BPDFamily.com

My girlfriend and I dated for about nine months, until I got a summer job and our relationship couldn't handle the stress the separation put on our relationship. We couldn't spend nearly as much time together as we could when college was still in. Mind you, we spent a LOT of time together; it was a co-dependent relationship, after all. After I broke up with her I spent some time with friends at work recovering and growing my emotional strength. Then school started in September. She reached out to me to see if we could try being friends. Well... .we ended up getting back together soon after that. I told her I wanted to have a talk, which she agreed to. When it came to it I said what was on my mind, that I wanted less co-dependency, more time to myself, and better communication. She had nothing to say and we kind of just resumed things there.

It's been a couple of months now. We have had our ups and downs, but part of me feels like it is a little better. Her mood has been significantly less unstable in the past few weeks, and it has felt like a normal relationship. One problem is that we still spend a lot of time together. She is also one of my only friends here, and I feel like I have less freedom to establish other friendships or do things on my own. It feels like my hobbies are sacrificed to an extent as well, and all I can do with my time is work, homework, studying, and being with my girlfriend. She also gets lonely at night and wants me to spend the night at her dorm all the time; I like sleeping alone, but end up sleeping in her room anyways. I also think that, after reading through this website, I am the codependent enabler and don't know how to get out of this situation. Sometimes I feel like I sacrifice my own feelings like anger or frustration to spare her. Now the term has ended and we've entered winter break. I'll be traveling abroad in a week and it will be difficult to stay in contact as much as we do when college is in session. Already, when we're in the same time zone, it is proving slightly difficult in that she wants to call everyday. When I tell her I don't feel like calling that day, I think she takes it personally or gets sad. This makes it hard to be patient with her or to want to stay in the relationship at all, since I end up sacrificing my own feelings so she doesn't feel hurt any further.

I could break up with her, but I really love her and want to try and see us both grow. I realize this probably stems from my codependent enabler trait of needing to help others, but I don't think just ending things will give my girlfriend nor I results we want. What steps do I take to be less enabling and improve the relationship, at this juncture? Is it ultimately too late or too hard to fix? Should I break up with her?

Hi and welcome.  I don't think it is too late and no one is going to tell you to break things off with her.  There are things you can do and you have already started by posting here and looking at your own behaviors and tendencies.  So many of us here have co-dependent traits and enabling behaviors so know you are not alone.  The good news is that you can change things on your end of the dynamic.  The other good news is that the people here who are going through this or have already worked on a lot of their own stuff will support you.

What is one thing you would want to work on first?

*welcome*

Your description of your situation almost exactly matches my relationship with my BPDgf in college.  I, too, spent all my time with my girlfriend and had a hard time establishing boundaries to protect time that I needed for myself.  I wanted the relationship and didn't want to threaten it by making her unhappy, and I also didn't want to hurt her.

What I've learned from all the time I've spent on bpdfamily is that so many of us don't set the boundaries we need to set, or look out for our own needs, because we are scared to threaten the relationship.  But over the long run, our failure to set boundaries actually threatens us and the relationship more!

Another thing that is important to understand when setting boundaries with a person you feel is vulnerable is that "hurt" is different than "harm."  We might tell our girlfriend that tonight we need to sleep alone.  This may hurt her, but it will not harm her.  We want to be compassionate, but it's not our responsibility to protect everyone around us from discomfort.  Does this make sense?  This is a very important concept, and I know it's much easier for me to say than it is to put into practice.  I have been there!

Ideally, which nights in the week would you like to sleep with her and which nights would you like to sleep alone?

RC