Fiancé Wants Me to Sell My House

I would look at both sides of the income improvement spectrum, both in lowering your spouse’s possibility unrealistic income expectations and also at income improvement options for autistic people. I would look into therapy, preferably occupational therapy for both of you, as neutral third party to set income expectations. His income expectations are probably too high, but it’s possible that yours are actually too low. This is because of anchoring heuristics in psychology.

Another thing your need to consider is your expectations for the relationship itself. If you just want a guy to cuddle with and watch movies with, I think you should ditch this guy and get a new one. He is going to push and drive you to more and more success. That’s what his family has programmed into him from his engineering background. I grew up with an engineer for a dad, and I’m a writer and artist so yeah. He’s had a lot of pressure to succeed from his family and dear old dad won’t settle for less. You keep this guy in your life, you’re going to keep this pressure in your home. That’s the bottom line. And it’s unsettling because at 45, you really are going to want to wind down and relax with your partner a lot more. Are you really up for fighting a war?

As someone with ADHD, you’re going to be a lot more physically active and enjoy physical work, such as cleaning and repairing the house, a lot more than he does. I have ADHD myself and I really feel you on that. Your autism may be throwing a raging fit over the amount of sensory stimulation involved with this task though, and if it isn’t already complaining, it’s probably going to struggle when you get to painting and insulation and drywall. I highly suggest getting a good respirator and protective gear. You worked in housekeeping before though which suggests that the ADHD is the dominant force.

To make matters even worse, your husband may have been trapped in physical tasks because they were easy to learn, leaving him to associate physical work with failure. You working in those areas probably makes you feel engaged and valued because it engages your ADHD. Do you see how this is a problem? He’s cutting you off from a project that you might actually like (a little bit).

Usually the way to increase your income on the autism spectrum is by monetizing special interests in low contact fields, such as programming, mathematics, and yes, engineering. However, your husband might have a different special interest than his dad, and even if he has the same one, his learning disability might complicate it. But eventually that area should cycle up to normal range.

The path to dealing with ADHD income cycling is actually backwards. You get rid of your expenses by taking on more physical work until you can engage your hyperfocus mode(s). For example, a garden will reduce your food expenses. Your brain already knows this, which probably is why it’s trying to hang onto the house. Put in some physical work now, reduced expenses later. You look on the horrendous way your fiancé’s family spends money and your brain sounds a safety alarm that it will never work for you. Your brain likely has already sold the stuff from the units on Craigslist and OfferUp, taken the rental car back to the dealership as a financial liability, and found the recipes from those restaurants to make it at home so you don’t have to endure social awkwardness as the price of dinner. But perhaps you never got to step 2.

And to be honest, I don’t blame you. And maybe you can’t engage hyperfocus mode, maybe your autism complicates it. It’s possible that someone could have an autism special interest and an ADHD hyperfocus trigger on the opposite sides of their brain. But I tend to think that isn’t what’s going on, seeing as your post reflects a physical hyperfocus mode that actually works. That means you probably have mental and emotional triggers for hyperfocus mode as well, and your ADHD hyperfocus triggers and autistic special interests may actually be aligned. That would place your ADHD as the driving force and produce the behavior you have described in the first post.

However, I’m just a layperson who has ADHD. I think both of you need to talk to a therapist, either separately or together or both, and try to sort all of this out.