AITAH for telling my autistic, depressed and mentally ill long-distance boyfriend that he needs to work on himself before moving in with me?
I (24F) have a long distance boyfriend (24M) that I’ve been dating for almost 5 years. We met online when we were ~19. (I know, please don’t start.)
I live in my own apartment and have been for moved out for 5 years (I moved out at 19), he lives with his parents still and has never moved out. We’re both autistic I’m pretty sure. Both “high functioning”, but obviously I’m a lot more independent than he is right now.
He has always struggled with depression and emotional outbursts ever since middle school and he actually dropped out of public school and started taking classes online because of it. Because of this he has pretty much spent life isolated in his room for the past decade. He spends most of his time online, and he does have online friends that he calls and plays games with, attends virtual therapy over the phone once a month, but that’s where he gets pretty much all of his socialization (besides when he visits me).
At this point we see each other maybe once every couple of months for around 10 days. He comes and stays with me at my apartment. Things are mostly good when he stays here. He says he feels a lot happier and less anxious when he’s here versus at home, and I feel happier with him around too. I feel like a lot of his mental health issues come from the fact that he is pretty much in solitary confinement in his room most of the time and he agrees with that.
At home, his parents really don’t put any pressure on him and almost seem like they would prefer him to stay living with them and not meeting any adult milestones. He hasn’t learned how to drive, has only had one job in the past a few years ago, which I coaxed him into getting. He kept it for a year but quit due to mental health issues and hadn’t been looking for work for the past almost 2 years. He did pretty well at that job in my opinion, and he has been submitting applications again recently.
He has episodes kind of often where he’ll get upset about something and pretty much shut down or start crying really hard. It’s very hard to help him feel better when he gets like that and it can be over something small. Last night he got so upset that he ended up snapping a drawing tablet and tablet pen in half and having a meltdown for a big chunk of the night. After he calmed down he told me that he wants to start discussing plans to move in with me soon to help his own mental health, since he feels happier at my place and feels stagnant at home.
The only thing is that I’m scared that we’re not really in a stable place to be making such a big step forward like that right now. I want both of us to be in a good spot before having him move in, individual-wise and relationship wise. Just a couple weeks ago we got in a fight and stated floating the idea of breaking up. Why would I want to discuss moving in plans when we were just talking about breaking up recently?
I also want him to learn some better coping mechanisms and emotional management before he moves in with me here. I know there’s only so much he can do to help his mental health where he’s living at currently, but I told him that I want him to help it as much as he can before we move in together. I also want him to get a job again for a little while before moving in, just to get used to working again and being out in public regularly, mainly because when he worked before, I noticed he was more emotionally stable and confident and mature, and that’s the version of him that I would feel comfortable living with. Also because obviously he’s gonna have to work when he lives with me and I want him to be used to it beforehand.
I don’t really mind that he doesn’t know how to drive before moving out, that’s something I can help him learn when he lives with me (it’d probably be easier that way anyway).
Right now I feel like he’s kind of treating moving in with me as a solution to his mental health problems, and thinks that I should be ready to have him here ASAP for his own sake. I definitely know that he would be happier if he moves in with me, and I know that meltdowns and outbursts and deep depressions are something I’m going to have to deal with regardless once he moves in, but I want things to be as stable as possible to start off. I feel it would put a lot of unfair pressure on me and would honestly be a bit scary and overwhelming to have him move in when he’s like this. I want to consider what’s best for my mental health too.
I ended up telling him all this when he brought it up last night. That I want him to try and get into a good mindspace before we move in together, that I want him to try and work a bit and work on himself, and that I want our relationship to be stable before we go forward with discussing actual plans. I think he was hoping to move in soon, because he seemed upset by it, insisted that he has been trying his best, and has been acting a bit cold ever since.
I want him to put in some work in order to move in with me instead of just letting him move in when he wants, especially knowing how stressful it might be on my end. I want a semi-mature partner and I want to be supported too. I don’t want to jump into it blindly to help him feel better, but I’m also worried that if I don’t let him move in he will only get worse.
AITA?