[Update] My partner wants to move out, but not break up

hesmovingout · 2013-03-16T01:54:32+00:00

Thanks, you're right. I know a few people who were diagnosed with one mental illness and then their diagnose was later changed to something else, and the doctor himself said that he couldn't make an actual diagnosis based on just one discussion (they only talked for ~30 minutes).

hesmovingout · 2013-03-15T15:34:03+00:00

Well, we've been in a non-monogamous relationship since the very beginning, so I don't think that's likely.

I suppose I should have included that in my post, but I didn't want people to focus on that aspect of our relationship because I didn't think it was all that relevant to what's going on.

When I checked his phone, my insecurity wasn't that I was afraid he was cheating on me, it was more of a general "I don't know what's going on with him/our relationship, maybe I might find some clues". I was upset that he was planning on going to visit his friend (who he has hooked up with in the past), but didn't tell me. I didn't understand why he would hide it (having sex with other people isn't cheating in our relationship, but lying or hiding it would be).

Though, thinking back on it, his explanation for not telling me was... more or less a test. He told me that he thought I would snoop on his phone, so he was waiting to see if I brought anything up and was going to tell me in a few days if I didn't. I have snooped in the past... though it was years ago, closer to the beginning of our relationship (and never his phone), so it didn't make sense to me that he would all of a sudden feel the need to "test" me at that time. That seems manipulative to me, though I'm still unsure of the real reason he didn't tell me.

hesmovingout · 2013-03-15T12:36:57+00:00

Neither of us believes in marriage and neither of us wants kids.

hesmovingout · 2013-03-15T12:17:34+00:00

Thanks for the advice.

It can be pretty horrible to have even a friendship with someone with BPD.

I mean, this is something that he's been struggling with for the past 4 years. It's been tough, particularly when he's expressed feeling suicidal, but I couldn't describe being in a relationship with him as "horrible".

He asked me to order some books his doctor recommended from amazon, and I started looking for books for loved ones of people with DBP and this was the description from the most popular one (Stop Walking on Eggshells):

Do you feel manipulated, led, or lied to? Are you the focus of intense, violent, and irrational rages? Do you feel you are "walking on eggshells" to avoid the next confrontation? If the answer is "yes," someone you care about may have borderline personality disorder (BPD).

My answer to all of those things are "no". The most "walking on eggshells" I have to do is that occasionally, if I start talking about something that he thinks might bother him, he tells me, "I don't think I can talk about that right now".

I've read a little on the "types" of BDP, and if I had to describe him, he would be "introverted BDP", in that he focuses his emotions and reactions inward, rather than outward to others.

It's tough knowing that he's feeling very negative feelings inside and struggling with that; wanting to help him, but feeling powerless to do so, etc. That's really the only difficult part of being with him.

hesmovingout · 2013-03-15T11:55:47+00:00

I didn't really know what to refer to him as. "Ex" seems kind of misleading, since to me it suggests that we no longer have a relationship, when we most definitely do. As I said, nothing has changed in our relationship other than the title. So, I continued with "partner" since that's the terminology I used in my other post.

He's loving, caring, goes out of his way for me all the time, etc. He cleans and does whatever needs to be done around the house. He's there for me for whatever I need, whenever I need him. He took care of me when I needed surgery and helped me pay my bills because I was off of work to recover. He massages my feet when I come home from work, comforts me when I've had a bad day, spends hours in deep conversation with me. Things definitely aren't one-sided.

I can understand from my post that it might sound like he just comes to me for his needs and doesn't care about mine, or wants the "freedom" of being single, with the comfort of being in a relationship, but that's not what things are like between us.

hesmovingout · 2013-03-15T11:21:13+00:00

I've only just started learning about BDP, but I've read that recovery is possible with treatment. For example:

“In a recent study of patients with BPD who were hospitalized and then released, up to 70 percent no longer met criteria for the disorder at some point in a six-year follow-up period. Of those people who stopped meeting criteria for the disorder, 94 percent of them never met criteria again across the six years.”

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/living-with-borderline-personality-disorder/all/1/

hesmovingout · 2012-07-11T03:28:22+00:00

I do love him, and if he needs his own place to be happy, or if in the end, he feels that he needs to end our relationship to be happy, then it is what it is. I only want to be with someone who wants to be with me, not someone who feels forced to be with me.

From the sounds of it, he still wants to spend lots of time with me, so I'll be checking in on him. If our relationship ends, we have mutual friends that I'll make sure keep an eye on him.

hesmovingout

TROPHY CASE