[Secretum]

My boyfriend and I have a nontraditional relationship. For one thing, he is 43 years older than me. We are also long distance.

I know that that sounds like a romance that is doomed to fail, but we really love each other. He had a crush on me for 3 years before we got together. I noticed I was attracted to him about 2 years before we started dating. It took us so long to make the leap because we were weary about the age difference, but eventually decided to go for it.

Our relationship followed an evolutionary path. It truly is a beautiful love story. I was a student in his research lab when I was an undergraduate. When I graduated, he hired me to be a lab assistant, and we became friends, and then best friends. I moved away, completed a masters, moved back to my college town, and within six months, we were finally dating. Now I'm out of the country going to med school.

Distance is hard. A few nights ago, I casually mentioned that I had been suicidal a year ago, something I honestly thought he already knew. He does know that I have bipolar. Regardless, when I told him he got really quiet. He told me later that he would have to leave the relationship if I relapse on the suicidal thoughts, as that would be "difficult for him to deal with". He told me that if we couldn't be together romantically, that he would still always love me. He also reminded me that his physical health isn't the greatest (he is diabetic and has been recently diagnosed with kidney disease). I think he may be thinking that a dissolution of our relationship may be best for both of us.

But that is not what I want. I want to hold his hand as he takes his dying breath and be his devoted partner during all the time between then and now. If I have a mental breakdown, I want him to hold me and love me, not abandon me. We have already built a kind of paradise in each other, a shelter of love and safety that I thought could weather any storm. Maybe not...

I feel like maybe we should end the relationship, as it seems we have different views of its end goal. I want an everlasting kind of love, an eventual marriage, being by his side for the rest of his life, then take a short break as I complete the course of my life alone, and then join him in the afterlife for a union of everlasting love after my time to leave the earth comes. He wants to be my boyfriend until it gets inconvenient for one or both of us. :/

I think the distance is harder for him than it is for me. He has told me as much. He also is traumatized by a former bad marriage, and he has also told me that he is afraid that if I relapse in my bipolar illness that I will be just like his ex-wife. Also, neither his daughter nor either of my parents approve of our relationship. I think all of this may be causing him to lose sight of the truth-that we are in love and should stay together through all the trials and tribulations of life.

I really don't know what to do. I want him to share my view of where our relationship should go, but I can't make him want something he doesn't want.

Any advice?

[Artchic528]

Yeah, I think that your relationship has come to the end of the road. It happens sometimes.

[NewCommer]

Sorry to hear that, is actually heart breaking.

If may i ask, how many boyriends have you had before this one?

[Bill3]

It must have been very hard to hear that if you were to become suicidal he will leave the relationship.

It does not sound like he shares your goals for the relationship.

He sounds like he has a lot of baggage. You are not his ex-wife and it seems unfair to me that he is loading what is essentially his own issues onto you.

I have had a similar experience in the past, in that a partner projected a lot of his feelings about his ex onto me (not about sui, in our case he said I was clingy like his ex). Remember this is absolutely about his stuff, and don't take it too personally.

Good luck with your decision.

[Wild Coyote]

It sounds like your mentioning sui thoughts evokes fear in him. (We respond out of love or out of fear.)
It's possible he fears abandonment and experiences your times of feeling like exiting this world as a potential abandonment of him. He responds by questioning the relationship. (He doesn't understand why the relationship isn't enough to keep you from sui ideation, etc.)

If so, he's misunderstanding your illness, not the relationship.
He's questioning the relationship rather than questioning what occurs due to bipolar depression.

Just a thought.

I hope you both can talk more about this.

[Crazy Hitch]

My personal thought is that he's not that into the relationship as you are. You're prepared to hold his dying hand and watch him take his last breath. And yet he wouldn't stick around if you had suicidal thoughts? You deserve someone who will invest as much emotionally in the relationship as you do.

I am sorry for this turn of events. It is hard when you are both on different pages, so to speak.

[divine1966]

I am sorry but I agree with others. He is not as committed. Saying that, you can't blame somebody in advanced age for not wanting to get that involved in a new relationship especially if somebody is that young and having difficulties. It's not like taking care of ones child. Taking on someone new with problems is different. Most elderly don't want additional challenges in their lives.

Com' n for me a man 43 years younger than me would be 7 years old right now.

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