Am I wrong, seriously starting to question myself.

[carlywhi]

Little bit of history first…..My partner has untreated BPD. I encourage him daily to go back to drs and get help but he doesn’t. He also has a cocaine addiction. He spends every penny he has on it. When he doesn’t have cash he sells his things for money, he borrows from family etc. He leaves himself with absolutely nothing. Ive stopped helping him as much as I know it enables him. But am not going to see him starve!

We have a few nights away booked next week. Which we are both really excited for. He’s been selling some games to get money for gear, so the last thing he sold I asked if he could keep the money to put towards our spending money for our trip away. He went mad and said it was his money and I can’t tell him what to spend it on. So I said ok. You do ur thing I will do mine but I’m not paying for our holiday by myself when u have a chance to help towards it. He said well if we are not going away we are done. Just go now. I’m not being taken for a mug.

Am I wrong in thinking I’m the mug? He’s taking me for a mug? Expecting me to pay. 

Really really struggling at the minute to stand by him. Thing is I’ve become so attached myself that it’s a hard thing for me to do.

[Notwendy]

But am not going to see him starve!


You sound like a kind person, but if you are supporting his basic needs while he spends money on cocaine, this is enabling.

He's an adult and eating is his basic need. He can spend money for food, or drugs- that is his choice to make. You are not leaving him to starve. He's choosing to starve if he spends money on drugs instead of food, or he can choose to buy food. As long as you provide food for him, he doesn't ever have to make that choice.

He now has the choice to help pay of holiday or buy drugs. Looks like he made that choice.


You can't control his choices, only yours. What are they?

Continue to pay for him and pay for the holiday and let him spend his money on drugs, knowing these are his terms, "you pay for me or I leave"

Or you can decide that you don't want to go along with these terms. If you want a boyfriend who you don't have to support, someone who will pay their fair share of expenses ( and even one who is not addicted to drugs) then he's not the guy for you.

Dating him, supporting him, expecting him to be different isn't effective. He is who he is.

I think his response- "not being taken for a mug"  is taking victim perspective. You aren't fooling him. You made your expectations clear. However, now that you know what his terms are- what do you want to do?

[carlywhi]

Thank you for that Wendy

You have helped me see the situation in a new way.

I know at the minute he will always chose drugs over food etc. And what am I mean to do when he’s crying telling me he wants to die. That he doesn’t even have any food in the fridge.
Everyone needs someone. I won’t pay for his habit or pay his bills any longer. Only help him to eat when he is starving and suicidal. I can’t be away having a nice time eating out etc thinking of him at home with no food. I just would never do that

He a extremely clever man and dedicated when he wants to be. I just keep hoping one day he will get treatment. He’s getting help with his habits but that’s all.

Thanks again for listening

[carlywhi]

Also his moods are so erratic. The next minute he showing me pictures of restaurants we can go to. I don’t want to row so just smile and go along with it.
I think I want to leave. Even though I love him with all my heart. I just don’t know how to. I worry about him so much. I’m scared what he would do. I don’t want to leave him without anyone. He needs support

[Notwendy]

Only help him to eat when he is starving


Have you ever done a 12 step program?

In the original book for AA, they have a chapter for "the wives". It's important to keep in mind that when the book was written, gender roles were pretty fixed and with the early members, the men were alcoholics. (now the couples could be of any gender). But the message is still relevant.

They found they could get the men sober, but then they'd relapse and even get worse. They tried to figure out why this was happening. The wives were all supportive and very concerned. Then they realized that somehow these kind, caring and loving wives were actually keeping the alcoholics from recovering.

It was then that they knew that they had to address the partners, the caring, loving, supportive partners who were actually keeping their husbands from recovering from alcoholism. The chapter to the wives addressed this.

Every behavior has a cost and a payoff. The behaviors will continue until the cost is higher than the payoff. Addictions are difficult to change because the addict will crave the payoff even at a high cost to then- their finances, their health, their relationship. They found that unless a person "hits bottom" they are not likely to be motivated to seek help for addiction. These supportive wives were keeping their husbands from "hitting bottom". If they were up late drinking and didn't get up in the morning, the wives would call their work and say they were sick. They can't let him lose his job, right? They also covered and cared for the husbands in other ways.

You can't let him starve right? You love him so much you'd never let that happen. Yet you hope he'll decide to get help.

What if he needed to be hungry to be motivated to seek help?

What if he calls you up and says he is suicidal? That is serious. It won't harm him too much to miss a meal. However you are not a professional. Calling 911 will get him the help he needs. We should not allow someone to harm themselves or others but that's what calling for professionals is for.

Sometimes knowing what to do is hard. We don't want anyone to cause themselves harm, but also we need to be careful to not enable them. I would suggest a 12 step program like al anon and working with a sponsor to help navigate these decisions.

[Couper]

That could also be termed a "subsidized expenditure". 

How did you define "support" before and would you now define it differently after what Notwendy has shared?

Usually the correct decision is the one that is most difficult to make.  Is it easier for you to feed him or let him starve?

Such an unfortunate position in which to find one's self.  I wish you the best. 

[Notwendy]

On the idea about letting someone starve.

I don't think any of us would let someone we care about starve if they had no other means of feeding themselves.

You aren't leaving him to starve with no other way of feeding himself. He has some money. For most of us, we use our money to meet our basic needs first. We need to buy food, pay rent, clothing, etc. If after that, we have some money left over, we then can buy something else, but we need to meet our needs first.

Let's say your BF has $50. He can buy groceries with this, or he can buy drugs. If you provide his food, then he doesn't need to choose, he can buy the drugs. By feeding him, he can have drug money.

Now, he's an addict, and he may choose drugs over food. That can only go on so much. He may get sick from not choosing food- then he has to go get medical help. It's at this point that he might actually choose to get off drugs.

This gets complicated if the person you love is not able to fend for themselves, then help is necessary- but only to the point that we don't enable them. That's the tricky part.

If your BF is not able to support himself, due to mental illness, can he get social security or other help? In this case this money needs to go towards his expenses.

Often someone with BPD is unable to support themselves fully due to mental illness. My mother is severely impaired by BPD. She would be unable to keep a job. My father supported her. If your BF's mental condition is -so impaired by BPD that he can not contribute, then that is a different situation. You still have choices. - to stay and accept the situation or decide you don't wish to. Unfortunately he's addicted and drugs are expensive and he isn't able to stop without medical intervention. These situations are tough and I think 12 step support helps a lot. Addiction is a complicated situation.

[ForeverDad]

He's an adult and eating is his basic need. He can spend money for food, or drugs- that is his choice to make. You are not leaving him to starve. He's choosing to starve if he spends money on drugs instead of food, or he can choose to buy food. As long as you provide food for him, he doesn't ever have to make that choice.

He now has the choice to help pay of holiday or buy drugs. Looks like he made that choice.

He's not an infant, baby, toddler, a child or even a youth.  He is an adult.  Adults are expected to accept responsibility for themselves, at the least, and also others they care about.  Does he really care about you, hmm?  Heaven help you if you yourself who provides for yourself (evidently no children) and him should seek an equalization in the relationship.

You can't control his choices, only yours.

This mean realistic Boundaries.  Have you read the thread on Boundaries on our Tools and Skills Workshop board?  One boundary could be, "If you don't share in the expenses of the trip, then I'm going by myself."  Ponder what might happen.  If all you have is a bluff rather than a true Boundary, he may call your bluff and then you've just trashed a perfectly fine Boundary.

I reviewed your past posts.  You've been a victim of repeated abuse, evidently DV yet you've tolerated it.   No wonder he continues putting himself and his addictions first and sees no need to change.  This is not to say he would improve his life if only you changed things around.  He is an addict and for all you know he will always be an addict.  You can't fix him, you're too close to him and so he feels comfortable to let it all hang out.  He would have to want and be determined to fix himself.  There's very little, actually nothing, you can do to do it for him.  Firm boundaries might wake him but but even that's a long shot.  Typically a trained professional would have to work with him for a long time, even years, and even then he may never seriously try to recover.

Only you can decide what to do to turn your life around.  Right now you're like the life guard on a boat, you see someone splashing and calling for help, you jump in, pull him out, then he just jumps right back in the water and again calls for help.  How many times can you rescue (or enable) someone who sabotages everything you do?  And isn't appreciative to boot?

Have you read The Bridge? (follow the link).

If I've spoken strongly, understand that I'm on the outside looking in, my perspective is objective, not subjective and influenced by the emotional attachment.  You've suffered DV and staying around an abuser is unhealthy at the least.  Have you contemplated ending the relationship?

[ThanksForPlaying]

Check out Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The basic idea is that we have to fulfill the lowest pyramid needs first, and meeting those basic needs allows us to then work on the more complex (and ultimately more rewarding) stuff.

You have two things going on right now - addiction and BPD - and there is actually some crossover in treatments. For example, CBT is often incorporated into treatment programs for both, so that could also be a helpful place to start looking.

As far as the hierarchy of needs, pwBPD often intuitively understand this pyramid and try to pull the rug out from under us (remove the base of the pyramid) by threatening our safety (housing situation), health (abuse, suicidal threats),etc. They go straight for the core needs. The key here is to solidify our own basic needs independent of the pwBPD, and only then can we be stable enough to help them.

Addicts, on the other hand, are often living at the bottom of the pyramid because the addiction has become more important than their own basic needs. Again, someone has to build the base of the pyramid or it's impossible to help anyone.

Hang in there and keep thinking and posting

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

[Notwendy]

I just took a look at your previous posts. Addiction and BPD are serious issue. On the part of the partner, there can be co-dependency which is also a difficult situation. This is why I recommend that you get support for you as well. It may not seem fair to you - after all - he is the one with the addiction and verbal abusive behavior, but keeping boundaries is difficult for you.

We can't change another person, we can only change our own behaviors. I think it would be helpful for you to get support- from counseling, or 12 step group- so that you can take steps to make the changes for you that you want.