[ojmgreenolives]

I've been together with my boyfriend for almost three years and we have a son together. My boyfriend had a terrible childhood dealing with verbal, physical and sexual abuse. When we first met he was great. I knew he was into trouble when he was younger but he seemed to have been past that stage when we first started dating. Of course problems started popping up further into the relationship but nothing too serious. I discovered he's a compulsive liar. He would like about every small thing which drives me insane plus gives me trust issues. And I knew he had some anger issues. Over the last year though after having our son he just went down hill. He lost his job and now he can't seem to keep one and he wakes up angry everyday. This past winter he disappeared for a month after saying he admitted himself in the hospital (which he did for a week than had his mom picked him up who convenced him to lie to me and not come home) p.s his mom is completely nuts and did the sexual abuse to him as a child. He finally came home one day and we were trying to fix things. I guess while he was with his mom again she got drunk one night and attempted to do stuff to him again. He got a therapist and everything was going smooth until he stopped seeing his thearipist again. This last month we've been staying at my mom's and movies started disappearing . Movies that were new and we were in the middle of watching. Turns out he was selling them for money. He got kicked out and we are now currently separated. But the question is where did the money go? He hasn't had anything , hasn't bought anything and he just did a drug test and he's cleaned. When I keep asking him why he took the stuff he keeps breaking into tears saying he has no recollection of doing it. My whole family hates him now and I want to but I feel something else is going on. I can't talk to my family about it because after the last year of him lieing and disappearing they think he's just lieing again and they think he has me brainwashed. Is there any mental disorder that could be causing him to do stuff without him knowing​ or is he just being a lair. He has never stolen from us before and usually he would crack by now about a lie. I need help . I don't know what to think anymore and I want to try to get him to admit himself to the hospital.

Hello ojmgreenolives, I see this is your first post so welcome to PC! I hope you find your time here to be of benefit.

Does your boyfriend struggle with dissociation or memory loss? If he has something like DID for example (multiple personalities), he may not remember what any of his alters do. It sounds like he has been through a lot and I can certainly empathize with that, but you need to look after yourself and your wellbeing first. What do you love about this guy? From your post I see several reasons to break it off, but none to stay.

[Sunflower123]

I agree with putting yourself and your wellbeing first. Your son also needs to be a priority. Is your boyfriend a good father to your son? There does seem to be a whole lot of reasons to break it off and very few to stay. At a minimum, he needs to get some help or how could this have a happy ending? I wish you the best.

[ojmgreenolives]

Thank you guys. That's what in trying to do it's just hard. I guess I just keep hoping for what we had when we first got together. He was a hard worker, spoiled me and was the kindest guy I ever met. Now he let depression take over. As for now we aren't together everyone keeps telling me to stay away so I'm trying I just wish we could be a family together again but he needs to get help and prove he can take care of himself.

[dermald]

This is a hard situation. He's got some major issues that he has not addressed. Stacking on the responsibility of a child/family only serves to add pressure and make it worse.

While it makes sense that you want everyone to be a family again, the important key is that HE wants to make it a family again. He has to want it that. He also has to want to work on himself. Owning your own issues is hard. I had a tough time with it.

I'm not one for ultimatums, but I did give one to someone I loved, in the name of setting boundaries. Maybe this will be helpful. We had just started dating, and it soon became clear that she wasn't handling her mental health issues very well. I had just gotten out of my abusive marriage, so I wasn't about to be very accepting of this, especially within the context of a new relationship.

I told her that she had a choice to make: You can neglect your own mental health, and do it away from me, OR you can take ownership of your mental health, and I will be happy to help you.

She accepted responsibility, and I helped, as promised. She stayed on track. We've been together 18 years.

There is hope. Maybe you can offer to help him, so long as he is willing to help himself. That doesn't mean that he moves back in, because that will make it easy for him to slip back into the old, comfortable ways. It means that he takes charge of his own mental health, and then makes himself worthy and capable of caring for a family.

Best of luck.