Long post, I’m sorry, but I just can’t say no. I don’t know if it’s my mild learning disability or my mental health or a flaw in my personality. But when it comes to my partner I can’t say no.

So we are trying to buy a house. We’ve got really far along the process but still have a couple of months to wait as the current tenants need to find a new house.

My mental health has been declining and I can’t carry on with my job anymore. Night shifts suck when you have mental health and with my recent learning disability diagnoses, I want to try uni again as I’ll be given support and it’s been my dream to be a therapist.

The job I’m looking at pays as I learn, but it’s a £7K pay cut. I can’t find any other jobs in any fields that don’t require you to have qualifications that pay more.

Due to this I can’t afford to buy the current house with my partner. I’m 24, I feel like this is the time to be exploring careers before I have kids (if I have kids - not sure yet)

However he’s nearly 30 with two kids, one boy and one girl. So he’s insisting that we have a three bedroom house so the kids have their own room when they stay with us every other weekend, and the odd week in the holidays.

Every time I tell him I can’t afford it he comes up with a solution. At the moment I have terrible toothache due to me grinding my teeth from when my anxiety was far worse. I have a dog (who is my life) that needs an x-ray and further treatment which will at least cost around £900. I can’t afford this stuff while buying a house.

And he’s trying to make ends meet and cut costs so that we can just about afford the house with no rainy day fund, which I feel is important. I would like at least £1K in there but he says I’m dramatic and can’t live my life on ‘what ifs’. In order to afford the house he is considering accepting £100 a month off his mum to make things easier. I feel that this is wrong (I made another post about this).

But every time I say no, he comes up with another idea. Currently it’s seeing if he can extend the mortgage so that the monthly payments are cheaper. We also get pay rises, his is every year and mine would be every two or three years depending on how quickly I do my apprenticeship. So he keeps telling me that this will get easier, that people are always really tight in the first year and it’ll be okay. But with no rainy day fund and with having to rely on his mums £100 for the first year I’m really not so sure.

Due to my pay decrease if we don’t go for this house we will need to wait at least two more years to afford the house again. And I think this is why he’s pushing it because he really wants to live together. And so do I! He’s the love of my life and although I don’t really like kids, I’ve built a lovely bond with his and love them too! I just don’t want to get in debt (other than the mortgage) and rely on other people. But he’s saying I’m too independent.

My family are now annoyed at me because they know my opinion and are annoyed that I’m not sticking up for myself, and he’s annoyed that I want to pull out the house as he believes that my anxiety is making me think that everything’s worse than it is, but I think I’m realistic. So now I just feel stuck.

Sorry for the long post, but any advice at all would be welcome. Xx