Posted By: mellers on
I had a really interesting comment on a blog the other day, which expressed surprise at why I am still living with a man when it makes me so unhappy. At the time, I didn't want to go in to the full explanation but in replying to her personally I have found the process very cathartic. I also feel that you guys deserve an explanation too, so with that In mind, I'm doing this explanation post.
This is not a cry for help, nor an expression of me feeling awful, just a rationale of the way my mind works and why I stay. I don't need you to rush to my aid today, I'm not feeling really bad about it, I am today, just accepting it for what it is, but am in the mood to share my thoughts with you.
So just, read, and understand and take away with you what you will and treasure what you have. Please don't feel like you have to send me a load of hugs to pick me off the floor today, as that's not where I am. Of course hugs are ALWAYS welcome! lol! but today, I am pottering on without the desperate need for them.
WHY I STAY IN THIS RELATIONSHIP
To being with, I'm really all he's got and I feel responsible for him. In fact the reason I even went out with him in the first place was to try to help him improve his social skills. However, we both now believe he suffers from a mild form of autism called aspergers syndrome (possibly coupled with dyspraxia) and he suffers from diagnosed depression. He has only one friend who lives 50 miles away and no outside social interests and only his aged parents as close-by family members.
Add to that my own social isolation which meant that in the 9 months he worked away from our home together, I saw no-one, spoke to very few people (always about work problems) on the phone and generally became a recluse to the point that I was then hospitalised with depression. I know it would not be good for my own mental health to live alone. I stay for myself, mainly because of the fear of a life lived alone. I know how damaging it can be. I have no family, no true real-life friends (only casual acquaintances) and no RL support network of my own. In effect he is all I have too.
Lastly, on the occasions when things have got SO intolerable that I have asked him to leave, he refuses. Despite the fact that this is my house (and I could attempt to exercise my legal right to evict him) he will not willingly or easily give up what he sees as his moral right to live here. He is, it seems as fearful of living on his own, as I am. To evict him I would need to employ the service of possibly, police, solicitors and maybe even the court. I am not a strong enough person to go through that process right now and probably never will be.
We do know what else is out there both of us and have sadly both experienced it for many years. Neither of us want to go back to that sort of suicidal loneliness. For this lifetime, we settle for "the best we can do". In my case it is him.
Mellers
Tags:
acceptance, relationship