My (F40) partner (F45) has disengaged from life
TL;DR Partner has steadily disengaged from life, I don’t want to break up but feel we are wasting our lives.
On the face of what I will say, I believe a lot of people will say to end the relationship. I don’t want to do that, I want to help get us back in a better place.
We’ve been together for 13 years, usually story when we first met it was great. About 5 years into it, my partner went through an awful time, losing her Mum and sister within 4 months of each other. She had an awful childhood so this was a very complicated bereavement.
She basically shut down after this, basically didn’t leave her room for years (we ended up having separate bedrooms as she unfortunately put on a lot of weight and has what I think is sleep apnea- the snoring is exceptionally loud). To the point the room got mold because she never left it and didn’t open a window or door to ventilate.
She adamantly refuses therapy as she had a bad experience with social workers so she doesn’t trust anything she says will be kept in confidence.
Fast forward to now and it has all gone downhill, she is a freelance creative and has very sporadic work, apart from this and going food shopping she does nothing. Absolutely nothing, just sleeps and eats. No housework at all, she doesn’t have any friends so it all falls on me. She sleeps all day, gets up, eats, watches tv and then sleeps again.
If I were reading this, I may say she is depressed. We have had that conversation in many different forms over many years. But she will not do anything at all to help, she acknowledges she is overweight and doesn’t have anything going on but completely refuses to do anything.
We are lucky that I own the house and have a full time job. I fear that if we spilt up, she wouldn’t be able to afford housing and has absolutely no support network.
I don’t know why I’m posting, I feel like we have wasted our lives and it is down to nothing now. We can’t have any type of conversation without it descending into an argument.
I had vacation days recently, I ended up taking myself out of the house with no idea what to do, and felt so isolated and guilty to leave her that I ended up spending a lot of time just in car parks so I could feel like there was something going on.