We've been together for well over a decade. She has ADHD and CPTSD and that makes our relationship difficult, but she won't take accountability for the difficulty it causes. I'm just supposed to deal with it on my own.
There's the DARVO (Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender). The fucking DARVO. Yesterday, I went to her for emotional support about something that was frustrating me. Her response was to tell me what to do to fix it. When I explained it was more about frustration than needing a fix, she said nothing and walked out of the room. I later expressed how I felt dismissed and asked her please not to leave the room without saying anything when I'm talking , especially when asking for support. Her response was a lengthy explanation about how she left because she felt the conversation was over. I told her that I felt conversations tend to have a close, not just walking away without another word, so I was confused and hurt. So her response shifted: suddenly, despite her lengthy justification of why her actions were actually okay, it was actually ME who left the room. WTF. It was clear she was being defensive, so I asked that we take a break and discuss later. Later, she didn't want to discuss it at all. I was told this was my fault because I asked to put the conversation on hold, so we could discuss again when she was ready, after work the next day. Given her MO is postponing conversations for days until I simply give up, that is unlikely to happen. We're at four conversations where "we'll talk about it tomorrow, I promise!" from just the last two weeks. I told her my feelings were hurt and I was feeling unimportant, so she told me she needed space, didn't want to talk, and wanted me to leave. Ouch.
When we do talk about difficult topics, we just can't seem to have normal conversations. I'll ask her a question, but she'll answer by talking about something else entirely. I'll acknowledge what she said but explain it doesn't answer my question, but she'll again change the topic to something else. Eventually I get frustrated trying to pin her down, so we agree to talk about it later, but later never comes because she's nearly always too tired. Skimming my diary, we have literally over three dozen indefinitely postponed important conversations since January, all because she's consistently too tired to talk.
We've been separated for nine months now, with me living with a friend. We're in couples and individual therapy, and a consistent issue is her lack of capacity. She just doesn't have the time or energy, ever. Two weeks ago I brought up how she is still consistently avoiding talking about our relationship issues outside of therapy, so I wanted to separate if she was unable to make the time to do the work. She agreed to make time during her week for us to talk, plus she suggested we start a sort of relationship charter, where we outline what we want in the relationship and how we'll get there. Great fucking idea and I felt so much relief that we had a path forward.
But none of this happened. No time was made and no charter was even started, despite her repeatedly promising to create a document for us to share. I keep all We agreed to be finished with a rough draft by Wednesday and she can't take 30s to make an empty document file.
I love her so much, but she hasn't had the time or energy to be present in the relationship for years. She has promised repeatedly it'll be better after "the next big hurdle" passes, but there's always a new one to take its place, so the improvement never comes. When I'm at our home, she naps and watches TV by herself in the back bedroom while I do things by myself around the house. We don't go out - she's too tired because she works 9-10 hour days straight without breaks and has chronic insomnia she refuses to see a doctor about.
So... I'm just done and it breaks my fucking heart. I saw such a great future for us, but I need a partner who is present, not someone with a neverending list of excuses about why they're not here today, but they'll sure be there tomorrow, and that's what the work will start. I've been waiting for years for tomorrow to come. I'm done.
I've avoided wooden pencils my entire life because of it. I love the ultra-fine 0.3mm graphite with a retractable sleeve, like you suggested. It's funny that I'm fine with scratchy graphite on paper, but hate scratchy wood on paper.