rest well, friend

About me: 27, Eastern Standard Time, lover of cozy games and file organization ❤️ My AuDHD is almost as strong as my gender fluidity. Almost.

If you send me posts of cats or outer space, we will become best of friends, I swear that's how this works!

My posts will be tagged "#Turtleoutoftheshell" moving forward, just to track them better.

And just to be clear at the onset: This is not a safe space for bigots of any variety.

I've been seeing my partner for 8 months now, and it's been great - literally the most stable, reciprocal relationship of *any* kind that I've ever had.

They have 2 kids and share custody with a man who had CPS called on him several times before their divorce 3 or 4 years ago, but he has a house and a much better-paying job, and from what I've been told that was the big motivator for shared custody.

I hate how he treats my partner, he is passive aggressive and demanding and an asshole. For one example, the few times he's has to schedule appointments for either kid, he schedules it where my partner has to take off work to accommodate it. Like, that's absolutely fucked, he has availability for stuff like that but *chooses* to make it their bonus unexpected task without communicating it, just adding it to their calendar last-minute without a word.

It's also a 2v1 situation, and the dad's partner is just as bad as he is but in different ways, being friendly to my partner when the dad is out of town and doubling down on the passive aggression whenever he is in town.

But truthfully, I do not give a flying fuck about him or his companion in this scenario. I'm much more concerned thay my partner has resigned themself to martyrdom rather than be assertive and set boundaries.

The one time in this 8 months that my partner has felt the need to put a foot down, it was a panic attack for them and several hours worth of degrading texts sent their way.

I was reading an essay today, Cancelling Agreements with Your Reality by Joseff McKenneth Goodwin. There was a distinction on page 21 that resonated with me:

"Martyrdom says, “The disproportion is my fate, and my role is to endure it.”

Cancellation says, “The disproportion is an agreement I made, and I can unmake it.”"

The essay is built on nuance, and I highly encourage a read (link to store page). But this quote distills my frustration.

I was in the martyrdom mindset for the majority of my life. That ended around this time last year, and I had to hard-adjust to people who were used to me being a doormat turning a 180 when I asked to talk about something they did that rubbed me the wrong way (to put it mildly).

I also had to hard-adjust to those folks anticipating boundaries we hadn't yet set and crossing them anyway for shits and giggles, and it led to me fleeing the household (to put it briefly).

To see my partner in that headspace in reference to that relationship makes me want to have a convo with them about being more assertive. But knowing the dad's history and how much they want the kids to be safe there? It's not going to be a productive conversation.

I've tried to gently broach the subject twice to see if they would talk about it unprompted, and they quickly used humor to deflect, which is a survival mechanism and surviving is important.

My partner is the most considerate person I have ever know. Full stop. And seeing that consideration being manipulated and abused on purpose? It makes me sick to my stomach.

We had a convo today about a present-tense thing he did, and I had to end that convo a bit quickly to calm myself down when my partner downplayed the impact and once again deflected. The autistic sense of justice is strong in me, I swear.

I can't compel anyone to any end, and all I can control is myself. So I am expressing this here, to feel like someone sees me. And then I will talk with my therapist about it. And she will tell me that I am not the owner of this problem, and this is triggering my memories of fear from last year. So I'll go do a meditation, feel my feelings, and move forward. And express that last bit to my partner, really did not realize the trigger part until I went "huh, what will my therapist say about this?"