Sorry if this is a doozy.
Okay so me (M19 Autistic) and my partner (F19) have been together for a little over 9 months, about one month into our relationship we moved into a college apartment together, it was my first time moving out, it wasn’t hers. We moved away from our home town to attend college. Let’s just say the next 8 months are the LOWEST I have ever been. I have had bad mental health before but this was terrible. Just coming out of my life at home where my parents refused to have me treated for mental illness. My mental health was absolutely atrocious, I think due to being away from my friends as my “support system”. In turn this made me kind of a bum, I wouldn’t want to go to school, leave the house, go to work. Which definitely isn’t a good thing, when your girlfriend is also mentally ill, and there are bills to pay.
I ended up quitting my job because it was kicking my butt. This makes it really hard for me to pay bills, except with my financial aid refunds. A couple of months go by and me and her are still having major problems. She says I’m emotionally neglecting her by not understanding emotional cues and not comforting her correctly like she told me. (I just didn’t understand what to do) At some point at the 4 month mark, I am scrolling through her phone trying to mess with her by posting cute little stories and instagram notes that said stuff like “I heart my bf” and such, because she’d do the same thing to me, when I see a notification to an account I didn’t know she had.
Yada yada I went snooping (which she gave me permission to do whenever I wanted) and found her flirting with others guys and never letting them know I existed. I got upset and had a conversation with her about it and we decided to keep moving forward and I tried to forgive her. This pushed me further in the hole, to the point where sometimes I was negligent to the problem my partner was having. In this past month, I have finally gotten evaluated by a psychiatrist and am medicated now. I have been doing so much better and I’ve been ready to step up to the plate and be a better man.
So when I’m doing the, SAME EXACT THING, mind you, going to post cute notes, I see messages from her friends about me, long story short, she had been shit talking me to her friends and family to the point where they were all telling her to break up with me, and she was referring to me as “almost-ex” to several people, and calling me a bum who does nothing and a hater. I confronted her about this as well and she both of us had a breakdown. And of course I love her very much so in my pathetic-ness, I begged her not to go.
She said “if we don’t get better in the next two months, it’s over.” So me knowing she’s lied to me about resolutions over this kind of thing before, I check her phone to see what she really thought.
She was messaging her friends and family saying that “he figured out somehow, he pitched a fit and now I’ve given him two months, during May it’ll make it easier for him to move out while I’m doing theatre camp.” So I confronted her about this and she freaked out at me for going through her messages and stuff.
Then she’s going on to say “I really do love you, I just think it’s better for me to finally prioritize myself for once, instead of stripping myself dry for you,” and that “I really do want to believe you can change and do better, but I just don’t have that faith anymore.” We’ve been having arguments for about half a week now of me trying to explain we can work it out, and get better without needing to separate.
For some reason, me trying to comfort her I told her to change her passwords to her stuff so I couldn’t go through things anymore. I realized three days later, that I just gave her the ability to lie to her hearts content and I would have no way to catch her with it. She’s lied to me PLENTY of times before, and I only figured out truth because of her telling me I could go through her phone. I feel now that she can just lie to me now for the next couple of months. She says she wants to get back together eventually in the future, “after we get better,” but I’m not sure I believe her. Part of me wants to believe she still loves me but I don’t know what to do, our lease ends in 3 months, so we’d be living together a month afterwards if we do break up. I just really don’t know what to do, I don’t want to lose her, she’s the love of my life. I love her more than anything. And I’m letting the fear of losing her cloud my emotions, I’ve never been one to cry, maybe about 9-10 times ever. But I’ve been bawling nonstop this past week while she is out of the house. I have no friends here to comfort me, I have nobody to ask for advice. I just want some guidance please, I don’t know what to do. Sorry for the rambling and incoherence, also for the lack of some detail, I didn’t want to get into it and make myself cry again. What is the healthiest thing I can do in this situation?