All my life I was struggling maintaining friendships and closer meaningful relationships, me and my partner only had abusive (physically, too) relationships before we met each other.
The problem is, I probably have bipolar and autism. They have ADHD. We both also have depression. Some days I have manic episode, some are full of apathy and the third type of days is “easy agitation and anger in general”.
On days when I’m apathetic or angry-ish I try to not create a situation when something might fail etc. But I forget to say “please” and “thank you” to my partner verbally and it always results in them bursting into hatred and afterwards, tears. I try to rationalise that the wording itself is not important to me and I can’t understand why would it be important to them, why won’t they just accept that some days with me are better without any confrontation? They insist I’m the abuser because I do not try to understand them, even though I do try. I tried time and time again to memorise and get a habit of using soft language when asking them for anything. But this situation always repeats itself. Like I’m in a limbo.
I think it’s called social intelligence? The thing I do lack and why I’m less concerned about the wording of things. It’s like I can’t remember what topics I can or cannot talk about with a specific person or what triggers they have. It’s driving us nuts.
Edit:grammar
TL;DR - even if you’re both Neurodivergent, you each have different neurotypes with actually different needs and brain workings. if you really can’t find meaning and purpose in please/thanks/etc, your partner’s need to receive such social niceties(or appreciation in a different form) is just as valid. both things can be true, and it’s possible to find workarounds if you both examine what is at the root of those needs. it often comes down to figuring out how to show care daily in some way that is both sincere and is perceivable by the other person.
example: my partner likes origami. i don’t like it that much but I’m good enough at it that they find it impressive. so when i can, i give them an origami flower or animal and they feel a lot of affection from me through that.
about being called an abuser, there definitely are autistic abusers and non-autistic abusers, and autistic people who are misunderstood as having abusive intent.
just yesterday i was listening to the Divergent Conversations podcast (old episode) and they were taking about how certain autistic people who are NOT narcissistic can be mistakenly called narcissistic by others and their behavior is received as abuse by others.
the gist is that some autistic people are not particularly introspective and not curious about their own inner world, hence not curious and inquisitive about others’ inner world and feelings. this is not inherently wrong or cruel by itself. this doesn’t mean the person doesn’t have feelings. we all express and discuss feelings in different ways, which makes it sometimes don’t look like feelings at all to others’ eyes or our own.
the problem is when it doesn’t match the emotional interaction styles and attachment styles of other people we care about.
because the less curious person can’t, at the time, take steps in understanding and fulfilling their partner’s emotional needs, the partner end up having to live in the less curious partner’s pov reality which is a non-native environment for them. because it contradicts their other experiences and relational environments, it can have an effect like gaslighting. ways to fulfill the needs can be learned and the specific forms of filling the needs can often be negotiated.
the confusion with abusive/narcissistic is that the abused partner is also forced to live in a “hostile” reality which gaslights their lived experience.
so it’s important to acknowledge the other person has needs that we can’t fulfill necessarily in the default way society tells us or the way that seems easiest/most direct for the person. this is true in most relationships, and in both directions, partner a<->partner b. but the needs usually can be fulfilled in another way. or depending on what it is, it can be fulfilled by friendships/family.
regarding please/thanks specifically, i think a perceived lack of appreciation/consideration (which this words are generally associated to) can trigger RSD. if you don’t know that term, definitely look it up. it can be a HUUUUUGE part of ADHD. in the 1960s it was called “atypical depression” or sth like that because they didn’t yet really know what ADHD was.
I try to rationalise that the wording itself is not important to me and I can’t understand why would it be important to them, why won’t they just accept that some days with me are better without any confrontation?
That’s not how relationships work. It’s important to them. If they are important to you, then you put in the effort. If you can’t put in the effort on some days, maybe spend some time apart. The second part of that quote is also pretty problematic. If you are not respectful to them, telling them that they should not confront you about it is really toxic.
I’m autistic and depressed. I make similar mistakes. But I gotta ask myself the question: do I ask of my partner(s) things that I would myself not do? It seems that you are doing that. You’re asking them to ignore your behaviour, while you also ask of them to behave correctly towards you.
I’m relatively convinced that “growing together” doesn’t really work. I only improved either alone or in a relationship with someone that was obviously more well-adjusted than me.
If there’s too much friction, especially in vulnerable/problematic periods, problematic behaviors get reinforced rather than remedied. In my experience, it kinda requires one side to be able to maintain the “proper” behavior for any change to happen. If both sides degenerate into their worst traits, it only gets worse.
Sooo, I guess I don’t really have any good advice. Do with it what you will.
Make please and thank you a habit. Not just for your partner but everyone. It will be a conscious effort at first. Once it’s a habit things will hopefully be smoother.
