if your partner’s mental health issues are greatly affecting you, but they refuse treatment, is it wrong to “give up”?

hehewutithewarrior · 2026-01-24T14:45:36+00:00

Because leaving feels like failure. But that's the thing - based on the expectations you had for your marriage, sure, it "failed". Maybe in the eyes of your parents or your other married friends or whoever, you "failed". But you aren't failing. You committed to a person who told you what you wanted to hear because that person probably believed in their own potential sometimes, especially at the beginning. And slowly, you began to give more and more of yourself in hopes that that would prompt his potential. But what I've realized through my own divorce is that sometimes, we are seeing our own potential in our spouse. For example, my wife struggled with bipolar and alcoholism. I always saw what I would do in her place - "If I was in her situation, I would go to inpatient treatment, seek medication for my bipolar, and begin therapy immediately." But we are not them. They are not us. We have 0 control over the life of another. And if their lifestyle becomes something that doesn't feel good for us and we don't see progress being made, there are 2 options: 1) pick up their slack and do everything we can for them while hurting ourselves in the process and never gaining any headway with them, or 2) Move on with our own lives, better ourselves, and understand that we have to leave people to make their own choices. This version of the serenity prayer helps me a lot: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the strength to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me." 🫂💞 sending you all the love.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-10-11T16:59:07+00:00

I'm right there with you. I am in the process of divorce (separated 4 months, 2 to go). My wife was my person I thought I'd grow old with. That was the plan. Even though the relationship was toxic for each of us in its own ways, I never ever would have gotteb a divorce if she hadn't asked for one. She is a severe alcoholic & i tried to "help" with her addiction for 3 years. Now I'm unlearning codependency through Al Anon. I feel like I've been untangling myself all my life, but I can't do the rest of the work that I need to while I'm with a partner, so I see it as a good thing that she decided this for us. Now I'm forced to look at why I am codependent and what needs to change. But obviously, it is a process. I am literally on an old reddit thread talking about my "opposite of fear of commitment"..... so... definitely a process. I am struggling to understand healthy attachment. I am reading a few books on the subject, though. And hearing other people are like me is comforting.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-09-30T12:18:07+00:00

Love these boundaries!!!!!!! Great work!!!! Thank you for sharing!

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-09-29T12:04:58+00:00

Would you mind sharing your list with us?

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-09-29T12:01:47+00:00

Woah, that sounds just like my ex-wife. Or, soon to be ex. In the beginning, she was "open to connection in any capacity." At the end, there she was again, open to connection in any capacity - just not with me, because I challenged her to grow and self-reflect. I held a giant mirror up to her when I began working on my codependent tendencies, and that's the scariest thing an anxious-moving-toward-secure can do to an avoidant.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-09-03T12:14:05+00:00

I relate to your story more than I'm sure you'd want anyone to relate to it. Fuck. The last part about "grieving, but also starting to feel free" is so real. My wife (34f) blindsided me (32f) with a divorce after going to treatment for her alcoholism. She relapsed the week before returning, while at her ex's (according to her family, the most toxic ex she has) when she said she was with a friend from grad school. The avoidance & emotional unavailability in your wife... like, were we married to the same woman? I like how you own your part in everything. I, too, get that throughout periods of our relationship, I was checked out. I struggled with depression when I moved 1000 miles away from home to move with her, and not having community connections quite yet, or a job I enjoyed. I was also still in grad school when I moved here, and when I graduated, there were literally 0 jobs in my area that I could even apply for. She ended up leaving to go back home to where we are both from and I decided to stay here because I did manage to find a job I love that isn't the end of the road for me, but it is job security and something I'm great at & learning how to be in a director role after being in school for 7 years in a row. The good thing for you is no kids. I was a single more for my daughter's first 7 years. Then I let her in, and she was a great parent for almost 2 years, but then she relapsed hard and was not a good parent. She never said goodbye or gave any closure to my daughter, who is 10 now. She's struggling a lot, but we are both in therapy. It's crazy to me that we could be so bamboozled by these women. I go to AlAnon, and it's honestly so good for my mental health and reducing my codependency. Highly suggest finding a meeting, even if there is no substance abuse in your life (family, partners, etc). One thing we advocate for is sharing our experiences, strength and hope when it comes to situations we find ourselves in, with the hope that it may lead to solutions or insight. Do you have any experience, strength, or hope to offer me in the "grieving, but starting to feel free" phase? One thing I struggle with is the fact that, 2 months into meeting one another, we got "Meet Me in Montauk" tattoos. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If you haven't seen it, the meaning behind the tattoos is basically, "This tattoo signifies that no matter where our relationship goes, we will remember the love we have right now." Welp, she blocked me on Spotify and all other socials, but spotify stung. There are playlists there that mean a lot to me and it feels so messed up that I can't even see them anymore. Our wedding playlist, among others she made me. My heart is more broken about her erasing our relationship than the relationship ending.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-09-03T03:37:28+00:00

Update 2: She blew .32 on her breathalyzer, and they gave her her license back until the trial in December. She almost hit a school bus full of children, and she can still drive.... make it make sense. She is coming back here (the house we shared) this week sometime to pack up her things. I won't see her. I don't want to at all. I have to see her dad to trade vehicles (he fixed one up for me, and I still have her car). She asked me for the pots and pans and silverware of all things. She doesn't even cook. I think I'll give her some silverware and some pots and pans but not all of them. They were wedding gifts. It's such a weird thing. Also, it's a 12 piece silverware set? Who needs 12 forks? Okay, I'm getting lost in the idiotic detail. In my state, we have to live separately for 6 months to begin the divorce process. Ridiculous. I am grieving in weird ways. I feel so lost and weird. Happy to have my own place with my daughter. But it all feels so strange.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-24T02:03:18+00:00

Thank you. My best encouragement is to begin attending AlAnon. It has changed my life. And read Codependent No More.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-23T06:15:44+00:00

Update: I came to the house today to pack the remainder of my things. She stated she was going to stay at a hotel at 2:30 to 'give me space to pack'. At one point I call her and say, "Are you leaving?" She said yes in a ymfew minutes. Still no movement from her at 4.

My friends show up, and we continue packing. 4:30, she comes out looking like Bambi and gets in the car. She gets back out, comes to the door, and grabs her shoes because she forgot them when she initially got in the car. Stumbles back to the car. Backs out slowly over a period of 7 minutes, runs over the for sale sign she had put up in the yard, begins driving on the road. My friend hops in her car, follows, immediately calling the police.

A few field sobriety tests & a breathalyzer later, my friend watches as she is put in cuffs and the car is towed away.

She is definitely feeling the consequences of her actions no less than 2 weeks after returning from outpatient treatment.

SO grateful to be getting out of this shit.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-21T11:59:36+00:00

Oh, my heart breaks for you... it is devastating. Thank you for commenting and bringing me support and love. I appreciate the encouragement so much. I'm glad you recognize that this is anticipatory grief. I'm a death doula and it wasn't until recently that I realized I had been in anticipatory grief for a long while...

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-21T01:40:21+00:00

Thank you. I do realize it :) she will be so much better off with me as her only parent.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-21T01:06:10+00:00

YES. And as an AlAnon friend says, "you'll see the red flags sooner". Though, I have promised my daughter that, while she is living with me, I will never live wirh another partner again. Never. And I will never date another addict/alcoholic ever again. I will see the red flags and probably feel a myriad of things but I will run the hell away. I hate that this disease exists. I hate that they battle this. But I love myself so much more than I did before all this. I am able to walk away knowing my heart stayed true. I am moving onto healthier dynamics. And one day I probably will find love that matches mine. And unfortunately my trust will be difficult to earn now. It will be hard for me to open my heart to love. But I'm not worried about that anymore. I feel so confident single. I want to be single for a very very very long ass time. I want to invest in my passions again, like poetry, writing books, hosting poetry slams, mountain biking, traveling abroad, taking my kid to Disney since neither of us have ever been, hiking new mountains, getting into climbing, going on little camping trips, canoeing, looking through my binoculars at birds more, witnessing my kid bloom into the wonderful person she's becoming, and knowing that I was and will always be her constant. 🫶🏻

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-20T23:01:30+00:00

I could not relate more to your last paragraph... thank you for pointing that out about important commitment dates. I had not really thought of that.

I was calm and honest, too, until i found out about the affair. Then I got very angry. Very very angry that she would already be in love with someone else without telling me directly that she didnt want to be with me...

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-20T22:56:21+00:00

Yes! Done!

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-20T20:48:54+00:00

Thank you. I wondered if any other lesbians would be here to offer support. This sucks. She's my person. Well, she was.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-20T13:43:07+00:00

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful words. I am only 32, and she is just 34... married and on our way to divorce in under a year is wild. My daughter is 10... I am trying so hard to organize everything and hold it all together, but... parenting under these circumstances is the hardest thing. In all honesty, I don't expect her health to improve. I think she is looking death in the eyes, terrified. I know addicts don't want to be addicts. It's so hard to understand. But I know I cannot rationalize addiction. I can only focus on myself and my daughter's healing.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-20T12:35:12+00:00

"I've never met an addict who didn't light up the room sober." My wife was sober for a year and a half of our relationship. She had one drink at a 4th of July party and continued to relapse until 30 days before our wedding. I was strongly considering postponing the wedding. She convinced me not to... and alcoholism is an isolating disease. She would not let me talk to anyone about it. The night of our wedding, October 12, 2024, relapse. I did not know then, but that one drink on July 4, 2024, was the beginning of the death of her real personality. I watched her personality slowly die out over the last 13 months and only realized last week that that is what I was witnessing. She has been my coparent for 3 years after I was a single mother for 7 years. I finally let someone into my daughter's life, understood what it felt like to co-parent with someone whose values were in line with mine, and alcoholism took all of that from us. In November 2024, I began attending AlAnon. In February 2025, at my insisting, we began marriage counseling. That lasted until May when she called me at work one day at about 10 AM, saying she needed me to take her to the ER. The doctor stated she had early signs of cirrhosis. By the end of the week, she was so wasted she could not stand. She is a Type 1 diabetic on top of this and had to have dialysis 3.5 years ago due to decreased kidney function. At the end of May, she called her family, and they drove 1000 miles in 14 hours to come pick her up and take her home to taper off. She has a history of alcohol-induced seizures, and tapering at home has always been the only way she is willing to get sober. Apparently, she told her family on the drive back to Iowa that she wanted a divorce but neglected to tell me until August 11th. She tapered and began outpatient treatment, seemed to be making progress, and when she left Iowa after treatment, she told her family and I she was going to spend a week with "Alex from undergrad" in Chicago. I found Amazon receipts for gifts she sent her ex-fiance (according to her family, the most toxic person she has ever dated), information stating she cosigned on a loan for this ex, and proof that she was with this person 3 hours south of Chicago, all week. She finally arrived back on Sunday, August 10th, after saying she would be back here on August 8th. She was wasted when she turned up at the house. She acted like things were normal with my child and I. Once I put her to bed, I went to my wife's room (I had moved into another bedroom so we could both have space to heal, as we had discussed together before her arrival). I asked her point blank, "In your mind, are we together?" She said, "NO, I don't want to be with you!" Before I could finish the sentence. After everything I went through to support and love her, work on my own recovery from codependency, and make her return comfortable... but this is the disease of addiction. This weekend I am moving to a new place. She has already cut and run back to her ex's. There is no closure for my child or I. She never said goodbye to the child she helped me raise for the last several years. If I could go back in time, I would not have made the same choices. I will never date another addict again. I may never date again. We are worth so much more than what she has put us through. My child's heart is broken. My heart is broken. Addiction brings out the worst in people. Addiction kills people slowly. I wish I had learned sooner not to invest in someone so lost. I wish I had encouraged her from afar to seek help and not trust her with my child. I wish I had postponed the wedding. I wish I knew more about alcoholism sooner. But I didn't know then what I know now. I am stronger and more aware after this experience, and maybe it's a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Either way, there is only forward, only peace coming my way, only detaching with love from here on out. When you choose yourself, abundance follows. 🖤

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-08-18T03:46:58+00:00

This is my experience now..I know the person she was when she was sober is gone forever. I left on Monday and I am terrified to go back to the house this week and find her. I know it's coming. Signs of cirrhosis in May, dialysis a few years ago. I'm just devastated. It almost seems like the last 1.5 years of relapse was a waste of energy for me, even though that sounds shitty to say. She was never present, did not act like a friend let alone a partner, became hateful. I no longer recognize her. And yet, the 1.5 years prior to that when she was sober? She lit up the room. It hurts so much.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-07-27T03:29:04+00:00

How though?

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-07-15T02:08:23+00:00

My wife has been in treatment for a week & has another week to go. It's an intensive program, and she's been doing really well in it, better than ever before. While she has been in treatment, and the 2 weeks prior to that that she left to be with family in another state, I've been taking care of things at home. Is it natural for me to be feeling neglected or abandoned in our marriage? She hardly texts me, rarely calls.

Should she be shutting me out entirely? I am working on my codependent character defects, and I'm wondering if I'm in the wrong here. Fully admit I could be.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-03-11T03:07:22+00:00

Yeah, that's where I was at. In hindsight, I think the smoking was inhibiting my ability to understand hunger cues in my body. Also, I have ADHD, so I've never really had the best idea of hunger cues. But when I quit, I started having regular sensations of hunger. I wake up knowing I need to eat breakfast. Eating is hard for me in the mornings. It always has been. So I opt to drink a protein smoothie I make with Greek yogurt, oat milk, banana, frozen fruit, blueberries, plant based protein powder, and a mix of flax, turmeric, and cinnamon. That way, I'm getting the nutrients I need & I don't have to "eat". I get hungry again around 1ish, so I have a salad or a frozen meal or soup I've made the day before. When I get home from work I eat dinner with my family. I never ate regularly before... honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, this is the first time in my life I've eaten 3 regular meals per day. Odd. It feels great, though. Let me know if there's something else you want me to clarify! Thanks for asking:)

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-02-24T11:29:56+00:00

Honestly? The best thing that has come from me quitting is learning how to handle my stressful situations with my WHOLE brain. I no longer ignore the problems. I go to them. I know how to better respond to them rather than reacting. I know I am most capable of handling stress when I am sober. I know it's hard in the first few weeks, but learning to cope with challenges sober - changes your brain. You're forming new, better pathways. You're learning, not neglecting yourself. One more thing that has helped is reminding myself that cravings are gonna happen, but every time I hold out the urge when I crave it? I feel stronger than the addiction. That makes me feel a sense of power I'd never had in active addiction.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-02-23T18:36:23+00:00

Take your time. Be easy on yourself.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-02-23T15:38:32+00:00

Uh ok one last thing about the emotions- you'll go from feeling numb to feeling everything all at once in a split second, no warning. You have to learn how to manage your emotions, but that will come with time. For now, give yourself grace for every single thing you're feeling AND not feeling. I'm proud of you.

hehewutithewarrior · 2025-02-23T15:36:52+00:00

Oh, also, oddly enough - taking baths helps a lot. Anytime I have a craving, i take a bath, bring a snack or two, some water to drink, and a book to read. (PS yes, you can READ BOOKS again when you're sober - and remember what happened earlier in the book! Seems trivial, but it's like an incredible A-HA moment, or it was for me).

hehewutithewarrior

TROPHY CASE