I'm probably not the best to give advice in this area, but communication is the glue that holds things together. Hopefully, you and your partner already communicate well, and you can tell him about how the cleaning makes you feel. Conversely, they should be able to tell you when things aren't going well.
I think you're definitely qualified to give me advice in this area, haha. My partner communicates well with me, although he's withdrawn some and doesn't tell me what's upsetting him sometimes. I try to be understanding and I always try to create an environment where he knows he can talk to me but I guess we've had the same general problems for over a year now and neither of us want to rehash them. On the other hand, I'm terrible at communicating in real life and that probably stems from my childhood. It never feels safe communicating my feelings, so I bottle them up. But it's something I'm working on.
Thankfully, I was able to tell him how the cleaning makes me feel. Writing out my feelings here and venting to another friend of mine gave me the words I needed when I couldn't find them.
You don't have to answer this, you can just ignore it, but do you think it's too late for you and your wife to communicate efficiently? Does the problem get worse the longer I let it go on? I'm a little scared of that but it's really hard to say things, I just have the assumption that whatever I say will be blown off or made fun of like it was when I was a kid and teenager.
The universe might be trying to send you a sign.
I think it is! I can't wait to tend to my plant and see if it's really still alive. They are flowers that my partner bought me so it made me a little sad that I wasn't equipped enough at the time to keep them alive. I want to make them bloom again next season.
I'm not sure therapy is working, but have another ketamine session set for Friday. I might have a better update later this week.
I've heard of people experiencing lulls in their treatment. I even had one myself where I thought things weren't working, and my family was being really hard on me for even going to therapy in the first place at the time, so I stopped going. I hope you don't stop; I think we plateau sometimes before a breakthrough. It goes like that in life, too— we feel like nothing is happening, and then, suddenly, we see some progress.
Glad to hear that your partner is supportive and isn't quite as bad as I thought based on the anecdotes I'd put together.
Haha, yeah, I realize that I'm kind of one-sided on the complaining. So many people just tell me to leave him. I'm like "wait, no, I just forgot to mention that I'm part of the problem too!"
I could be a better communicator. Things are pretty messed up because I let him ask me about moving enough for me to give in, I didn't stand on my own boundary enough and now we're in a situation where, by my estimation, he gets more benefit from this relationship than I do, but there was a time when that wasn't the case. I don't think it makes him a bad person but to a certain degree I do feel used now because he acted on my worst fear when it comes to partnering up with someone (if you come from a third world country in my region, at least, and you have more than one passport, you're basically a commodity and my family warned me about this very early in my life), which I have said to him a lot of times, and he tries his best to not make me feel that way, but it's just a feeling I can't shake off. Hopefully one day things will be better, but if it doesn't get better, I can always just peace out myself when the end goal for him has been reached.
I also just moved a few months ago and have been in my most recent horrible depressive/ dissociative state since pretty much the day I left my old place, so I don't exactly have joyous associations with my home environment, as nice as it is for a studio apartment, and the process of settling in has been hard.
I can relate to this. When I first moved, my apartment was empty for a really long time and it was so depressing coming back there. It felt stuffy and suffocating and it only reminded me of all the crying sessions I had and of everything that lead to me being here. But over time you buy trinkets, and furniture, and you fill your place up with so much of
you that it becomes your happy place even when you're miserable. Settling in is hard, notoriously so, but I hope that you don't give up on that!
Does anyone have any suggestions for things that help them feel moments of happiness rather than solely to pass time? I'm open to any suggestions.
Welcome to the thread! Why are you feeling down, if you don't mind me asking? I think the quintessential answer to this question is something we never want to hear: hobbies. It's the only way I can think of that passes time and brings joy. Is there anything that you like to do? Anything that you ever wanted to try?
And maybe moments of "happiness" are a really high goal. I'm not saying this to discourage you, but if it's too hard to reach, why not moments of contentment? Or distraction? Honestly, when I'm feeling down and I want to feel better, sometimes I just come and vent in here…