Is this abuse or is he mentally unwell

As others have said, it really does not matter why this is happening. You've said you want to leave so can you list out here what is stopping you from doing so, then we can help you remove those roadblocks?

If you wait for his permission to put yourself first it will never come. You do not need anyone's permission to prioritise your own wellbeing, as much as we as women are conditioned to keep sweet and avoid confrontation. Rip that plaster off and yes you will be a bit in the unknown but if you push through I promise it will get better.

Leave him, he’s a horrible man and you can do so much better.

“He’s unwell” “he’s an alcohol” “ he’s a drug addict” “he had a bad childhood”

all bullshit EXCUSES (not reasons- excuses)

he is abusive. He won’t change. You need to leave. I’m glad that you aren’t relying on him financially.

please do the freedom programme- you can do it online if you want to.

@Deletingafter what do you want in life for yourself? This is no life! You don’t have friends that’s fine but then to come home to abuse every day, what are you getting from being abused. You can’t possibly love this man?

Get out while you’re young and make a life for yourself, you’ve got one life and at 27 and at any age you’ve got so much to find and enjoy.

Give notice to you landlord find another rental within your means and move out. Don’t tell him your new address and change your phone number. Make your life, stay back for work drinks to see if you like that, visit your family, develop walking or another hobby that you can have time for yourself. You’ll be fine doing anything, all of that beats the daily abuse surely?

You do not need to validate why you want to leave any relationship. You can just leave.

You deserve peace. If as he says you are that bad, he won't miss you when you are relaxing peacefully in your new home will he? Asshole

You need to leave him and concentrate on finding yourself again, not getting him help.

he won’t change.

He isn't mentally ill he is just a misogynistic prick and you can do a lot better. You do not need to live like this.

OP, he is a vile abusive person and he only stays with you because you let him get away with it. Please, please start loving yourself, and leave him. Anything else you need to do to improve your life can come after that. The most important thing is to release yourself from your abuser, and don’t let him back into your life.

why even bother to work out if it’s abuse or illness tbh it doesn’t matter this is no way to live you need to move on

Oh OP. It's human nature to want to know the 'why' but you never will. All you will know are th3 facts which is that he is highly abusive to you. Plenty of people have childhood trauma and aren't abusive. Plenty of people have lovely childhoods and are abusive. So even if he has mental health issues it may not be the cause. Either way I've never heard of anyone be this abusive and then get treatment to get over it.

If you finish it be prepared for him to promise to change, beg for one last chance etc and then recert back to his vile self after a couple of weeks. Either that or turn really nasty

You need to eave OP

get a smaller place just you it will be cheaper and get your name off tenancy

you are paying to stay in this abuse

get out

The reason I ask re mental illness is my partner has endured a lot of childhood trauma.

Hi, Deletingafter I know it's very difficult to read these posts. And I would.imagine some of them make you feel quite anxious and feel unhelpful. Particularly the ones telling you to leave. They're not intended to do that but people are just shocked by what they are reading and are really trying to help you understand the need for you to end this

I'm going to come at it from a slightly different angle.

I also experienced childhood trauma. I've had therapy for it for years. I'm not abusive. I'll admit that, when I was younger (in my 20s) when I didn't understand about trauma and didn't understand myself, I'm not proud of the fact that I wasn't a very healthy person to be in a relationship with and wasn't capable of having healthy relationships (but for different reasons to you boyfriend). I still struggle now. I'm sure I could probably have been described as 'emotionally abusive' on occasion. I didn't mean to be - I was just trying to protect myself in the only way I knew how. But the impact on those people was no different.

I stayed single for a very long time partly because I realised this and it was my responsibility to manage how I reacted and responded to situations. It was not anyone else's responsibility to fix me. It was mine.

And the same is true of your boyfriend.

I'll tell you two things that were said to me that really helped.

My mum was abusive. My ex husband used to ask me, "What does she bring to your life? She's not a positive in your life. She's not even a neutral. She's a negative. She actively makes your life worse." I used to tell him she couldn't help it (never diagnosed but she obviously had some significant unmanaged/unmet MH needs). And spent years of my life trying to understand her and making allowances for her. I was so mired in it that I couldn't see the wood for the trees. I couldn't see the long term damage I was doing to myself by allowing her to continue behaving this way towards me. Oh, and she was always lovely to other people. The masked only slipped within the close family.

One day, he said, "If you stepped into a lion enclosure. The lion would eat you. It's not because it's evil or hates you. It's just doing what is natural. But understanding that won't stop you from being eaten. So you'd never step into a lion enclosure."

And he was right. It didn't matter whether my mother intended to be abusive towards me or whether she couldn't help it due to mental illness. The impact on me was no different.

I became friends with a woman about 5 years ago. After a couple of years, we realised our mum's were friends when I saw my mum comment on a fb post she'd tagged her mum in! This friend knew some of my history with my mum but the woman her mum is friends with appears to be a completely different person to the one who raised me. Of course, I know her well enough to know the other side.

You won't be able to get help for him because he needs to do that himself. Until and unless he sees a problem with the way he is behaving, it wouldn't work because, in his eyes, the problem isn't him. I pleaded with my mum to 'get help' so that we could have a proper mother amd daughter relationship but she repeatedly told me that there was nothing wrong with her and it was everyone else around her.. And she genuinely believed that. But it wasn't true.

Anyway, I eventually had to go no contact with her because it got worse and I was eventually at risk of losing my children because of her behaviour and distorted beliefs.

You don't owe him a relationship. It being mental health won't lessen the negative impact on you. It isn't your responsibility to fix him and you can't. Don't confuse feelings of compassion for love. You are a person in your own right and deserve a happy life for yourself.

Another wise friend said to me, it doesn't matter if someone intends to be abusive or not if abuse is what you experience.

So, it really doesn't matter whether he's abusive due to mental illness or is abusive through choice. The impact on you is the same.

My eldest is the same age as you. It would break my heart for them to be in your situation.

I hope you find your way out of this.

When is the tenancy up?

You can save him or help him. Time to move on op

First poster nailed it. The reasons don’t matter, the relationship is causing you misery, stress and anxiety so you need to move on because it’s not working for you.

If he can’t go out without coming back sober knowing how much his behaviour upsets you, he’s most definitely an addict. The laid back attitude about coke in the UK normalises it but it doesn’t make people less addicted to it. It’s not normal to top off a night out with coke.

And even if for whatever reason he isn’t, he’s abusing you, both mentally and financially.

Freedom Programme, thar should say.

PTSD would not make him selectively nasty to you.

And the fact "a mask slips" means its on purpose, he can control himself in front of witnesses.

Don't make excuses. He had a hard childhood, and he may have emotional baggage, mental health issues because of it but hes responsible for his behavoiur

My daughter is the same age as you. I would be heartbroken if she was going through this.
You are still so young, yet so worn down that you've become numb to this.

It's great that you have written it all down here. But please take the advice you have been given. He will NEVER change and YOU deserve to be happy.

In a few years you will be heading in to your thirties!! Make those years about you and don't waste anymore time on someone who doesn't care about you.

So he's out of the house at the moment? Tell him he's not coming back. Ring Women's Aid for advice. Let your landlord know he is abusive and you have told him to leave. Womens Aid will help you to negotiate that situation. I recommend the Freedom . The only way he will change is he will get worse
Stop going round in circles - even your posts here are doing that.

FFS you should've left him long ago. What are you even doing there? What do you expect to happen if you keep putting up with this bullshit? He's going to magically morphe into a decent human being that will thank you for all the years of crap you put up with?!
After you dump him (and you obviously OBVIOUSLY need to let this POS go!!) you need some time being single and working on yourself and your self esteem. You have no business being in a relationship if you aren't ready to expect respect and decency from a partner.

@Deletingafter i can only imagine how overwhelmed you feel right now. You must have at least had an inkling that something is wrong with this relationship to write your post. I doubt you thought everyone would pile on and say he is abusive, gaslighting, leave him etc.
please take some time to think over your next move and get a plan in place. If he is out of the house you have time and space to think. Lots of people saying LTB, but it will feel so hard to even know where to start with that. You have taken the first step posting here, but you must continue to be strong and put things in place to end this relationship. It isn’t healthy for you. At 27 you are so young and you have obviously been around him for a long time. . It Sounds To me from your posts that he has broken your spirit and you now believe this is normal or that he is unwell to behave like this. Please believe me that this is not a normal relationship or how a man who loves you will treat you.

The first thing is, you cannot fix someone. The second thing is, you cannot fix someone. The third thing is, abusers choose what they do. He doesn't behave like this with anyone else which means he has control over his behaviour so he actively chooses to abuse you. Let that sink in. His enjoyment of the power and control he has over you overrides your feelings, autonomy and wellbeing.

Someone who does that doesn't really love you. Get out of this relationship and have some excellent therapy to find out why you have got into such an unhealthy relationship.

He’s conditioned you to accept the blame for his own shitty hideous behaviour. He isn’t your partner. You deserve so much better than this sad disrespectful loser. Fuck him off to the far end of FarTheFuckAway and see how your quality of life is sooooo much better.