How can my partner possibly not think this?

[ghastlygin]

I’ve struggled with my mental health for years. I have had an awful lot of events happen to me and I’m not in a great place at the moment.

I know this all sounds unreal so go easy on me!

DP has been super supportive, but I can imagine how hard it’s been for him. He’s seen me at my worst, having severe panic attacks, going through medication and talking very very nastily about myself. I can’t deny that we have had a fair amount of arguments and disagreements.

He treats me so well though, and he always says that he will always be there for me and we are a team. He always sticks to this word.

I often ask him if he’s happy and he always says yes, he’s 100% happy.

But honestly, I struggle to believe it. I know through experience, through people I know, and through various internet forums, that:

• it is HARD to be with someone with poor mental health. So many people who have to deal with a partner with poor mental health often keep their worries to themselves, to not hurt the other person
• there are so many people who think about ending something for months, but they don’t tell their partners
• there are also so many people who don’t realise they are unhappy but they are

My partner told me that he used to be very closed off and bottle things up. I also know he would hate to hurt me. He always says there’s nothing to tell and that he’s very happy. But I just can’t believe this due to experience. I almost think he must be unhappy, due to what he’s put up with, but doesn’t even realise it himself.

How do I believe him?

You can't read people's mind. He told you he was happy, this is all you need to know.
If you continue trying to pry and, worse still, persuade him that he is indeed unhappy, you will successfully make him so. Is that your goal?

Definitely not ☹️ I can’t imagine how it’s possible to put up with those things and just say you’re super happy. Surely you can’t be? Plus he does bottle things in sometimes

OP, part of being in a relationship is trusting someone.
I’m assuming your worry is that he’s so unhappy and he’ll leave you, catching you by surprise? That is part of being in a relationship- you can’t control whether or not someone decides they are too unhappy to stay. All you can do is be the most genuine partner you can be, and work on yourself.

Although your mental health issues may be a big distinguishing feature to you, he probably sees a hundred other characteristics which he loves.

I agree that you have to take him at his word. However, you can also work on yourself if you feel that he is bearing too great a burden - eg making sure that you offload to a therapist rather than always to him, doing your bit to solve the causes of the arguments etc.

I am so sorry you have had such a challenging time in life. It’s really courageous to face up to difficult emotional experiences and work through the pain.

Have you ever had any therapy?

The reason I ask is that the thoughts you are having are fantastic examples of the thoughts our brain sends us in its attempt to keep us ‘safe’. Our cave person brain is set to ‘better safe than sorry’ so it constantly scans for threat and sees it even when there is none. This includes ‘interpersonal threat’ or ‘psychological threat’ as we are tribal people that survive better together. You can’t switch your cave person bit of your brain off. You need it to scan for threat in case there is one (a car coming when you are crossing the road for example). It needs to activate your fight, flight or freeze system when needed.

If you have experienced things in your childhood that left you scared or uncertain, your cave person brain will be set to ‘high alert’ so more likely to notice threats - especially in relationships.

What might be happening now is your brain is sending you thoughts in its attempt to look out for danger (in this case it’s interpersonal danger of something being wrong with your partner or wrong between the two of you) so you can avoid the threat. In a threat to life situation that’s great. In this situation it’s unhelpful. Our lower brain isn’t able to distinguish between real threat and perceived threat. But our upper, more evolved, bit of brain can. And part of therapy is to use that very clever upper brain we have to figure all this out, learn to sooth our lower brain and to step back and notice what it sends us but decide whether or not to act.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is great for helping us do this. There are lots of great free resources. I’ll link below.

Or Compassion Focused Therapy.

May be your partner is good at doing the above? May be they are good at staying in the moment and noticing thoughts but not getting organised by them? No two people are the same and the understanding of ‘risk and resilience’ (so what negatively impacts on our development and what protects us) is hugely complex.

Good luck on your journey of self discovery, recovery and healing 💐

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z29ptSuoWRc

This video is a metaphor about the thoughts we have, what they can have us doing and that if we stop and notice them we can then decide what we do. We don’t have to be organised by them.

@ghastlygin I honestly think that people just have very different ideas about what 'happy' means to them. To some people, 'happy' would mean 'doing OK, able to take the rough with the smooth' - and I suspect your partner is one of those people. He's 'happy' in the sense that when things are good, he's content, and when things are bad, he knows you can get through them as a couple. 'Happy' doesn't necessarily mean 'everything's fine and easy'. It can mean 'Sometimes things are tough, and it's hard to see my partner suffering, but I'm still happy to be with her because I love her and we're a team and therefore I'm OK with having to support her through this stuff at times'.

It's natural that you'd worry about your partner (and I think it's good that you're aware of the potential impact on him of your mental health problems - lots of people don't consider that). Provided he knows that you are there for him just like he's there for you, and that if he wants to talk he can, that's the main thing that matters.

For what it's worth, my OH has had many issues which would fit your description for the whole of our time together, and often raises the same question about me.

The simple fact is...providing support doesn't have any negative effect on my mental health. I'm more than happy to do it, because that's what marriage is. Maybe one day I'll need the same, and it'll balance the scales? Don't know, and honestly I don't really care. Relationships aren't supposed to be transactional, so I'm not keeping score and it genuinely makes no difference to me - I do it because I can; the fact that I can do so without major cost isn't really relevant, because I would anyway, but that's still the reality of it.

My point is: it's totally possible for some people to be that supportive. The only reason you don't trust it is that your mental health isn't in a state where you can imagine having the bandwidth to do it yourself. That's no slight on you at all, it just...is.

Take him at his word, and trust him. If he's anything like me, then telling him that you don't believe him will do more damage to his happiness than years of supporting you through your troubles.

OP, I am in the same position as you. If I listed all he things I’ve been through, I’d be accused of being a troll. Right now I going through yet another situation which is stressful and potentially will lead to awful things (huge surgeries).

My dh is there for it all. I’ve been bloody horrible to him at times when I am not copping. There has been times where he’s had the house, a full time job, three kids all on him and he’s joust got on with it an supported me.

There are good people out there, we sound like we both found one.

I’m kind of like your partner in this situation. My husband has a fairly significant physical disability, so there are lots of things he can’t do, and a lot of things I have to do for him. I don’t give two shits about that. The only thing that annoys me about his disability is him going “oh do you mind?” “Are you okay doing that, or is it too much?” And things to that effect.