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Originally Posted by Open Eyes
Hmm sounds like he might be bipolar and tends to get manic and careless. I have dealt with this behavior but only years later learned about how this is often what bipolar behaves like. There is a lot more information available now then when I was younger. No internet and cell phones like there is now. Often the pattern is repeated and bad business decisions are made. You were expected to live your life around his cycles. It’s good to be aware of that and work yourself away from that kind of unhealthy lifestyle.
I think if you trace yourself back, you will realize you had been expected to accept and accommodate these type of behaviors. Bet your father was the king too and you were expected to live around his addiction cycles.
Being aware of what you accepted in the past is important so that you learn to be ok with being different and continue to focus on sitting behind the steering wheel yourself for a change. People may not like your new boundaries. But it’s time you developed these boundaries. Please do not let others guilt trip you and don’t fall into guilt tripping yourself.
In my own experience, if another person has no interest in changing there is nothing you can do and often once you set boundaries it tends to end the relationship. People make mistakes, it’s part of learning and growing, but if a person keeps repeating the same mistakes they are not going to grow and improve.
From what you shared, he was king and you were the codependent. He felt that was a perfect relationship for him (red flag). That was NOT healthy for you. You have decided to grow and get your own needs met. That won’t work for him and he left. Do not give in, know the cycle and commit to changing your part in it.
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He’s not much of a cycler, he’s just always like that. I was able to live around it because I am overly accommodating, empathetic and loyal, and ignore my own needs and can tolerate a lot of discomfort.
I am accustomed to caretaking. I am trying not to do that anymore with him, but it is hard for me to turn off worrying about what decisions he will or won’t make. Mostly I worry about whether he will take the steps necessary to continue his prescriptions. I worry about whether him he and his brother will fight. I worry he’ll take more money from the bank account (I can’t close it yet due to pending transactions and the weekend). I feel guilty if I should be giving him money to help him, but I think he would misuse it anyway so I won’t.
I check in with him and he responds, but he doesn’t ask how me and kid are. He said he cancelled his debit card on our shared acct but after that he took $200 from the acct using PayPal, this a week after he charged 1k against the acct, after buying clothes, gas, weed, another phone plan from the checking acct. He’s now working construction with bro.
I haven’t filed paperwork yet, mostly because I’m not sure what I want to ask for, but probably also because I’m still clinging onto something…not hope though. It’s very final, the big boundary. Me taking the steering wheel, me no longer deferring to him in the driver seat.
It’s so hard for me to let go. Even when there is nothing there.
Im reading a book about healing from a narcissist relationship. He acts like all the things in the book that I’ve read about so far, and me the classic caretaker.
It sucks that I put so much effort into something one sided. I believed him needing me was loving me back. Or I believed him telling me he loved me was proof he did. Or I believed him loving me was enough to ignore all the unloving things he did. And yes I rolled over because of anger and guilt trips at me. I believed we had something very special. I put him on a pedestal.
I will not give in. For now, he acts like he is moved on. He couldn’t go through with addiction therapy, behavioral therapy, so he split. He apologized that he couldn’t contribute to an environment that was peaceful for all of us. He said he left because we wanted him gone.
I’m hopeful this book and another I have about guilt will help me change my patterns.