Leaving someone when you still love them
I've been with my SO for a few months now. We had been living together in the same house with a couple other people, but the owner of the house has evicted us. My partner (not married) had hoped I would move with him back to Texas, but I told him I could not do that for many reasons. I would be supporting not just myself, but also him, his caretaker, and his mother. I do not make nearly enough money to do that--even at my current job. I would be losing my job and leaving behind everything I know. My family begged me not to move, especially since he had pressured me to demand they buy us a house (huge red flag for my family, since it is very unlike me to ask for big things). He has continued to pressure and guilt me into staying with him. He has said his caretaker and mother cannot support him on their own--but I can't support all of them myself either. He has taken this all very poorly.
He is moving back to Texas in the coming weeks and I am staying in Indiana. He had said in the past that if we split up, he would want a clean break with me--no contact, no baggage; Simple. I had come to accept that when I was deciding not to move with him to Texas. Now he is going back on this, and is accusing me of abandoning him for wanting a clean break.
The whole situation is tearing me up inside. Plenty of people have seen me make a fool of myself at the Haven about my living situation. We had been friends for years. We have supported each other through some very tough times. It took a lot for him to let himself be vulnerable with me. Same with me. But he hurts me. And I hurt him. He lashes out and I don't know how to criticize him. He is manipulative of his friends. He is very damaged. I do not know how to tell him that part of why I need to cut things off is because of how he hurts me. None of this is helped by the fact that he has borderline personality disorder. People with BPD are well-known for their consuming, terrified fear of abandonment and betrayal. I have been close enough to many people with BPD to know this. And now that I am leaving him, I feel like I am just confirming everything he has feared for years. And I feel awful. It's like I'm throwing my best friend, my lover under the bus for my freedom and mental health. Everyone I have talked to has said that I am making the right decision, but it hurts so bad. And I have not told him all these things I have said here. It kills me to hurt him. I can practically hear him crying and suffering and begging me not to leave.
How do I do this? I've made up my mind, but it hurts... How do I not feel awful about myself? How do I not agonize over how much this hurts him....
_________________
Diagnoses: AS, Depression, General & Social Anxiety
I guess I just wasn't made for these times.
- Brian Wilson
Δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν.
Those with power do what their power permits, and the weak can only acquiesce.
- Thucydides
I'm sorry you're dealing with all of this. It must be really confusing and painful.
I have the same recurring issue with my partner.
He wants to get married or live together, ideally thousands of miles away.
I can't do that for a number of reasons.
I hope you come to some sort of agreement or compromise.
It's so hard to love someone and want different things.
_________________
I never give you my number, I only give you my situation.
Beatles
He is moving back to Texas in the coming weeks and I am staying in Indiana. He had said in the past that if we split up, he would want a clean break with me--no contact, no baggage; Simple. I had come to accept that when I was deciding not to move with him to Texas. Now he is going back on this, and is accusing me of abandoning him for wanting a clean break.
The whole situation is tearing me up inside. Plenty of people have seen me make a fool of myself at the Haven about my living situation. We had been friends for years. We have supported each other through some very tough times. It took a lot for him to let himself be vulnerable with me. Same with me. But he hurts me. And I hurt him. He lashes out and I don't know how to criticize him. He is manipulative of his friends. He is very damaged. I do not know how to tell him that part of why I need to cut things off is because of how he hurts me. None of this is helped by the fact that he has borderline personality disorder. People with BPD are well-known for their consuming, terrified fear of abandonment and betrayal. I have been close enough to many people with BPD to know this. And now that I am leaving him, I feel like I am just confirming everything he has feared for years. And I feel awful. It's like I'm throwing my best friend, my lover under the bus for my freedom and mental health. Everyone I have talked to has said that I am making the right decision, but it hurts so bad. And I have not told him all these things I have said here. It kills me to hurt him. I can practically hear him crying and suffering and begging me not to leave.
How do I do this? I've made up my mind, but it hurts... How do I not feel awful about myself? How do I not agonize over how much this hurts him....
You may love him. And I know BPD people greatly fear abandonment and can be hell to be with when they are in the torpor of their BPD.
However, he is toxic to you. Accept that, grieve the loss of him, but move on.
He wants you parents to buy him, and you who are not married to him, a house? That's not BPD, that's socipathy.
This is all made much harder by a number of things. The homeowner has filed protective orders against all of us (petty reasons I will not go into), so we cannot just move out at a reasonable pace. We tried to find somewhere before the hearing date, but they kept demanding we find a house or rental house to live at, and I could not find one I could afford no matter how hard I looked--and that was when my parents were still planning to help us afford a living situation together (then they realized how toxic this all was and pulled their support from a living situation with both of us. Which was kind of a relief. It was clearly paining them to support me being with him). So we did not move any of our things out, because we did not have anywhere to put them, so now we have to wait for the court to give us very limited timeframes to be allowed into the house to get our things.
On top of that, we are all broke. It is going to cost a lot to pay for people to help us move things out, we will need to pay for a moving truck/u-haul, pay for a storage unit to keep our things at until we have somewhere more permanent to keep them, pay to have their things moved back to Texas, pay for places to live temporarily while we sort everything out. I have had to get bailed out by my parents multiple times already. They are understanding, but it still makes my skin crawl to ask for money. Makes me feel like just another spoiled rich kid.
I have the same recurring issue with my partner.
He wants to get married or live together, ideally thousands of miles away.
I can't do that for a number of reasons.
I hope you come to some sort of agreement or compromise.
It's so hard to love someone and want different things.
Sounds like you may need to have to have some hard conversations with your partner too...
Sorry, this isn't about you. I trust you to handle it.
I don't think we are reaching any kind of agreement or compromise. He is very hurt and angry and I don't think he wants anything more to do with me after this. Which is what I want, but I had thought going into this that he wanted a clean break. By the time I learned he did not want a clean break, I had already gone through the difficult emotional process of accepting that a clean break was for the best. He will resent me til the day I die now, I would guess.
However, he is toxic to you. Accept that, grieve the loss of him, but move on.
He wants you parents to buy him, and you who are not married to him, a house? That's not BPD, that's socipathy.
The last few weeks have been hell being near him like this. Making demands and lashing out when denied those demands. I avoided telling him I was not going to go with him to Texas for fear he would hurt himself.
Yeah the fact that he demanded owning--not renting--a house was a big red flag to my family. And me, but I felt too trapped to act on it. It was only later that he became open to renting, but even then he was upset about it.
The insistence on a house stems from his difficulties sleeping when sharing a wall with others in an apartment/flat/townhome, and many awful experiences with neighbors in apartment situations.
_________________
Diagnoses: AS, Depression, General & Social Anxiety
I guess I just wasn't made for these times.
- Brian Wilson
Δυνατὰ δὲ οἱ προύχοντες πράσσουσι καὶ οἱ ἀσθενεῖς ξυγχωροῦσιν.
Those with power do what their power permits, and the weak can only acquiesce.
- Thucydides
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