Maybe I need to break the tie??

I have a significant other, and we have been a couple for many years. We tried living together 3 times. The first was for 7 years.

Each time, I decided we needed to part. We live apart, now. He is quite secure in his living arrangement and seems to have no regrets about the arrangement. Whenever he needs support, I am right there. He has had a number of major health crises. I am a nurse.

The first time that I left, it was because of alcohol fueled abuse. Never was it physical. Generally, it was him calling me a complete looser. (Kind of ironic, I know.) Sometimes, he had some basis for this claim, and sometimes he said it when I couldn't have been doing better with my life. It generally had to do with how much money I was earning. I was sort of the bread winner for quite a while.

When he finally stopped drinking, I thought we could live together in peace. It didn't quite work out that way. We are apart now for 5 years. I have found it very lonely. We see each other frequently, and are on the phone several times a day.

I have sensed something wrong between us. I have been out of work for the better part of 2 years, and I am applying for SSDI. I have struggled with severe depression all my life. He finally put into words what he thinks of me. He says he "still cares for" me, but he is back to pretty much calling me a complete loser. He says he doesn't believe in depression. He says it's just something that I do to myself. He says I'm lazy. He says I have been "layin' around on my behind" when there is plenty of work out there and I am plenty young enough to be still working. I kind of even believe that, myself, and he tells me he knows I believe that.

My doctor tells me different. Even if my boyfriend is right in everything he says, I don't think he is helping me by saying it. On the other hand, I'm glad he said it all real explicitly today, because I didn't know he felt quite that condemning of me. I feel terrible that he can think of nothing good to say about me.

I think this latest put down is part of a pattern of emotional abuse that has gone on for a very long time. I think taking so much abuse and forgiving so much abuse may be part of what has kept me down in life.

I don't want to blame him for my failures. I just want to do what I need to do to survive. (I have some bad s. ideation, at times.) I think I should cut the cord. I feel like he already did that with the things he said. It is quite late in life for both of us. It almost seems silly to separate completely from him, now. However, I wonder if it might be better for me if I did???

Does what he said to me sound like abuse to anyone? Or might it just be a fair assessment that he just candidly put out there to try and get me moving? It's really not fair to ask anyone to answer that. Still, I need some help thinking this through.

Years ago, even his children said they would never blame me if I left him.

He does not financially support me and never has.

Would you EVER, even if he wasn't working, even THINK of saying those things to him? I doubt it. That's called ABUSE. People are not supposed to verbally and emotionally abuse each other -- especially if they SAY they "care" for you. And if you've been putting up with this for years, you definitely have some self-esteem issues my dear.

Would you be able to afford some sessions with a therapist? It would surely do you a lot of good. I'm sure not working has you depressed, but the fact that you've been depressed for years saying something. You need some help with this depression and a good therapist would be able to help you.

If you cannot afford a therapist, at LEAST talk to your doctor. As you well know, he can put you on an antidepressant, at least for awhile until your SSD comes thru and you can get to a therapist. No one wants to take medications, but believe me they DO help. I've been depressed since I was a child, and even tho I've gone thru therapy I still needed an A/D and have been on one for years -- and probably will be until I die. LOL Please get some help -- you don't need to live like this.

And YES -- cut the ties. Don't subject yourself to this abuse any longer. He won't stop -- he hasn't in all these years. God bless and take care of YOU. Hugs, Lee

Yeah, I don't get it. This is what my family issues are all about. They just tell me what a worthless piece of carp I am and have always been. So who needs them? Leave us alone then.

Thank you both. I have been treated for depression for many years. I have been on an antidepressant since age 25 and expect I always will be. I have had lots of therapy. I am not currently in therapy. I am an out-patient for the past 18 months at a psych facility. I went there after I got fired (unfairly) in my opinion from a job I held for 4 and 1/2 years. I tried to go back to a new job last fall, but it fell apart in February. That's when I really became hopeless.

I am struggling with very severe depression. I don't think this man is good for me. I will start to disengage with him. There's various strings that need cutting. I will be happy for any support I can get from PC. This is so hard to do.

Dear Rose -- I too have had therapist who weren't good for me. In fact when I was at my worst -- in crisis mode -- a "therapist" actually sexually molested me!! He didn't rape me, but he molested me nonetheless!!

There are times when the therapist just isn't helping us, and we have to switch to someone else. There's nothing wrong with that. Make an appointment with another therapist, and CANCEL with your current one. You don't owe any explanations -- but if you WANT to tell him, just say that you're not making any progress and choose to go somewhere else. That's all -- period, end of discussion. You can CALL and tell the receptionist if that's easier for you. But don't continue with someone that's not helping you. I've done it before and was glad I did.

And of course, keep posting if that help, Rose. We'll be here. God bless & take care. Hugs, Lee

(((Rose)))

Definitely sounds like emotional abuse to me, honey. It doesn't matter what age we are, we deserve to be treated better. We shouldn't be put down further when we're already questioning our place in this world. That's just cruel!!

I'm here for you, if you ever need me. Please don't hesitate to reach out and send a quick line to me. Okay?

I may have misunderstood your post -- you meant your bf wasn't good for you right? I thought you meant your therapist wasn't doing a good job after I re-read your post. LOL

What kind of strings to you have to cut with this man? I hope it doesn't take too long, cause you can't TAKE much more of this abuse. It's taking a toll on you.

Try to get out of this relationship as quickly as you can. He's definitely not good for you.

Take care & let us know how you progress. Hugs, Lee

Oh, well, after 28 years, who am I kidding???

I will be involved with my Sig. Other until one of us is gone. He is 18 years older than me and in failing health, so I know what the odds are. I sometimes think I am cruel in taking offense at how he responds to things. However, I have been his caretaker through all manner of big deal health crises, while he is terribly intolerant toward depression. I won't fault myself for looking for some credit and feeling hurt at his tough words to me.

Soon after we met, I discovered that he was not employed, as he had told me he was. He had come into some money, which he blew. Some he blew my way. I was so flattered that he took me out to nice places to eat and he was quite handsome. Less than four months after we met, his little fortune was blown away and he was skidding toward . . . well, the skids. He was a drinker who would drink himself, literally, into the streets. Ten months after I had first met him, I discovered him homeless, very underweight, ill-clouthed and freezing in the street, and I called a cab and put him in a motel room and then found him a place to rent (or rather that I could rent for him.) I paid his rent and brought him groceries. I gave him bus fare to look for work. He got a job. But the drinking continued and he called me up saying he was homeless again. I said, "I will pray for you. I've done everything humanly possible. I leave you to God now." (I had gone to a few Al-Anon meetings by this time.) Well, God, working through the Salvation Army, was much better able to look after him than I was. I can not speak highly enough of what the "Sally" did for him. As long as he could pass the sobriety test at check-in time, he had a very decent place to dwell, and eat, and work, and receive a bit of income, and acquire a nice wardrobe of clothes, and not be alone. And they even liked him very much. And we resumed doing nice things together.

Then he fled off to some other corner of the country with the dream of finding the pot at the end of the rainbow. In a few months, he called me saying he was on the streets again. I arranged for him to pick up a bus ticket and travel back from where he would have unlikely survived. Same story, as above. Eventually, he was back under the very wise and prudent care of the S.A. This time, he followed the program, and I became hopeful that he was turning his life around. (I became excessively hopeful.)

In a year, I was traveling to where I wanted to settle down, and he would never drink again and be so happy if we could be together. So we left and got settled in together. Seven years later, I was about crazy from living with alcoholic abuse. I walked out and found that living alone was infinitely preferable to what I had been in. For a week or two, I was hysterical with loneliness and broken dreams. Inside of a month, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Three years down the line, he became very ill, and I helped care for him. The illness did motivate him to embrace sobriety, as a way to survive. After he was sober two years, I resumed a close relationship with him. That was one of the worst decisions I ever made. Then again, I had never stopped loving him, and I did believe he loved me. And I do believe he does love me. He just has some real unloving ways of expressing himself, now and then.

When we got back together, his drinking was over, but I was beginning to have more serious problems with depression/anxiety. He was now holding jobs more steadily and I was holding jobs less steadily. We were living together, and whenever I was between jobs, or insecure on a new job, he was brutal in his denigration of me. Then he became very sick repeatedly with major health issues. My employment had stabilized and I was able to keep us going. I nursed him out of horrendous illness, and I decided that when his health stabilized, we would split up again.

He improved and I helped him get situated in a nice place to live and found myself a place to live, alone, again. Five years later, we are still close friends. He became the happiest he ever was, and I have had bad problems with recurrent depression fueled mostly by loneliness. The loss of my employment has me in pretty rough shape. My anxiety about my own ability to keep a roof over my head is intense. We kind of switched places. So when he said the mean things he said that I put in post #1, I felt like it was a bitter way to feel treated, given our history together. He never was overly big on gratitude. I accepted that. But to kick me when I am down. I can't accept that.

Now he is sick again, and will be needing my care. I tell him, "You have to leave me enough love to last me, if you should be gone one day." I was a young woman when I met him. Now, it is near 30 years later, and I am an over-the-hill broad. He has nothing to leave me, but warm memories. I tell him, he must at least leave me those. We must make more, while he has time. Just the showing of affection, the saying of kind things. That's all he can give, and that's all I would hope for from him.

I told him that, if he would tell me that he thinks I am wonderful, he could make me feel like a queen. That could go a long way in enabling me to recover and solve the very serious problems that I have to solve myself. I have spent all these years telling him, whenever I could, that I thought he was wonderful. And so often I did think that, and I still find times when I think that, and I tell him. It's time he told me.

Lee, I am in a system that does not allow me much access to therapy. Actually, I would be on an 8 month waiting-list to see a therapist. I got the most recent therapy from a student who is not a full-fledged therapist, yet. I thought it was going to be helpful, but last time I saw him, he more or less told me to go get a job. He told me that I may never get SSDI and "had I thought of that?" I think of it 100 times a day. I am twice the age of this student-therapist. I felt his remarks were well-meant, but insensitive. To be honest, I felt he had become condescending. I had felt that the best service he could render me would have been to hear my history and assess my problems with depression/anxiety and provide documentation that might help me, if I don't succeed in regaining and maintaining employment.

I am sorry to hear that your trust was betrayed. Going into therapy is not altogether as safe as the uninitiated might assume.

Leed - I thought there might have been some confusion. The thread is about my bf. I did add in a bit about a recent non-supportive encounter with a fledgling therapist.

As I went into, above, the ties are long-standing and involved.

You make a good point, though. I really can't take much more of being talked to as mean as he did. I am emotionally beat down now.

Many years ago, I definitely should have got out of this relationship. I should have got out of it after the first few weeks. As soon as I knew he drank heavily, I should have flown for all I was worth. Now, he is about the only person I have in the world. (I've always suffered from social avoidant tendencies. He was my first real romance.) If he gets mean again, I am apt to cut off seeing him for as long as I feel I need a rest.

He is ill and can't drive at present. He really is a dern fool if he doesn't make real nice for awhile. He is going to need the help of a friend, and he doesn't have much of that available to him.