u/ChamomileWithHoney

I’m finding it hard to understand what people mean when they say I’m intense. I’ve always been called that, but I’m not sure what it really means. When I ask, they don’t seem to know either. I feel like I bring a lot of chaos wherever I go, but I just get really excited about certain topics sometimes. Especially emotional, philosophical, or theological ones, and I can’t imagine wanting to talk about anything else. Right now, all I want to talk about is the book Braiding Sweetgrass and nature-based world views, so I can imagine that’s difficult to deal with. I struggle a lot with the injustice of the world and I’m frustrated that there’s enough for everyone, but we just choose not to. The system doesn’t make sense. I know specific interests can be typical for neurodivergent people, but is the intense part also a neurodivergent thing? Does anyone know what they could mean by that?

I’m a stay-at-home mom with a one-year-and-ten-month-old. I still breastfeed and we co-sleep. Lately, I’ve been feeling completely burned out.

Things were mostly okay until last Mother’s Day. My partner told me that I “live off his money” and “take advantage of him,” even though we had agreed from the beginning that this was how we would do things. Originally, I thought I’d be able to work from home while being a stay-at-home mom, but I quickly realized that was unrealistic for me.

We talked about it, and he agreed that it was okay for me to stay home and that I would go back to work once our child started school.

Later, he said he wanted a second child. I told him I would only be comfortable with that if we handled it the same way we are now: I stay home with the baby until they go to school. He agreed to that too. But only a few weeks later, he changed his mind and said that if I wanted a second child, I would also need to work from home. That completely contradicted our earlier conversations, especially since we already know how difficult (almost impossible) that would be for me.

There were also times when he said he wanted to be the stay-at-home parent because it “seems easier.” This was while I was exclusively breastfeeding, recovering from a difficult pregnancy and a three-day labor, and surviving on broken sleep ever since. He almost never gets out of bed before noon, stays up gaming or watching videos until 2–3 a.m., and outside of working, he doesn’t really help much before or after work.

I’ve been exhausted physically and emotionally for a long time. I still haven’t slept through the night since becoming a mom. Last Mother’s Day, I asked if he could get up with our toddler in the morning because he hadn’t done it in weeks. I still have to get up too because handling our toddler alone is hard, but at least I could drink my coffee and scroll on my phone for a bit.

Instead, he slept in again. For some reason, that was the moment I couldn’t just brush it off anymore.

When I brought it up, he told me that I already “sleep enough” because I do fall asleep with my child often, but that’s because I’m beyond tired, not because I’m well-rested. And yes, I plan to continue co-sleeping because I genuinely believe in it. Then he asked me what I was “going to do with my life” and said I would “amount to nothing.”

Ever since then, it feels like all the exhaustion hit me at once. Suddenly I feel all the tiredness I’ve been pushing through for almost two years, and I’m struggling to care about our relationship the way I used to. I don’t know if it’s resentment, burnout, emotional detachment, or all of it combined.

I honestly don’t know if I can forgive what he said this time. And I don’t know if I’m crazy for feeling this hurt by it.

This is mostly just venting, but advice or personal stories are welcome.