Thank you for your very detailed comments. I’ll try to respond to as much as I can 🙂

He needs the gym to manage his anxiety and he prefers not to go when it’s not busy. Both of these feed into his anxiety and I understand. I also know how hard it is to develop habits and so I try to be very supportive.

My issues are that it sometimes crosses the line into obsession in my opinion. Last night he wanted to go because he wanted to double his move goal as part of his monthly Apple Watch challenge. However, all I said was that it’s the first day of the month and he only has to do it 10 times. Why did he HAVE to do it that night?

Also, I feel that while his exercise is an excellent coping mechanism, it’s not doing any work to treat the root cause of his anxiety. I don;t know what this is but I feel as with all mental health problems it should be addressed.

Family events are a separate issue to the exercise which happens first thing normally. We do not go to see family often at all so it’s not like he’s constant drawing on emotional reserves. As example is that my father died 4 years ago so we visit my stepmother. She really likes to see Mike so I like him to come. Recently she was crying and talking about Dad and Mike was head down on his phone. It’s not appropriate.

Yes I believe he may have autistic traits, or ADD or OCD or possibly all of them. Getting any sort of diagnosis is very hard though.

Thanks for your response