New here. Undiagnosed if it is anything anyways

[peanutmorgendorffer]

Hi all. A friend linked me to Out of the FOG after I was... venting the other day about my home life with my SO and I mentioned another friend suggested that... Well, basically, they were both saying that they think I'm in an emotionally abusive relationship and they're concerned for me. If it helps any or means anything, I'm 26, my partner's 33. She's a divorcee with a nine year old, and we've been together for roughly five years now.
I'm a full-time university student, currently finishing up my MA in Music Production, after finishing a BA in Popular Music with Music Technology. That in itself is highly interwoven with my relationship and my SO. I'd given up on academia, having not done great in school or in college, and thinking it just wasn't for me, so I taught myself to play guitar and get writing to try to be productive and creative whilst job-hunting. SO got me to go to the uni's open day and apply and has since mentioned several times that if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have gotten into the university. Not entirely incorrect. She's said she hasn't minded the fact that I don't have a job currently (I did, it was a zero-hours contract and they let me go when I couldn't/wouldn't take shifts during the pandemic) because she's working full-time and it leaves me to do uni work and do the parenting at home for her kid, my step-daughter. Despite that, there are regular comments about how she's financially carrying us. But y'know, frustrations at home aren't necessarily a red flag, are they?
I feel I'm rambling, so I'll quote some of my aforementioned friends' comments because they kinda... collecting thoughts like that made me re-evaluate things. One of the friends is my friend and has never met my SO, the other one is currently my friend but knew my SO for a decade, they were incredibly close.

- [SO] is in charge of the finances/bills/everything monetary and goes on at you about it but doesn't relinquish control
- You aren't respected as or treated as a step-parent, and are usually 'put in your place' because the parent who is at work overrides your say when she gets home, despite you being the primary caregiver
- You aren't respected as an adult, and are the target of condescension, belittlement and general rants
- You have been labelled as Patient X, so everything wrong is your fault and she does everything perfectly
- Your requirements for just Adequate mental health are repeatedly ignored in favour of what makes her feel better. But it doesn't, because you then shut down, and that is labelled your fault
- Half-asleep, you forgot that one day out of many was a non-routine day, apologised for the lapse, and were still the target of ire and negativity

Apparently it's concerning that during arguments I am repeatedly told "You're never wrong, are you?" or "You just can't admit to being wrong ever, can you?" and that after arguments or blow-ups the follow-up is generally some variant on "Did you think about what I said?" or "Did any of what I said earlier go in?".

I guess for full disclosure, I'm currently finishing a stretch of CBT for depression and anxiety, I'm on sertraline tablets (both of these were recommended by the therapist we saw at a screening session for couples therapy where the therapist asked why we had turned up and SO turned to me and went "This was your idea, go on, talk" as the two of them focussed entirely on me; the therapist said she'd not had a chance to see about SO but clearly I needed one-on-one help before we could even consider couples counselling so to try CBT and talking to my GP about anti-depressants before contemplating returning to couples counselling - SO took that as "He's the problem" essentially), and have had depression/depressive symptoms most of my life, and am prone to fatalistic "It's all my fault" thinking, and when things go bad my default is either flight or freeze.
This has all caused issues in my relationship as during the five years we've been together I am regularly told my silence or lack of response is a sign of apathy or indifference, that she wishes I would argue back or yell at her in reply to her yelling at me, and that my shrinking before her frustrates her further. Lately, I've been working on my freezing up and tried to.. well, I guess I was trying to calmly disagree with her, which escalated the "You're never wrong, are you?" comments from her. The other day I asked her, a few hours after a blow-up, if she'd consider returning to couples counselling and the reply was "Yes, but you need work first".

I guess an average day at home would look like: SO sets her alarm to get up and get ready for work at 6am. I wake up with my alarm at 7am and SO is in bed on her phone. I get up, get called back for a morning kiss, go downstairs and sort breakfast for myself and the kid. SO rushes through the kitchen snapping about being in a hurry or being late and leaves. I oversee the kid getting ready and take her to school, then try to find time for work before I have to pick the kid up in the afternoon and take her home, try to chill for a bit, then SO comes home and takes a nap, I make dinner for everyone and then either I wash the dishes whilst SO oversees bedtime or (more often than not) I do the dishes then go oversee bedtime. I go downstairs and SO asks about watching something and we watch TV until she goes to bed saying she has to get up early for work, I go up to bed later and then repeat the next morning.
SO has complained about how we sit and watch a screen together and how that isn't "Quality Time", which I get, but also it's always her suggestion anyways. She has complained we don't go out enough, but I do go out every Sunday evening and Monday evening for martial arts stuff, and with everything happening between uni work, and house-work and everything, I like having time in the house to chill, and frankly I don't have an income beyond student loan payments. We're on Universal Credit but that all goes to her for her to sort bills and shopping and such, so I can't afford to go out. She's shouted at me about how I have hobbies and see other people but she never leaves the house except for work or taking the kid to dance class at the weekends and she wants to spend Quality Time together where we go out and she has a big thing about being "herself" or "my partner" rather than being in work-mode or parent-mode.
I'm not the most tactile or outwardly romantic person, which I get and understand, and feel I need to work on myself, but I also feel little incentive to when I so often feel like every option is the wrong option or every scenario is unwinnable. I am regularly asked if I'm doing something because I want to or because I think it's the right thing to do or because it's by request. I regularly hear that she wishes I was a flirty or handsy as we were at the start of the relationship. Every few weeks she has a big upset (she regularly jokes that her cycle leads her to trying to break up with me) and tells me if I really loved her and really found her attractive then I wouldn't need asking or prompting to show affection, I just would and that she feels predatory or like she's harassing me to try to get a response from me along those lines, and that if I was it would help her with her self-image problems which she's had her whole life, and would make her feel attractive and wanted. The other day she got so upset over this she gave herself a migraine and took the following day off from work, and I've heard regularly since that she needed me that day and half an hour to hold her and watch something wouldn't have killed me (her wording), but rightly or wrongly I was treating it like a regular weekday and trying to do work whilst she was on the sofa not feeling great.

All of this has been worsened lately as the kid has been acting up. She walked out of school a few weeks back with some money she took from our bedroom because she "wanted to go to the shops". We grounded her and said no screens, no treats etc. The kid's got issues with lying and stealing, she's nine and pushing boundaries and hard-wired to think that if nothing goes wrong, she's not in the wrong, we're all over-reacting and being unfair and we're ruining her fun.
A few days ago, the day began with the kid having gone through her mum's purse in her handbag and taken out pound-notes, and SO was looking through the purse and asked about the money, kid said she didn't know and her mum said the money was for us to go to the dance class awards show at which point the kid went "Oh, I'll go get it then" and returned with the money in her hand. That day ended with me asking the kid why her bedroom's blind was bent and instead of her going "I stood on it before mum put it up" she kept going "I don't know" and rightly or wrongly I went "Okay, well, I'll sit here until you remember" as SO started screaming up the stairs "Stop going on at her, she didn't do it". So I went downstairs and SO was going "You badger and badger but you never do any wrong, do you? You can't admit to being wrong. I told you the blind was broken and getting worse, I told you that's why I bought those curtains but it just doesn't register. You don't listen to me.", I apologised and said I must've forgotten or not joined dots as there was an hour or two of being told I don't listen or care before she stormed off to go to bed.
The following morning, pre-coffee, still mentally waking up, whilst doing the dishes and feeling groggy, I saw SO walk into the kitchen in her pyjamas and asked if she was going to work today and she went off about how she's been telling me all week she has the day off and that if she was significant or important to me I'd remember things she'd gone on about for days. I apologised and said I'd had a momentary lapse and forgot and she was saying that if I cared about her, I'd actually listen and actually remember things, and that I don't care about her, she's not a priority etc etc. (This was the last bullet-point in the above quoted friend's list).

As I said in the subject-heading, she's undiagnosed for an PDs. She's on anti-anxiety medication, I know that much, and she has epilepsy (which is an issue with going to gigs and concerts, and a regular source of frustration and arguments about her memory where I get told not to assume she remembers things because it's unfair because of her epilepsy which makes her forget things, whilst I get told if I cared I'd remember things).
I'm being seen for depression and anxiety and am on sertraline. I've recently worked on being more productive and creative and actually trying to make time to make music again at home. I hadn't played guitar until recently since the big COVID lockdown began, I'd decided the big lockdown where I was stuck at home was the perfect time to work in/on my home studio, and SO threw the bedroom door open yelling about how I was being selfish and inconsiderate and making too much noise. I decided the argument wasn't worth it, unplugged everything and didn't touch any of my gear again for months and months. I suppose to her point, I hadn't started the day by saying "I want to play and record some guitars later" but I also feel like she knew she was getting into a relationship with a musician and she pushed me to go to uni and be a music student. I don't know, maybe I'm being selfish. I have issues with working at extremes. I love music, music means a lot to me, and in my CBT sessions we'd talked about "pillars of personality" and how I'd spent years and years building and defining my personality solely around and upon music, so when I started living with someone who finds noise overwhelming, doesn't really want me to be shut up in a room practicing or working, and doesn't like a lot of the music I like (despite her claims to the contrary and that I should stop assuming her opinions etc), I actually stopped with music. For most of that big summer lockdown, from her yelling in the kitchen about the noise during breakfast to her yelling whilst I was trying to work, I stopped listening to music, playing music, and shut down. I spent a few weeks actually being very sedentary and waiting to be told what we were going to do next or waiting to be prompted to do something. She then got upset saying I had over-reacted and taken her comments too seriously and too much to heart and that I was being over-sensitive, and that she hadn't meant to stop everything forever, just that when she has outbursts and upsets like that she means in that moment, or on that day, not forever, and that I shouldn't take things like they mean forever, she just found the noise overwhelming and was hurt that I hadn't told her what I was going to do and that I was being inconsiderate and making her feel like she's my mother as I'm a moody teen living at home rather than her feeling like my sexy girlfriend (her wording). My thinking is that if they are solely for "in that moment" such outbursts and comments would be much less frequent.
I am aware that throughout this, I am mostly providing my side and I am sure she could list my faults, (trying to remember the list she was yelling the other day: I don't listen, I don't prioritise her, I never take her out, I'm not affectionate towards her, she feels I'm only here because of the cat/convenience/lack of alternatives, I don't tell her things, I never answer when she asks what I'm thinking in any given moment....), and yeah...

Sorry for the wall of text and ramble. I could probably keep going. I don't know.
Thank you so much if you read all of this and sorry for taking up so much screen-space and time.

[notrightinthehead]

Wow! That doesn't sound like a healthy, mutually supportive relationship to me. I am so sorry you are going through this. Your response to conflict - freeze or flight - doesn't do much to assert yourself. Sounds like you just gave up and gave in.
It doesn't sound like you have the opportunity to grow into the best person you can be in this relationship. How much longer are you planning to stay? And if you are planning to stay- are you willing to work on yourself? Protect yourself from verbal put downs? Being yelled at? Implement boundaries? Check out the Toolbox for strategies that might be helpful in your situation.
I am glad you found us. Welcome to this site!  We have all been in similar situations and understand. See you around on the boards.

[1footouttadefog]

There are alot of things that seem unhealthy about what you describe. 

It seems that she does not put a priority on those thing she says are a priority.

I also so this but I own it. 

For example she says she wants to go out 9n the weekends as acouple, she wants more romantic time etc.  Then she wastes at least an hour on the phome/internet every morning.  She has a nap when she comes home while you cook and she could be spending that time with you or the kid.  She then sabotages getting the kid off to bed leaving you to do both dishes and the kid to bed routines taking quality time from the kid who is acting out in public. 

She then sabotages time that could be romantically spent watching tv for hours each night.  She is sabotaging your music time also.  Additionally you are being gaslighted in many ways.

Perhaps set boundaries along the lines of time management.  Ask her to sleep that last hour between 6-7 so she does not need a nap in the evening.  Suggest she spend the hour after she gets home with her kid going over school and talking about her day and homework and such.  Perhaps they could alternate and cook the meals together as mother daughter team while you work on music every other evening. 

You might suggest he helping get the kid to bed might set the stage for more romance. 

Perhaps some of the saved time could bc e converted into date time on the weekend.

If you live in a world where you make any such suggestions to meet her needs and they result in you being at fault, you getting reminded of everything you ever did wrong etc, and her being angry you know where you stand.

I am sorry to read your story, there are many huge red flags in it.  There is a list of traits in the Toolbox and resources part if the website.  I think it would be helpful for you to read through and take notice of which ones apply to your relationship. 

Maybe reclaimed time could be used for date time on the weekends. 

[peanutmorgendorffer]

Thanks for taking the time to read it, I really appreciate it, and thank you so much for taking this seriously. I think I've had doubts myself about how "real" all of this is so I appreciate that.
I emailed my therapist to talk about all of this. It feels like I've spent the last couple of weeks re-evaluating the last five years. it's very surreal to look back now and see things may have all been building and that what I was viewing as normal bumps in the road and my own mistakes my have not been normal or entirely my fault after all.
I am thinking of trying again with couples counselling but with the concern that it may mimic the screening session, SO and the therapist will just look at me expectantly and SO will shrug saying it was all my idea and she doesn't have anything to talk about. I guess if that happens, I know this can't be fixed.
Currently, it's... It's a lot, honestly.