I am so not looking for an excuse to break up although i go back and forth on the issue, at one point resenting the apparent abuse and on the other hand orienting self toward her in total sympathy to her issues.

on the issue of counseling (*sigh*)

i started out in group shortly -- months -- after her m*ther died. it was in that setting that i came to know self as selves and we worked to network me into an individual therapy setting. that is over 11 or 12 years ago now. It took a couple of years for group to to convince me, help me, get me into individual therapy and really it was because i went into a huge depression. i started seeing a t at a university setting, covered by my insurance. the first t transferred out after some 6 months or so but the next t -- they understood and arranged and sought for -- the next t stayed for 18 months. i then wanted to see somebody on staff who wouldn't leave (aware of the repeated abandonment trauma and the impact on me) and i got to see this lady who XXXXX no compatibility. so then i got to see the other person -- a p-doc who had an interest in my case due to the high levels of dissociation both reported and observed. we saw him for like 18 months and he transferred out.

throughout this process, GF was drinking and though she did quit at one point the whole period of time when she was drinking (and thus less inhibited in confrontations) was very distressing. (yeah, i minimized it). she had confronted group t one day demanding to discuss what was wrong with me, she had "kidnapped" me one day on the way to group and wouldn't take me, she had driven drunk and crazy to express the rage, she had grabbed the steering wheel from me when I was driving becuase i didn't do exactly what she said . . . *sigh*

so she did quit drinking. and so she did want to know what was wrong with me. and thie p-doc turned t was NOT so helpful. he did not explain or validate the dx of my condition. i felt so hurt.

especially since it was HER reports (she would point out things that I said or did and when i didn't remmber doing them she became angry and irate, convinced that i was lying or whatever). we ended up in couples t with a young woman who i felt was at least somewhat helpful but that young woman transferred out after a few months and then we met the guy who after some sessions during which I attempted to discuss the impact her drinking had had on me, he asked me why i was trying to sabotage her. then he decided that i had issues and shoudl be seen individually and volunteered but his supervisor, thankfully, did not let that happen.

i then went back into indivudal therapy in that same setting but the new t i was assigned when we attempted to address again the dissociative issues, said simply "i see no signs of that" and decided that i had not done everything i could have done to get appropriate help (enough visits?).

i left her, going out on my own into the world to find my own indivual t who could meet my needs. i found this guy. he's ok. we're learning. and so we come to the point of truth here: she hates him, doesn't think i should be paying him; that the insurance should. that she is not like me and doesn't believe in a lifetime of therapy. she believes in going to get the tools and then using them.

she is unwilling at this point to go to therapy with me. she is unwilling to go to therapy at this point for her own issues, either (the return to drinking, the feelings about being chronically unemployed).

I did go back to school this past year trying to get my BA degree and she has stacked one thing after the other at my door and says she supports me but still, she has offloaded lots of things that were formerly her responsibility. i did challenge and take over the finances because of two issues: 1) she wanted to put a bill in the name of my son -- who has no job -- and i couldn't see that ending well (I could see her manipulating the bill and ruining his credit) and 2) she does not want to pay my therapist even the co-pay which, btw, is far under his standard rates.

the communication is for me to own my own part of it. trying. i'm still trying.

we have moved from enmeshed (the early years) to co-dependant and now i want to move to a more mature relationship. I want to communicate well. and come back to the question of how else? what else?

btw and truth: no, i don't "choose" who is with her exactly. we have learned how to discuss things inside to some extent but even at that, she objects to the methods i have learned and reacts with fear and resentment. i keep trying.

my son? he has a female friend and he is very patient with her, respectful and teasingly affectionate at the same time. we talk. he is so NOT like my partner. and i would tell him at the outset of a relationship -- and HAVE told him this -- that you must be able to communicate and you need to be on the same level. my son does not have 25 years invested in a relationship. he has not been through all the changes me and mine have gone through. if he found a relationship with a survivor with issues -- and he has found her and has been attracted to her -- I had issues with the relationship, recognizing that she was far too "mature" for him, with two children, a chaotic home life being that she lived with an abusive boyfriend. she oriented herself toward vampirism which i saw as an excuse/camoflage for the si she does. i was very happy that that particular relationship did not take root. I told him that this woman was too much for him but that i had no right to direct his life.