New To Staying: The Story So Far

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi everyone,

I have been a semi-regular poster on this board since 2007 or so. In the beginning I came here to get support dealing with a boss that I was pretty sure had BPD. My previous experience with BPD came from a very brief romantic relationship I had with someone who never exactly came out and said she had it, but alluded to the fact that "her mother" had it, and my ex's behaviors were pretty textbook BPD. I was out of that relationship within a few weeks, so I got lucky there. My situation now is very different.

I remember when I first came here, I painted (and experienced) my current relationship as idyllic. She was everything I wanted and then some: loving, caring, sweet, tender, funny, smart, and the sex was great and frequent. We got together in 2002.  Back then she in a much better place than I was in many ways. She had a good professional career going, and I was just... .  lost.  Nothing in my life ever lasted long until this relationship took hold. For a couple of years, I had a good job for a Fortune 500 company, but was laid off in 2001. I was collecting unemployment when I met my partner, working odd temporary jobs when they came available and generally had no direction in life.

The problems between us started in 2005. We had left our city of origin to move 1500 miles away after my partner got a great job. I had nothing going on work-wise where we were, so I decided to give it a try. She was very happy there, but I was not. The employment situation (for me) was even worse than where we were before, and I was terribly homesick. I just couldn't get going, and at my partner's suggestion, we made plans to return home even though her career was going just great, even better than it had back home.

We returned to our home city, moved in with my mother so I could go back to school, and she got a new job, but it sucked and she was miserable. The next year she got a much better job, which she seemed to enjoy, but within a few years, she had lost it. She got a new supervisor her second year in. She didn't get along with him at all, and was burning out, which led to her making some bad decisions  (refusing to accept assignments, etc). I remember thinking to myself that she was going to get fired the year before it actually happened, and praying that she would keep the job just a little longer. In the end she did get fired. She has not really worked since. And my partner began a downward spiral from which she has still not recovered. In fact things have never been so bad.

She collected unemployment for two years. During that time she sat in our tiny room in my mother's house, not leaving except to go to the bathroom. When I returned from school she would go out with me for dinner, but that was really the only time she left the house. This went on until I graduated with a Master's degree in my field, got a job, and (codependent me) agreed to assume ALL household bills so we could get a place of our own. I thought that would make my partner happy and give us the stability we so desperately needed. Plus, the situation living with my mother had gone on way too long (6 years) and needed to end.

Things have been worse since we moved out. My partner has not seriously looked for work this entire time. We've had one serious, will-this-relationship-survive crisis every year since 2010. The first time, she left the house for two days in a rage about something I can't even recall anymore, and then she returned. That was in 2010. In late 2011, she created a blog which I ended up finding on accident. In this blog she made many cruel and demeaning statements about me and my family, stated that our relationship had run its course, and that she wanted to break up with me but did not know how to tell me. When I found this, several months after the fact, I was stunned. Nothing in her behavior or her actions indicated that she was feeling this way. Everything seemed normal to me, so of course I was devastated, stunned and angry.

I confronted her immediately. I told her she was free to go. Immediately she cried, told me she didn't know what she was saying when she wrote those things, that she was just venting and that she did not want to break up. She begged my forgiveness, told me she had never gone back to the blog except for those few days months ago, and that she wanted me to stay. So we stayed together but I insisted she go back to work. She did, for a few months, but just like her last job, she had a meltdown one day and refused to go back. She has not done any work to speak of since that time except for occasional nannying, babysitting and tutoring. She brings in no money to the household. The little she makes goes straight into her own pocket, mostly to pay for the gas she needs to commute to her sister's house where she helps take care of the sister's three children aged 5,4, and 3. The youngest has autism.

All of this came to a head this year. I accepted a new position and we moved to a new place in August. The new place is great but it is an hour from my job, 90 minutes in the afternoon. I don't really make enough money to support us, and I never did to be honest, but in my codependency (which I am getting help for through CoDA) I made some very bad choices which have left me deeply in debt. I started to realize the seriousness of my situation and that I was royally messing up my life. I started to put my foot down just a little bit. I told her I could not singlehandedly carry the household anymore and that she needed to contribute financially.

And that was when, this Christmas (which was also her 40th bday) she dropped a nuclear bomb on me. She told me that she was raped when she was 20 years old. I was the first person she ever told. And since then she has descended into full bore, all out mental illness. Beginning in April, when she had a flashback, things have been worse than they have ever been. She is exhibiting symptoms of severe depression and PTSD. She is avoiding me and is completely shut down. She was always very, very affectionate with me. That has stopped almost completely. We had weekly sex for years, even during the incidents described above. It is now almost two months and I do not forsee any sex happening anytime soon. She is in therapy twice weekly, but with her being unemployed and uninsured (I could not afford the payroll deduction for insurance with her not contributing), it's been rough. Thankfully she was able to locate a couple of resources. She has admitted she needs medication but again, being uninsured and unemployed, it is rough. The resources she has located for meds have a 2 to 3 month waiting period for an appointment. She says (and I agree) that she cannot wait that long so she may end up in the ER.

She had a major depressive episode in college that did not respond to medication. They wanted to do ECT on her, but she decided to leave school and a career as a medical professional. She ended up on a totally different but much less prestigious career path a few years later but needed antidepressants to function for that entire time. At the time that I met her in 2002, she had been off the antidepressants for a year or two only. ALL of this information is brand new to me since December 2012.

We have lived together since 2003. At this point my partner is gone more than she is with me. Depending on whether she runs away on the weekends, I see her two to five times per week for an hour or so at a time due to my work schedule. She is finding reasons to run away on weekends, which is really the only time I have to spend with her. This weekend she is visiting a friend four hours away. I think I am a trigger for her, since her flashback occurred while we were having sex. She says she just needs to keep moving and to run. She does tell me she loves me, and when she is out of the house we email and/or talk daily. But I am no fool. I know that love is not enough and that I am so codependent that I have lost sight of my real needs, and what boundaries I might require. I realized with sadness and irony the other day that I do not even know what a boundary is! How sad is that?

At this moment, I consider myself to be staying. I do love her very much and I am working on myself. I do not know if my partner has BPD; I suspect likely not, but I do know that she is seriously mentally ill. It was suggested to me that I post here to get insight from everyone on this board. It is difficult to find anyone who understands why I am choosing to stay in light of the many difficulties we have faced even before this mental illness struck. But until I am in better touch with myself and know where I stand/what I need, I cannot simply abandon the woman to whom I've devoted my entire life, for the past 10 years, just because she's mentally ill.

Thanks for listening and I will welcome all feedback.

Cult

[cult]

Hi everyone,

I have been a semi-regular poster on this board since 2007 or so. In the beginning I came here to get support dealing with a boss that I was pretty sure had BPD. My previous experience with BPD came from a very brief romantic relationship I had with someone who never exactly came out and said she had it, but alluded to the fact that "her mother" had it, and my ex's behaviors were pretty textbook BPD. I was out of that relationship within a few weeks, so I got lucky there. My situation now is very different.

I remember when I first came here, I painted (and experienced) my current relationship as idyllic. She was everything I wanted and then some: loving, caring, sweet, tender, funny, smart, and the sex was great and frequent. We got together in 2002.  Back then she in a much better place than I was in many ways. She had a good professional career going, and I was just... .  lost.  Nothing in my life ever lasted long until this relationship took hold. For a couple of years, I had a good job for a Fortune 500 company, but was laid off in 2001. I was collecting unemployment when I met my partner, working odd temporary jobs when they came available and generally had no direction in life.

The problems between us started in 2005. We had left our city of origin to move 1500 miles away after my partner got a great job. I had nothing going on work-wise where we were, so I decided to give it a try. She was very happy there, but I was not. The employment situation (for me) was even worse than where we were before, and I was terribly homesick. I just couldn't get going, and at my partner's suggestion, we made plans to return home even though her career was going just great, even better than it had back home.

We returned to our home city, moved in with my mother so I could go back to school, and she got a new job, but it sucked and she was miserable. The next year she got a much better job, which she seemed to enjoy, but within a few years, she had lost it. She got a new supervisor her second year in. She didn't get along with him at all, and was burning out, which led to her making some bad decisions  (refusing to accept assignments, etc). I remember thinking to myself that she was going to get fired the year before it actually happened, and praying that she would keep the job just a little longer. In the end she did get fired. She has not really worked since. And my partner began a downward spiral from which she has still not recovered. In fact things have never been so bad.

She collected unemployment for two years. During that time she sat in our tiny room in my mother's house, not leaving except to go to the bathroom. When I returned from school she would go out with me for dinner, but that was really the only time she left the house. This went on until I graduated with a Master's degree in my field, got a job, and (codependent me) agreed to assume ALL household bills so we could get a place of our own. I thought that would make my partner happy and give us the stability we so desperately needed. Plus, the situation living with my mother had gone on way too long (6 years) and needed to end.

Things have been worse since we moved out. My partner has not seriously looked for work this entire time. We've had one serious, will-this-relationship-survive crisis every year since 2010. The first time, she left the house for two days in a rage about something I can't even recall anymore, and then she returned. That was in 2010. In late 2011, she created a blog which I ended up finding on accident. In this blog she made many cruel and demeaning statements about me and my family, stated that our relationship had run its course, and that she wanted to break up with me but did not know how to tell me. When I found this, several months after the fact, I was stunned. Nothing in her behavior or her actions indicated that she was feeling this way. Everything seemed normal to me, so of course I was devastated, stunned and angry.

I confronted her immediately. I told her she was free to go. Immediately she cried, told me she didn't know what she was saying when she wrote those things, that she was just venting and that she did not want to break up. She begged my forgiveness, told me she had never gone back to the blog except for those few days months ago, and that she wanted me to stay. So we stayed together but I insisted she go back to work. She did, for a few months, but just like her last job, she had a meltdown one day and refused to go back. She has not done any work to speak of since that time except for occasional nannying, babysitting and tutoring. She brings in no money to the household. The little she makes goes straight into her own pocket, mostly to pay for the gas she needs to commute to her sister's house where she helps take care of the sister's three children aged 5,4, and 3. The youngest has autism.

All of this came to a head this year. I accepted a new position and we moved to a new place in August. The new place is great but it is an hour from my job, 90 minutes in the afternoon. I don't really make enough money to support us, and I never did to be honest, but in my codependency (which I am getting help for through CoDA) I made some very bad choices which have left me deeply in debt. I started to realize the seriousness of my situation and that I was royally messing up my life. I started to put my foot down just a little bit. I told her I could not singlehandedly carry the household anymore and that she needed to contribute financially.

And that was when, this Christmas (which was also her 40th bday) she dropped a nuclear bomb on me. She told me that she was raped when she was 20 years old. I was the first person she ever told. And since then she has descended into full bore, all out mental illness. Beginning in April, when she had a flashback, things have been worse than they have ever been. She is exhibiting symptoms of severe depression and PTSD. She is avoiding me and is completely shut down. She was always very, very affectionate with me. That has stopped almost completely. We had weekly sex for years, even during the incidents described above. It is now almost two months and I do not forsee any sex happening anytime soon. She is in therapy twice weekly, but with her being unemployed and uninsured (I could not afford the payroll deduction for insurance with her not contributing), it's been rough. Thankfully she was able to locate a couple of resources. She has admitted she needs medication but again, being uninsured and unemployed, it is rough. The resources she has located for meds have a 2 to 3 month waiting period for an appointment. She says (and I agree) that she cannot wait that long so she may end up in the ER.

She had a major depressive episode in college that did not respond to medication. They wanted to do ECT on her, but she decided to leave school and a career as a medical professional. She ended up on a totally different but much less prestigious career path a few years later but needed antidepressants to function for that entire time. At the time that I met her in 2002, she had been off the antidepressants for a year or two only. ALL of this information is brand new to me since December 2012.

We have lived together since 2003. At this point my partner is gone more than she is with me. Depending on whether she runs away on the weekends, I see her two to five times per week for an hour or so at a time due to my work schedule. She is finding reasons to run away on weekends, which is really the only time I have to spend with her. This weekend she is visiting a friend four hours away. I think I am a trigger for her, since her flashback occurred while we were having sex. She says she just needs to keep moving and to run. She does tell me she loves me, and when she is out of the house we email and/or talk daily. But I am no fool. I know that love is not enough and that I am so codependent that I have lost sight of my real needs, and what boundaries I might require. I realized with sadness and irony the other day that I do not even know what a boundary is! How sad is that?

At this moment, I consider myself to be staying. I do love her very much and I am working on myself. I do not know if my partner has BPD; I suspect likely not, but I do know that she is seriously mentally ill. It was suggested to me that I post here to get insight from everyone on this board. It is difficult to find anyone who understands why I am choosing to stay in light of the many difficulties we have faced even before this mental illness struck. But until I am in better touch with myself and know where I stand/what I need, I cannot simply abandon the woman to whom I've devoted my entire life, for the past 10 years, just because she's mentally ill.

Thanks for listening and I will welcome all feedback.

Cult

[PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES]

PLEASE - NO RUN MESSAGES This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members may appear frustrated but they are here for constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[Rockylove]

... .  I cannot simply abandon the woman to whom I've devoted my entire life, for the past 10 years, just because she's mentally ill.

I feel for you on this one.  I had a serious talk with my son.  He raised some good points.  I feel guilty abandoning my fiance because he has such tremendous issues with abandonment, but at the same time, I don't want the rest of my life to be engulfed by his drama.  For the moment, I'll stay.  It may be that I'll stay forever, or it may be that I'll jump ship and choose to take care of myself without the stress of his mental illness.  I love him and wouldn't want to see anything bad happen, but at the same time, I have to consider myself and my own mental welfare.  I know what I need to do for me and right now that means hanging in there for just a bit longer to see how it plays out.  If I need to move on, I'll do just that.  No regrets.  I hope you can do the same.