Please help me leave my partner

[Sux2beme]

Hi

I need help to leave my partner. I don't think I need to be psychoanalysed, I know there's probably many reasons I stayed too long (or was with him in the first place) but this is really about finding the courage and strength to do what I need to do and to know I will be okay. I feel like I am frozen in fear.

I typed out a very long post and deleted it. The short version is that he's damaged and he makes life completely impossible.

I just really don't know how to do this.

Well done on making the decision to leave. I'm sure you've been through a lot to get to this point. Before anyone can offer advice, can you tell us your circumstances as that makes a difference to what advice anyone can give?

Do you rent or own, are you on the mortgage/tenancy, do you have children, do you work, do you have family /friends to offer support?

Is it practical help you need or moral support to see it through or both?

What do you need support with, courage or practical help???

Hey OP. Well done for recognising that you need to leave.

Do you need us to go through some practicalities, or emotional support? Do you need to speak with Woman's Aid for help?

I know what you mean by being frozen in fear - it's a really daunting thing to make a decision and stick to it. But know you're doing it for the right reasons.

Thank you. I just need courage or to know everything will be okay. I will try and type out some of the specifics, just so I feel like I'm not going completely mad because I think he's a bit gaslighty.

He's not abusive. I'm not frightened of him. He's loving and gentle. He's just also completely impossible to have a stable relationship with .

We don't live together, which leads me to give one very good example of why I feel so flipping angry and like I'm losing my mind.

Living together: he moved some distance to live with me, then at the final hour rented a SEPERATE FLAT 45 MINUTES FROM ME TO BE CLOSER TO HIS OFFICE!!!

Sorry caps, but typing it out I realise how mad it is. He uprooted his whole life to be with me, then wasn't really with me.

Why? He can't take a 1 hour commute. Although he's only expected in the office 2 to 3 times a week and he commutes to me ANYWAY.

So here we are after waiting so long to be together, not actually together, most of the time in our individual, ludicrously expensive rented accommodation 45 minutes apart.

He says we will move in together after summer (due to my circumstances I can then move to where his office is).

But all he does is moan about the rent and how his life with me isn't what he expected or talked about and all he does is work and sleep In a cold flat.

Which is gaslighty, because he chose NOT to have the life we talked about then subtly insinuates I'm some kind of disappointment.

Can anyone tell me if I'm mad or if this is mad behaviour?

"Of COURSE I want to live with you, just CAN'T commute and I hate where you live"

"It's not YOU I am unhappy with its everything else".

This is just one maddening example.

If you don’t live together it’s easy - no financial ties,etc - tell him it’s over!

It's moral support I need really. He's at work and I've moved his stuff out of my house and put it in his. Now I'm dropping off a goodbye note and his keys and I need strength to follow through.

I'm a reasonable person and I've invested so much in us, and tried so hard but he is just an impossible person. I could give you all the background and the reasons but the bottomline is that since we met he's made terrible choices.

It's hard because if I ignore the glaring things then it's actually a fantastic relationship and we are both really in love but he needs serious therapy.

I don't know how to list all the crap I've been through but it's been an avalanche of never ending crap and now he's got PTSD, Depression and asthma which he won't rake the medicine for so he just blames everything around him.

He keeps saying it's not me, that I'm the best thing in his world, but the destructive behaviour doesn't stop. Ive threatened to leave a dozen times and begged and cried and nothing gets through.

It's like he has a compulsion to ruin his own life and I'm the one who keeps paying.

I just want to feel like he will be okay.

That I will be okay.

That this pain will lessen and I'll be able to live without someone I actually REALLY love.

Can't live with him though

He is responsible for himself.
You look after you.
It sounds like he is whinging.. the world is not perfect for anybody.. but most of us at least try to put on a brave face and make it better for people we actually care about... he is not trying for you!!

OP lemme tell you, you will be fine. You will be better than fine.

Your situation sounds so frustrating and upsetting but count the positives - living together would have made this 10 times harder.

Many women come onto these pages looking for help in the worst situations with very little possibility of changing anything.

But you can. It’ll be painful and I’m sure you’ll feel guilty and he will try and play on that but it will be a short term pain for long term gain.

It happens to the best of us, the relationship has run it’s course and he’s not the man you believed him to be. He’s not happy and neither are you.

You will feel relieved once it’s done and once you start to feel that weight of resentment and frustration lift off your shoulders you’ll be so happy and glad.

@Sux2beme

He's at work and I've moved his stuff out of my house and put it in his. Now I'm dropping off a goodbye note and his keys and I need strength to follow through.

Thank goodness you don't live with him, OP and well done for dropping his stuff back to his home. Thus far he's done you a favour in illustrating how contrary this thinking is by the actions he's taken.

Does he have keys to your home? If so consider changing the barrels of the locks so he's unable to gain entry at any time.

If you are ever tempted this reconsider and take him back stop and think about what positives he contributes to your life.

As far as your own home is concerned, are you able to move to somewhere as convenient but less expensive? 🌹

How long have you been together, OP?

Okay, I've done it and left. He doesn't have my keys as we just got new fire doors fitted and I never got an extra cut. He wouldn't come anyway. He will send letters and so on, but that will be it.

We've been together for a few years. He added lots of positives, which is was makes this agony. He wasn't always like this. He got PTSD and became a different person.

I am now free of my obligations to be where I am. I can move after summer. I have incentive to move across the country for work and family reasons.

I just can't believe I'm starting again at forty. I really believed I'd found the one and put everything into it. I thought all problems could be overcome, but they actually can't.

I feel like a complete failure, even though I know he's been impossible. I just can't picture ever being happy again.

I have left partners before but it never felt like this. This feels like getting a leg amputated. I can't even picture later TODAY without him, much less forever.

I'm just so frustrated that he made our lives so miserable when it could have been so lovely.

The only one making this complicated is you, and all you're accomplishing is wasting more of your precious time. Tell him it's over and move on. He will be perfectly fine, and so will you. It doesn't sound like he's too invested in the relationship anyway.