Hi everyone, I'm new here and I'm going to repost my original intro to make sure everyone knows my whole situation and then I will put some additional background about myself afterwards.

Repost: I'm trying to figure how to proceed with a long-term relationship with my schizophrenic boyfriend. We have been talking about marriage for a long time now. He is a great guy, very sweet and loving. Not mean and non-abusive. I love him so much. He's doing well with his health, recovery and daily life too.

I am new also to learning about schizophrenia and I've been reading up on the subject for over a month now. I want to find ways to emotionally support my boyfriend, find better coping skills for myself and through advice from others figure out if its possible to have a good life with my boyfriend (hopefully future husband).

Lately I've been learning about the specific challenges that go with having a mentally ill partner from the perspective of others by reading other women's stories and it all seems frightfully negative. I'm starting to worry about what am I possibly in for here with my boyfriend as time goes on. He's staying very strong and optimistic and trying to help me stay calm about the future but I can't help but worry more and more.

However, at the end of June my boyfriend started contacting me less after 7 years of being super involves and talking and being together everyday. The decreased contact started because he got upset with me because I pointed out that he didn't give me a birthday card (which he always gives me) and he got an attitude with me and said he was busy fixing his computer. This shocked the hell out of me because he's always so pleasant and never gives me attitude! WTF?

But at least he did leave a nice voicemail. He gently alluded to breaking up in July, which scared me so much. I`d been so hardcore depressed and crying everyday since then and trying to hold back my tears in even normal situations. Finally at the end of August, weeks before fall semester began for both of us at different schools. I began a relentless search about everything I could find on schizophrenia to see if being distant is some kind of symptom. Sure enough I find that this is happening to other women. My research has yielded the most horrific stories of women suffering abuse from their ill partners. I got so scared wondering if my sweet wonderful man could turn into such a monster. The thing I found out is no one knows for sure. In September the communication picked up speed which was encouraging. Now that it's October, talk has dropped again and the lack of communication is making me worrried even more and I as of today havn't heard from him in 7 days. The last e-mail I got from him was sweet. He`s still kind, loving and amazing right now but much less conversant and it bothers me so much he's such a chatty personable guy. He told that he has been given more responsibilities at work now and school is pretty challenging. So I don't know if that is trigging stress that is making him have an episode.

And since I am in school finishing up my degree and in a lot of debt with school loans and I have very big career goals in a creative field I wonder how I can take care of myself and make sure my bf's needs are meet, is it even realistic for me to maintain my goals when faced with the reality of being with an ill partner? He has goals too he is in school to be a software engineer. Yet he has told me I should scale back me goals to stay home with him. He is very high functioning now but is so emotionally dependent on me. I would love to just stay home and be with him all the time but I need to make a living to support myself and to do something I enjoy and have time AWAY from him. The biggest challenge is meeting both our needs and helping him understand that I have needs that have to be met too. I know I am going to need therapy for myself pretty soon but for now reading tips and advice is really helpful.
End of repost

I've asked a question on the Answer portion of this website and also made a comment on another topic in the schizophrenic forum section. The responses are positive and encouraging which I feel is very comforting and kind.

But I am also a realist and I want to know the cold harsh reality of situation. I've been living with the cold harsh reality for 7 years! So far I've read that women with schizo husbands and bfs get treated like crap for the most part and they have to hold out hope things will get better. I've read a story written by a woman whose husband won't have sex with her, another woman has been assaulted by her husband and he has threatened the life of their child!!!

If I marry my bf, he wants to have kids and in general, I don't want kids and especially not with him because I grew up with a really emotionally unstable dad, who was cold, unloving, uninvolved, distant and angry all the time. I think he had post traumatic stress from being in Vietnam. I was afraid of him till my early 20s!! But My dad is doing better, I'm not afraid of him anymore and he's nice now :-). I don't want my kids to have an experience of having an unavailable, possibly psychotic (if my bf snaps one day) father. I know my bf is a totally different person and not my father but I just don't want to risk it.

All I've ever wanted was a guy to love me and some one who I can love. And so far I've had nothing but BS and turmoil in relationships. Even though my bf is a sweet wonderful man at heart his illness has gotten in the way of me being able to enjoy him as a person for very long.

I learned about a week ago that the paranoid/delusions are an involuntary response and are not his fault. But even so its caused me to not keep in touch with male friends because my bf puts such a guilt trip on me for contacting male friends. In fact I can't mention any males without him getting very worryied, he thinks that every guy wants to have sex with me and he thinks that I want to leave him, he even has a problem with me being social with women too (not sex related though), at one point he said he was sad because he thought I was having fun without him and he said he was sad that I posted on y facebook that I had fun at an event before I told him how things went. He even told me he looked (snooped!) in my lady friend's facebook photo album to find new pictures of me (going behind my back was so messed up!) but I didn't make a big deal of it or ask many questions because I knew if I did he might stop telling me anything else he's up to.

Its so hard to constantly reassure him of everything, it's getting so old and tiring, I can't live my life having to apoligize for trying to build a social life! As I get older I've really blossomed socially and I just don't want him to try to guilt trip me and isolate me if we get married.

However, I started out with OVERWHELMING low self esteem, hardcore shyness and no friends when I started out with him and I was spending ALL my time with him because he demanded it. I've endured a lot of emotional pain and had been forced to be his councelor when he refused getting professional help after I begged to get help for the first 4 years in the relationship when he went undiagnosed.

Also, having him detail how he planned to commit suicide everyday for about a year and then threating to SURELY do it if I left him, was the most gut wrenching, sickening, heart breaking, traumatizing experience of my life. And of course I stayed because who could leave when you think someone's death could be your fault?! It really messed with my head for a long time, but last year I was able to just let it go and be free of the anger and bitterness I had for my bf for putting me through such emotional torment because it was eating me alive.

I told him how that impacted me and he refused to believe that his psychotic episode could cause such a damaging emotional trauma to me. He said and I will never forget this, "I didn't mean to do that, so you shouldn't feel hurt. I can't apoligize for that because I didn't mean to hurt you!" I felt like that was such a cold calous response, ill or not I think he was a jerk for saying that! Well the damage had been done reguardless and I told him that, I don't think he will ever get it or be able to accept it!!!

I before I met my bf I've been in nothing but unhealthy relationships with men where they just try to use me and emotionally abuse me. So have a LOT of baggage myself, my personal issues have impacted the relationship greatly as well, so it's not like I'm just trying to blame my bf. I know this is my fault for not be smarter but I am now trying to correct my choices and make sure I stay on the right track.

I guess what I'm trying to do is just work through why I want to leave him but it's hard to just really leave him because I just keep making up reasons not to leave and trying to be hopeful.

If I can get to a place where I feel at peace to leave on my own terms I can begin the task of fixing myself so I can be a good partner to someone else, eventually.

I also just feel really guilty for wanting to leave my bf, he's a good guy but his illness has caused him to be an unhealthy partner and I just want to have a normal relationship so much.

Above all, what I really want to just be able to have BETTER skills to cope and deal with my bf but if all else fails or he takes a turn for the worse I have to make peace with leaving to preserve my own sanity, health and emotional wellbeing.

I want to reinerate that my bf's behavior that traumatized me lasted the first 4 years of the relationship, pre-treatment and after the diagnosis and treatment 3 years ago he has paranoid/delusions that are sporatic and spread out and less drawn out, now they last maybe a day or several days as oppose to delusions pre-treatment that lasted long months or some even several years! So there is much progress.

I don't believe he actually does know he is paranoid/delusional, I know he just thinks the only problem is the voices in his head. How to I point out that he does in fact have paranoid/delusions? If I point something out negative, even in the nicest way he thinks I'm being mean and he's ultra sensitive.

Anyway I'm sorry for such a long, mixed up post, it just really reflects how I feel inside. Thank you in advance for your time and patience everyone.