Advice please - DP gone AWOL due to ex partner’s tragedy

[Arrivaycida]

I’ve been dating a man (DP) since April. Everything was going really well. We were exclusive and have mutual friends, so I thought everything was above board.

About 3 weeks ago one of our mutual friends told me that my DP’s ex-partner of 10 years (who I knew about) had suddenly lost her teenage daughter in a freak accident in the UK and was coming to the UK to deal with funeral stuff and admin and the body. Obviously I was very empathetic - as much as you can be for somebody you have never met. Mutual friend also told me that DP’s ex had always suffered from poor mental health and she believed that this event might actually now tip her over the edge.

I mentioned it to DP who seemed extremely affected by it. His ex had already called him. Everything then happened so quickly. DP and I were not living together but had been seeing each other and staying over at my house once or twice a week and at weekends. He has continued to see and speak to me everyday, kept in regular touch, called me most evenings, but as far as I know he has spent every night that she has been in the UK, with her, at her house (which she has here but doesn’t live in.)

According to him and mutual friends, they are not having sex or back in a relationship, they are just spending time together and she is crying and on the verge of suicide, and he is helping her through it. He also knew her daughter well, was a surrogate father to her, and so this is profoundly affecting him as well. Apparently when she returns abroad (she is going back and forth) she has a partner who she has been with since they split.

I’ve tried to be really empathetic and understanding about this while at the same time withdrawing myself. He has now not stayed over at my house or slept with me for three weeks. Every time I ask questions about what’s going on and what he’s doing, I get a defensive response - as in I “should know exactly what he is doing” - “pulling her back from the brink of suicide.” Even our mutual friends have the same attitude.

As a result, last week, I politely ended things with him, stopped answering his calls and texts and asked him to give me space. The result was him haranguing me, apparently heartbroken, that I had finished things at such a “difficult time” in his life and saying that he is confused as to why I have done this and I need to explain why, we need to work it out and and that I am being unreasonable for not respecting his need to take time out and ending things with him so abruptly.

We have gone back and forth over this now for a week. Every night we exhaust the conversation and end up at odds. He does not see why him “helping out a dear friend and ex partner” should impact me so strongly that I finish our relationship. I can’t believe that he is so ignorant as to not see the affect this would have on me and our relationship.

He talks in gory detail about the death and all his ex-P’s feelings and suicide threats as if they should shock me into realising why he is doing what he is doing. I presume the result he wants is that I feel guilty for even suggesting there is anything else going on. As much as I empathise, I don’t feel it is right for him to be spending most nights at her house. What are they even doing? Why does he need to stay over? He says he is on suicide watch - but that is not his responsibility.

He makes the point that he and I are still speaking daily and seeing each other, that he has not been unavailable, that the only part of our relationship that is “temporarily” on hold is the sleeping together / sex. Then he reduces it to things like “why are you saying sex is more important than me attending to my close friend? If you love me and care about me, you will understand my need to prioritise.” Or “if I have to choose between sex and helping out my close friend - I choose helping her out.” It’s like a way of making me look like i’m being unreasonable.

Late at night on Friday after i’d gone to sleep I found he’d sent me a few sex texts - presumably to keep me roped in or to prove that he still sees us in a romantic relationship. But he was probably at her house?

When he doesn’t hear from me he calls and texts me incessantly about how unfair I am being for giving up on him because of this. Mutual friends who I have spoken to are agreeing with him saying it is only a temporary thing and she will soon return, after everything is dealt with, back abroad again.

Apparently their split was mutual and happened four years ago.

What the hell is going on?

[FabbyChix]

Whilst I would be upset he doesn’t consider me close enough to include me in his grief, I get that he is trying to carry his ex through this. Why not ask to meet her have them over for dinner involve yourself

[sprouts21]

Yes Batvixen I have. I've made urgent calls/ rang ambulances for a suicidal relative and they've quite rightly been admitted to hospital.

[RitmoRatmo]

A little while back I was in your DP’s position: I’d had a sudden tragic bereavement during the early stages of a r’ship. Unlike your boyfriend (who has maintained lots of contact with you despite all he’s going through) I tried to push my new DP away whilst I was in shock/grieving as I didn’t have the headspace/energy/sanity for a r’ship at that point.

Luckily my DP, unlike you, understood what was going on and didn’t give up on me. He quietly and faithfully propped me up, cooked me meals for the freezer, sent me the odd lovely card, made sure I was supported, and drive me to the funeral.

If he’d thrown a strop that I was temporarily not prioritising him/sex etc I’d have instantly blocked him, having felt him to have shown his true colours. I hope for your DP’s sake he does this rather than go through the agony of trying to keep you content and tantrum-free whilst feeling the weight of responsibility for keeping his ex alive and whilst grieving his poor deceased step-daughter .

[batvixen123]

@sprouts21 - which is an option, although my experience is that hospital admission is something doctors are very reluctant to do - I made a suicide attempt a couple of years ago. I was kept in hospital overnight and discharged the next day. I had the crisis team visit every other day (so once every two days) for the next fortnight. They never stayed more than ten minutes.

In my area the crisis team is overstretched so they will only take patients from the hospital (and I know people who have been suicidal and turned away) or who are already under psychiatric care. When I first told my GP I was having suicidal thoughts I was put on the waiting list for counseling (which is currently four months) and given a Samaritans leaflet. I don't think your relatives experience was typical.

[Interestedwoman]

'I don't accept that a person who is suicidal has to wait 6 months to be seen.'

You#re right- go to A&E and they'll have to wait but then be seen the same day/next day, treated with meds if needed, and appointments or home visits set in motion (I know this for a fact through my own experience.)

As she's a British national I assume, she'd probably be entitled to the same help as anyone else.

I imagine soon the arrangements might've been sorted IDK.

One of her relatives or whoever where she was living should come over and take her back- he or someone ring them and let them know what's happening with her mood etc, if she hasn't let them know.

[mankyfourthtoe]

Hope you're ok OP

[Dogladyxo]

How are you OP? Sending huge hugs