My partner, whom I love dearly, suffers from quite severe mood swings that can last days and even weeks. When she’s in this low moods, she’s impossibly irrational about everything and I immediately have to walk on egg shells because anything I say might get taken severely out of context and misconstrued as something else, causing her to spiral even more.
During these times, she spends most of her time hols up in bed, usually in a mixture of physical and emotional pain.
I’m exhausted, guys. I’ve been living with this for 7+ years now and there’s no end to it.
I worry if I end the relationship, she’s going to be unable to look after herself and that weighs heavily on me because I don’t see how that ends well. But things don’t get better, either, I’m just trapped in this spiral and don’t know what to do.
Will you continue to be capable of looking after her if this continues? I’ve been in relationships with people with DID, was married to someone with undiagnosed bipolar for over a decade, at times it was so much long term weight on my shoulders I wasn’t able to hold myself together let alone another person. The unfortunate reality is it’s not your job. Sounds like they need professional help and even if you were trained to help them the way they need it brings ethical questions into the mix about what is essentially dating a patient
Love them and support them. But if they’re unable or unwilling to get professional help then it puts a major unfair burden on you. In my experience that has a high chance of exploding somewhere down the line. One of my boundaries I have set, from years of having dealt with this kind of thing, is any kind of long term thing I’ll support them through getting help but I won’t be the help they need
Yeah, I think she does need more professional help than she’s currently getting (or willing to do). We have couple counselling next week, I’m hoping that it helps he realise she needs more help but that she needs to put the work in for it and that’s going to be hard, because I can’t do it for her.
I have a lot on my plate, not just with her, so I am stretched very thin and I have been up front with her that I can’t do more for her, but that shed also part of the problem and it needs to change, one way or the other.
I appreciate you taking the time to say these things, thank you for your response.
I think I really needed to see this today.
My partner, whom I love dearly, suffers from quite severe mood swings that can last days and even weeks. When she’s in this low moods, she’s impossibly irrational about everything and I immediately have to walk on egg shells because anything I say might get taken severely out of context and misconstrued as something else, causing her to spiral even more.
During these times, she spends most of her time hols up in bed, usually in a mixture of physical and emotional pain.
I’m exhausted, guys. I’ve been living with this for 7+ years now and there’s no end to it.
I worry if I end the relationship, she’s going to be unable to look after herself and that weighs heavily on me because I don’t see how that ends well. But things don’t get better, either, I’m just trapped in this spiral and don’t know what to do.
Will you continue to be capable of looking after her if this continues? I’ve been in relationships with people with DID, was married to someone with undiagnosed bipolar for over a decade, at times it was so much long term weight on my shoulders I wasn’t able to hold myself together let alone another person. The unfortunate reality is it’s not your job. Sounds like they need professional help and even if you were trained to help them the way they need it brings ethical questions into the mix about what is essentially dating a patient
Love them and support them. But if they’re unable or unwilling to get professional help then it puts a major unfair burden on you. In my experience that has a high chance of exploding somewhere down the line. One of my boundaries I have set, from years of having dealt with this kind of thing, is any kind of long term thing I’ll support them through getting help but I won’t be the help they need
Yeah, I think she does need more professional help than she’s currently getting (or willing to do). We have couple counselling next week, I’m hoping that it helps he realise she needs more help but that she needs to put the work in for it and that’s going to be hard, because I can’t do it for her.
I have a lot on my plate, not just with her, so I am stretched very thin and I have been up front with her that I can’t do more for her, but that shed also part of the problem and it needs to change, one way or the other.
I appreciate you taking the time to say these things, thank you for your response.