u/Kajjis

Okay so the background: I (27F) am currently working on my masters in university. We are encouraged to do both our bachelor's thesis and master's thesis with a partner. I knew from very early on what I wanted to do my thesis on (the topic is something extremely close to me) and a friend Anna (fake name) (24F) got interested and proposed that we could work as a pair. I actually like working with a partner and doing our bachelor's thesis went great.

However we have been working on our master's thesis since last August and it's a completely different story. Anna has been having mental health problems since November and we have been having fights. Now I think it's relevant to know I'm autistic. No I don't use it as an excuse to be rude or mean because it's not, but sometimes I do come off as such without realizing. My close friends (including Anna) are aware of this and we've had many frank conversations on this and I always encourage them to tell me if I do that and they also do their best to not assume I mean anything other than what I say.

So since November Anna has been getting angry at me for a lot of things. Whenever she has said that something I do annoys her I have tried to work on it, but there are some things that she gets mad at me and asks me to do another way but then later gets mad when I do it the way she asked. I also have expressed multiple times that I feel very hurt over the way she speaks to me and seems to intentionally misunderstand me. For example if I ask her why she wants to do something a specific way and she answers that she feels it's the best way and I again ask her why, she gets mad at me and takes it as if I am insulting her when I'm genuinely trying to understand.

Now during the spring there has been multiple times where we have talked about something regarding our thesis and she says something to me or I think we agree on something, but when we talk to our supervisor or someone else she suddenly says completely different things. Leaving me looking like an idiot because I have just been like yeah we agreed this is the way we'll do it and then she goes "no actually I think that doesn't work at all".

In April Anna went into an elective surgery (the reasoning is completely cosmetic) and told me about it only a few weeks prior, after telling me since January that she would be getting it done in June or July. She was supposed to get back to work on our thesis only a couple of days after (this is purely what she told me would happen). However I have been working on our thesis essentially alone since then. We were supposed to turn in our thesis today for the last notes from our supervisors before turning it in for grading. Wednesday last week Anna messages me angry that I had removed something she had previously worked on from our results. I explained why I did it, Anna didn't agree but she had no reasoning to keep what I had removed. She kept saying that we should do this together and I pointed out that she is the one that refuses to come and work with me and the conversation ended

Later that day we got a message from our supervisors asking if we could meet on Friday. Long story short Anna went to our supervisors saying that I dictate the process and won't let her make any decisions regarding our thesis. She cried in the meeting saying she has been on sick leave and hasn't been able to do anything (to my knowledge she was on sick leave for the couple days after the operation over a month ago). I got lectured on how I need to respect my partner and be able to work with other people in academia and if I'm not able to work together then it will be reflected in the grading of our thesis. Then directed by our supervisors "we" made a new plan. Which was essentially dictated by Anna and then they asked me if that works for me, but honestly I had no other choice but to agree because "you need to be able to compromise".

Now the option to separate and make our own thesis was brought up but very strongly discouraged. I agreed to try to work together but the more I think about it I just don't feel like I can. All of this has really been wearing on my mental health as well and I actually contacted my care provider today because I have started to feel like my anxiety is getting out of hand. If we were to separate at this point the situation we are in is that about 70% of our thesis is done by me. Which would mean that Anna would be in more trouble than me. So would I be the asshole if I now decided that I don't want to continue working together but wish to separate, thus leaving Anna in trouble when she is already having mental health troubles.