Self-love

Hamster, you take way to much responsibility for his life. The relationship to me looks soo codependant. Way too enmeshed with each other to even see where one person begins and the other person ends. You cannot be responsible for another person, or their life. Even if you want to be, it isn't possible.

People here are not just saying kind things to be nice, they say it because it's true. You really do need to see that he is responsible for his own life and choices, always was, always will be. And you both need to start seeing that. He made a choice to marry you, with first child. He made a choice to stay home, or to do this or that. He made a choice in all of this too.

The children right now need to be the priority. They need to come first. I'm really worried about what all this is doing to them. Someone needs to stop this crazy ride between the two of you. I think both of you need to disengage until you both can take responsibility for your own selves. Figure out some boundaries, and what a healthy relationship looks like, because honestly I don't think you or him know right now.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but the two of you really need to stop all this for your own sakes, and especially for the sake of your children. You don't want them to think this is what relationships should be like.

Have you read about codependancy?

Even if you ex refuses to take responsibility for his own life, and his own role in this, then it doesn't mean you can't. If you stop this and get healthy, learn boundaries, learn to stop over extending yourself into his life and his choices. Learn where Hamster begins and Hamster ends in a relationship. What you can and cannot be responsible for in another person. And you keeping working on healing yourself, and becoming who you want to be as a person. then this relationship could look a whole lot better. You would know how and be able to set boundaries and enforce them.

You need to redefine this relationship.

Begin with yourself! Leave your ex out of this equation all together. Start on only healing Hamster.

He chose what he chose. If you respect him at all, then respect the choices he has made in his life and let them be his.

Don't let someone hurt you.

No, I am familiar with the term, but I have not dug deeper. You think I should, right?

Cocoabeans, you write that you are too thin. I think I have a solution: I will send you some of my extra pounds. I have 35 total - more than you need for sure. Let me know how much to pack (5? 10?) and I will be on my way to the post office tomorrow. It will take some time from California to Canada, but they will get there, I promise.

Yes you should! I was raised in a codependent family, both mother and father, and then it spread to me and my sisters. My mother is slowly trying to learn healthier ways, and it makes it hard to have a relationship with her.

I have worked through a lot of my codependent issues, and am able to have healthy relationships now, but I didn't use to be able too, my oldest sister has also worked through this. My middle sister has not, she can't make relationships work.

My mother and one sister, cannot even have healthy relationship with friends, family members, co-workers, or their children because of their extreme codependency.

The only way I am still able to have a relationship with them is because I have worked on my own issues with this. I can recognize it with them, and I can set and maintain my boundaries. If I couldn't do that then we would not even have a relationship at all.

I remember when I was a child, that my mom had a book called "Codependent No More", I still remember that book to this day! I asked my mom what that book was about, I don't remember her answer, but that has always been a important memory for me, the book. I didn't hear another word about this subject till I was in intense out patient. When they started to talk about it, I thought it was weird how this memory of this book always was in my mind.

I wonder what might have happened if my mom ever actually read it front to back.

http://mentalhealthamerica.net/go/codependency

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2012/sym...-codependency/

Can you see yourself in this, or maybe both you and your ex? You don't have to tell me, but I really think it's worthwhile to look at. The symptoms might vary of course, but if you see a lot of them, dig deeper!

http://mindfulconstruct.com/2010/07/...e-healthy-way/ This is about ending the relationship the healthy way, not ending it the codependent way. It is definitely worth looking at even for non codependent people. Everyone is codependent at times, some more, some less, but often the whole relationship becomes codependent all of the time, if you have two codependent people in the relationship, well it gets very very messy!

Anika,

Thank you, I have identified some traits in the list you pointed me to:

Characteristics of Co-dependent People Are:

• A tendency to become hurt when people don’t recognize their efforts
• An unhealthy dependence on relationships. The co-dependent will do anything to hold on to a relationship; to avoid the feeling of abandonment
• An extreme need for approval and recognition
• A sense of guilt when asserting themselves
• Lack of trust in self and/or others
• Fear of being abandoned or alone
• Difficulty identifying feelings
• Rigidity/difficulty adjusting to change
• Problems with intimacy/boundaries
• Lying/dishonesty
• Poor communications
• Difficulty making decisions

I agree.

He shouldn't be putting these feelings off on you, Hamster.

He's a grown man. Let him be responsible for his own choices and mistakes.

Well, he bears the responsibility in how he lives: for example, in being jobless he bears the responsibility for the choice to stay with the children. It is just that he makes everything look like lack of care on my part, and sometimes I simply did not think through the consequences, without ill will. Take my suicide atttempt, for instance: I ate all his Lunesta and Ambien - three month supplies. He could not sleep after that, and his doctor would not prescribe more. So I hurt him in the act of a suicide attempt, but I simply was not thinking. If I had my thinking faculties present in the moment of the suicide attempt, I simply would have abstained from trying to kill myself. But he sees a boundaries issue: had I had proper boundaries, I would have OD'd on my own drugs only, without taking someone else's drugs.

Another thing he does that really bothers me... he incessantly compares me with my parents, in a bad light. As if there were no material difference between us. I see some material differences: for instance, I live alone, independently, and my parents have never lived alone. My father, always with a woman - if not this one then that one. My mother, either inside our family or with her parents or in her last years with a caregiver. Her mother, my grandmother, was hugely supportive. She even edited my mother's PhD dissertation and organized her research - my mother (bpI and I am sure borderline, too) would not have been able to complete her PhD on her own. I live alone without a car - I lug my own cat litter from the grocery store (a 10 minute walk and the litter is bulky and heavy). My mother would have asked someone for a ride in this situation - it would not have even occurred to her to do those things alone. I cook (self-taught); my mother could not be bothered. I take Lithium and doing so made me stop buying garbage; she took Elavil only and was overbuying all her life, unable to organize her belongings. So maybe there are small differences, but they seem material enough to me. Not to him - to him we are the same in material ways. He thinks that I am just as narcissistic as my father. I had a full neuropsychological eval done and I do have narcissistic features but not full blown disorder. He still thinks what he thinks. On the one hand, I , too, am mad at my parents, and I realize their shortcomings. I do realize that it was not OK for my father to sexually molest me. And still, it hurts me when he criticizes them and especially hurts when he compares them to me. D. does not know my father but he knew my mother (even treated her) and grandmother and he has a lot of respect for them. It might sound so minor, but it is not minor for me - one of the attractive features of a (hypothetical for now) relationship with D. would be the knowledge that I would not be subjected to criticism and comparison with my parents.

So here we are.

Speaking of cooking... I can cook elaborate meals with multiple stages of preparation, particular ways of cutting raw materials, etc. etc. - it is a complex ordeal. My mother was not capable of it on an intellectual level as well as on the dexterous level. Don't you think that it is a material difference?

BlueInanna, thank you for a very thorough Fromm-based account. I will try to implement it.

It sounds like he is quite judegmental, and critical. Maybe he can use that for his ownself, use it to work on his own problems. This is where you can practice boundaries. It is ok even good.

I would tell him, and Hamster I had this conversation with my own bf too. Something like " I feel _______ when you compare me too, and judge my family. I am asking you to refrain from talking about this to me anymore." Simple and to the point, no need to discuss it further or more in depth than that.

If you do this and he still continues to do it, then the boundary needs to be enforced. That means that you will have to make a decsision about what will happen if your boundary is not respected. It isnt a punishment, it's making sure that the other person realizes you do expect it to be taken seriously, and will not put up with it being crossed.

That is what I have done in this situation. Comparisons between you and your family or any other people is not fair.