Jessaraea
Fewer than 3 Posts
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 1
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« on: February 01, 2017, 09:12:26 AM » |
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Hi all. First off if you are reading this, thank you. Getting this out and making an effort to get support outside of my biased family circle is something i had intended to do a year ago when i made this account. But i never posted anything, not until now.
Without going into a lengthy novel but still giving what i think are important details, here is the nutshell.
My partner is 36, has two young children and him and I have been a couple since we first met 2.5 yrs ago. We both were in very transitionary times, I had literally just moved to the area for a job with no family or friends nearby to speak of. I found myself in a very vulnerable situation when my boss, for the job i moved here for, decided he wanted to date me. I resigned and relocated to the city and my partner made that so. He got me an apartment, furnished it partially with the things i was lacking and paid my rent until i got a new job. Pretty amazing considering I was nearly a homeless 29-year old at the time and only knew him for 3 weeks. We didn't think we were in love yet, but we both wanted to find out where this was going and were magnetized to one another quite strongly. We essentially lived together part-time, when he wasn't at his parents with his kids he lived in the apartment with me. I was sort of his sanctuary. We would get high some times, play video games, walk my dog around the city, have brunches on the weekends at the local cafe on the river and just interwine ourselves whenever possible. We communicated about almost everything, within reason. I found myself so calm and at peace with him. I'd be lying if i said i didn't know it was too good to be true. I just didn't want to aknowledge it. I thought maybe, after all my failed relationships, after all the men i walked away from and didn't feel connected to - he was the one.
My dreams came crashing down on our first Christmas together. I was crafting some art on the floor in the bedroom when I figured out that he was lying to me about getting stoned. It was sort of the beginning at that moment. I realized he was hiding things from me. In one hand it was devastating because i questioned why he would feel the need to lie about something i was okay with him doing - that i did. He must have a problem right? I also was struggling with my own experience of loving men and a father with substance abuse issues and it really sent me spiraling. Sadly, my eventual forgivness and understanding of him lying to me just started the tune of a very broken record. He lied to me constantly, or withheld alltogether about his usage. He was also hiding smoking cigerettes from me. This was something i told him i wouldnt accept in a relationship, and he knew that when started dating. So in fear of losing me - he lied.
So to bring this to the present - in May of 2016 we were looking to get a house. We were getting serious and things had taken a very strange turn over the past few months. He was very edgy, when he was upset he was very emotionally dead, stoic, he was a different person. His anger would spiral so quickly, he would snap his fingers in my face when we argued, or his eyes would bulge out of his head as he yelled at me.
I am a confrontational woman, and i certainly don't allow people to speak to me or yell at me and call me names when they do. But i was so shocked by him that i sort of just shut up. Which ultimatly was what he always wants when he 'splits' for me to just "shut the ___ up."
After a fight in May, he told me it was over. He said if i left the room where were fighting to no avail - 'it was done'. I told him, 'You need help. Something is wrong here. And i dont feel i can help you. Please talking to your family and get their support. It's better you stay with them."
He repeated himself as if he didnt hear anything i said, "If you go- we are done!" eyes bulging and furious. I responded "Then i guess we are done... ."
It wasnt an hour later i got a Goodbye email from him, wishing me well in life and telling me he was sad it was over. I ignored it. An hour later from there, i got an onslaught of texts pleading with me not to abandon him. Tears and a lot of confusion.
That was the beginning of the second phase. This is where the conversations of BPD started happening and becoming prevelant. He self diagnosed and started going to a therapist to discuss. They agreed that based on his loved ones observations and his own it sounded likely he was.
I found a lot that month. I found out that he has likely been BPD for all of his adult life, that he had been in and out of therapy for years, that he left his last job before becoming a buisness owner to do 'medical leave' because he became very depressed while still with his ex-wife. He had been on and off anxiety meds for years. He self medicated with pot since he was 22 in law school. He would get agressive with his wife and punch holes in walls sometimes. That his family had always thought he needed to be 'checked in somewhere'.
It was as if for nearly 2 years a big secret was being kept from me. Not only did i feel i couldnt trust him before, but i felt like i had been tricked.
I remember telling him i had a dream about him a while ago before the clairty came. I told him i thought he was the 'devil' and that he was tricking me with his sweetness and love only to wait until i was comfortable and felt safe, and then would rip the mask off and laugh.
This is how i felt. It's how i feel.
It's not all his fault, i am not always able to withstand the eggshells below me without crushing them to smitherines. I threw a small prescription bottle at him once out of total anger after he told me 'just shut your ___ing mouth and go away.'
I am turning 32 this Friday. I just got a brand new job in my field and other then him (the biggest part of my life) things are positive. I don't trust him, and he often tells me to leave and then cries on my lap and begs me to stay.
I guess i need some perspective from someone on either side. I love this person very much, and more than that i enjoy him at least half the time at this point. I am attached to his children, his family and we are very invovled in one anothers lives. But i often dont get the same person, i can feel myself starting to drift away and considering other men - getting my own place and just cutting it off. The heartbreak it would incur is more than i handle right now with all the other change in my life.
Any response is appreciated
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