about me in front of our friends. I confronted her the next morning and she asked what she was supposed to do, that drinking was the only option because she was angry at her dad for what he said to her on the phone that night. I left the festival and am waiting to speak to her when she’s back.
What do I do? How can I trust her again when this is how she treats my trust? I get that life can be too much but I would never get so overwhelmed that my care and love for another person goes out of the window. She seems to lack the self awareness to know when she can’t do something, lacks the skills to take herself away from overwhelm and recuperate. I don’t want to be in a dynamic where I care and give what I can to help and then get discarded as soon as her big feelings are too much for her to handle or life gets tough.
What do I do?