I (28f) put post-its everywhere in my apartment to remind myself of what my partner (28m) asks me to do and if backfired.

Hello r/relationships. Obviously throwaway account here.

TL;DR: My long term partner has a lot of peculiarities about the way he likes things at home. I try my best but always forget. In an effort to remember, I put post-its all over the house with things he asks me to do, but he was greatly hurt by this.

I have been dating my partner (28m, let's call him Tom) for over 4 years now. For 2 years, we were long distance, and another half year or so of medium distance before we moved together in Tokyo. We have been living together almost a year now. I am not 100% sure when it started, but for the last few months, I have been starting to have crazy bouts of like, hysterical episodes.

Usually they go like this: there is a buildup of stress which suddenly gets triggered by a small thing that Tom does or asks me to do. I am crazy and inconsolable for a few hours up to a few days. It is hard to remember the details of my past episodes at this moment, but I can use my most recent one as an example.

The stress build up: My period was super late. Very unusual so I spent about a week freaking out that I was pregnant. I have a stable income and everything (and up until now good relationship) so it wasn't the most negative freaking out, very up and down. When my period came, I became genuinely sad and was really down about it all week. It sounds stupid but it almost felt like a loss. Tom was busy with work and really into a new game right now, so I didn't have the chance to share my feelings with him and they built up. On top of that, work was really busy with a lot of little things to try and manage which always gets me stressed.

The trigger: For context Tom is Japanese and I come from a very different culture. He was taught many very specific habits from a very young age and therefore come naturally to him, leaving him wondering why they are so difficult for me. This includes things like closing all doors, washing dishes right after eating, to very specific things such as placing a cup a certain way so that it is easiest to grab next time you use it. I come from the exact opposite upbringing and I agree it is nicer to be orderly so I do my best, but I very often forget these things because I am not used to them and it is a point of contention of late. Today, he asked me from now on to place my shoes facing the door at the entrance "so they're easier to slip on when I leave".

I broke down because I know I won't remember yet another task and cried. I had to use a sick day for the second half of the day. Then come the post-its: I grabbed a pad and pen and stuck them everywhere in the house as reminders to do all the little things I have been asked to do over the past year, for example in the entrance next to my shoes to remind me to put them the "correct" way. This greatly upset him when I was just trying to make it possible not to disappoint him and make him do all the housework because I'm just trying to remember.

We just had a discussion later in the day and he was really hurt by the post-its. It felt to him like I was rubbing in his face all the things he was "ordering me to do". I understand the feeling, but he often gets annoyed at all the things I can't remember to do properly so I thought it would be good to help build habits. Which would have been good to explain to him but I was hysterical and didn't convey the message.

Anyways, we left off where he said he cannot live like this, where every few weeks I break down and get all hysterical and overreact to little things he does. The last few times it was bad, I had a health check to see if I had some thing weird physically, but everything came back healthy. The next time I signed up for the gym hoping some exercise would help me manage my mental health better. I think it helped a little but not all of it. He's telling me to go to a mental clinic but I'm afraid of getting some nasty drug with awful side affects like happened to a friend recently (the doctors seem to be more willing to give prescriptions than to do talk therapy here, plus while I speak the language it is not my native tounge.)

I think this comes off as ranty, but I am just upset with myself and worried for my future. I love him, I don't want to lose him and I want to do better but it feels like I just lose control in these episodes. Any advice is appreciated.

Submitted August 05, 2022 at 05:05AM by crgomi https://ift.tt/ReF0ai3