@Littletink_ I am wondering if you (and your partner) would benefit from the support of an autism association group. I believe there are family sessions available that may help you learn to better manage the things your partner can do without feeling like you are their parent. Does your partner would qualify for NDIS? Getting in some outside help may also take the pressure off you.
Perhaps having a daily schedule of things your partner can do for each day of the week which will give them some responsibility and a feeling that they are not entirely worthless - Mr D likes routine and will always wash our sheets on a Monday, if it is raining he puts them in the electric dryer (vs putting on another set of linen on the bed and waiting for a fine day to wash them and use our 'solar dryer').
I firmly believe that when our loved ones are not acute, that they need to be able to do what they are functionally able to do around the home. I don't like to use the MH term "enabling" in relation to bipolar ii as such, anxiety, depression etc can be at times be very disabling symptoms and are not "bad behaviour". However, I do believe at times that we can contribute to learned helplessness and at times (read: often) do far too much for our partners when it is not necessary for us to do so. We can at times let their disorder be an excuse for not doing things.
Of course this is put very simply and the reality is more complicated than that, especially when they are acute, Dr Candida Fink, a pdoc puts it "Mental illness breaks many things in someone’s life. Sometimes resources for even basic life needs are eroded—personal finances, occupation, education, nutrition, hygiene, sleep. The idea that just letting someone struggle until they “figure it out” is profoundly ineffective, not to mention mean-spirited."
