Notgoodatnames
Bronze Member
He's been in a pretty bad place for the last couple of months. He's been disappearing a lot. Yesterday we talked. He told me that I was the best thing that ever happened to him, and that he knows that the way he has been treating me is not fair on me. He can't handle any responsibility right now: he kept saying he just wants to be free. He's always been of the mindset that his burdens are his alone to bear. Then we talked for a while: about space, about expectations, about the way that childhood (his was very difficult) shapes you. I talked a bit about how in growing up I was always made to feel like my strong emotions were too much, and I developed a feeling that I was only loveable if I wasn't too much for anyone to handle, and he got angry and said that I was one of the smartest people he knew and that anyone that couldn't see me for who I was, wasn't loving me right.
We've been running a business together for the last 6 years. I always said to him that if we weren't together I couldn't work with him because it would just be too hard to see him and not be with him. But now we are here it's not so straightforward. We have a couple of new contracts about to be signed that would keep us in work for probably the next 12 months. Which would mean a steady income for him, and being able to make the mortgage payments. If I leave now, on top of everything else that is crumbling around him, it will put him in an even more precarious financial position and I can't bear the thought of doing that to him. He doesn't like it when I worry about him - I think it makes him feel dependent. I suggested that I could train someone to take over my role in the business and he could run it without me so at least things would be stable, but he said that I built this business and put all the work into it, and that he won't continue with it unless I benefit from it, but that in the end the decision is up to me.
And then I cried and he pulled me into his arms and soothed me and stroked my hair and was more tender with me than he's been in a long time, and I just don't know what to do. And no one here can really tell me because none of you are him, and none of you know any more than what I've written here.
We've broken up before and always come back together but usually he has just ghosted me and then come back eventually when he is ready, so this time feels different, but I'm not sure if it's different worse, or different better. My gut feel is to not make any sudden moves, and to at least get these contracts up and running, because I couldn't live with knowing he was plunged into even more difficulties on top of the mental health crisis he is currently struggling with. But I'm also scared that that is just me being delusional and clinging on to someone that is trying to walk away, and keeping hope alive where maybe there is none. And to think that maybe he doesn't mean it because he is in a bad place right now is patronizing, and I don't want to do that. Or is him leaving the choice of continuing to work together up to me, his way of saying "I can't handle any expectations right now, but also I still want you in my life at a safe distance"?
We've been running a business together for the last 6 years. I always said to him that if we weren't together I couldn't work with him because it would just be too hard to see him and not be with him. But now we are here it's not so straightforward. We have a couple of new contracts about to be signed that would keep us in work for probably the next 12 months. Which would mean a steady income for him, and being able to make the mortgage payments. If I leave now, on top of everything else that is crumbling around him, it will put him in an even more precarious financial position and I can't bear the thought of doing that to him. He doesn't like it when I worry about him - I think it makes him feel dependent. I suggested that I could train someone to take over my role in the business and he could run it without me so at least things would be stable, but he said that I built this business and put all the work into it, and that he won't continue with it unless I benefit from it, but that in the end the decision is up to me.
And then I cried and he pulled me into his arms and soothed me and stroked my hair and was more tender with me than he's been in a long time, and I just don't know what to do. And no one here can really tell me because none of you are him, and none of you know any more than what I've written here.
We've broken up before and always come back together but usually he has just ghosted me and then come back eventually when he is ready, so this time feels different, but I'm not sure if it's different worse, or different better. My gut feel is to not make any sudden moves, and to at least get these contracts up and running, because I couldn't live with knowing he was plunged into even more difficulties on top of the mental health crisis he is currently struggling with. But I'm also scared that that is just me being delusional and clinging on to someone that is trying to walk away, and keeping hope alive where maybe there is none. And to think that maybe he doesn't mean it because he is in a bad place right now is patronizing, and I don't want to do that. Or is him leaving the choice of continuing to work together up to me, his way of saying "I can't handle any expectations right now, but also I still want you in my life at a safe distance"?
