A non-ex ex situation

[Globules]

1. NC'd

2. Longer post than expected, but didn't want to drip feed.

3. Potential trigger for those affected by suicide.

Been with new guy about 9 months. He's got very many great qualities, we click in so many ways and I fancy the pants off him. Things are going really well. We're aged 49/51.

About 2 months in, he told me that he's still in daily touch with a girl he had a few dates with 4 years ago. They met OLD. She contacts him first each day. It wasn't really a goer for him, but by the time they met IRL, they'd been messaging over 6 months. She has been through an unfair amount of trauma, illness and now has a life limiting condition. This has understandably had a significant effect on her mental health.

In those 6 months of messaging, she made him into her strength. He didn't realise that was happening and never wanted to be that to her. She has threatened suicide to him, and him alone, on a few occasions and followed through twice by taking a few too many pills (enough to have a long sleep and feel sick, but not to end her life).

He does many things IRL for me and others that show he's a very kind man. With her, he feels his only option is to be kind, give her support by messaging and not rock the boat, even though they haven't seen each other in 4 years. She will occasionally type romantic/sexual messages to him, but he shuts those down quickly.

I think the kinder thing in the long run is to spell out that things are over and to encourage her to begin to use the network she has around her in the town 2 hours from where we live. Suggest she sees a professional counsellor. He says that he's tried that before-she says she's got no one else in her life like him. Refuses to have counselling. He feels she would end her own life if he withdrew his support. Understandably, he doesn't want to take that risk.

As things have progressed with us, I'm less comfortable with this. This weekend, and some previous weekends before, he was preoccupied with checking his phone, as she told him she was having investigations for yet another potential terminal illness- the third in the time NG and I have been together. I wondered aloud if there was a chance she could be making some of this up to keep his attention on her, and he got cross with my cynical attitude.

His close friends refuse to talk to him or with him about this girl anymore, as they're fed up with how stuck NG is. They've exhausted all options talking with him.

I'm finding it difficult that I see him repeatedly lying to her about his life, e.g. we spent a weekend in London, he messaged her that nothing out of the ordinary was happening during his weekend. I told him I find his lying difficult, as I'd had years of XH lying to me, and his response was "What am I supposed to do?"

He wants the friendship done more than I do, but neither of us want to chance her ending her life.

I have experience of the link of suicide & mental health, having supported a close friend for many years through 3 attempts, the 4th ending her life a few years back. I also have experience of a friend with a life limiting condition, illness upon illness who has also ensured some horrid trauma. She chooses to seek regular support from a counsellor to work through her mental health issues. So these things aren't unknown to me.

Things are really good with NG in every other area, but this weekend got to me that his brain was again preoccupied with her. He should have been able to relax into the chilled weekend we'd planned.

If we were in the pub having a drink, what would you say to me?

That the three of you are in a drama triangle, and if he didn't like something about that, he wouldn't stay in it.

He gets something out of this dynamic.

He's showing really clearly that he's capable of lying, albeit for what he feels are the "right" reasons, and also is absolutely incapable of drawing or holding healthy boundaries.

You say he wants the friendship done more than you do, but this is really doubtful.

Things might be good in other areas, but this is a really fundamental issue, no matter how much you fancy him. I'd tell him to call you when he's dealt with his "situation".

I hear what you're both saying.

The nub of the issue is how would you advise he gets out of the situation now without risking someone ending their life?

First, he recognises that he's not actually helping her - he's enabling her - she's told him explicitly that she's not getting proper professional help because of him.

Second, he says to her that he can't continue in this role, he signposts her to help, lets her friends/family know he's stepping back and steps back.

Of course there's a risk she'll do something - but ultimately that's her choice and not his responsibility. He can't live his life under the threat of that.

And he needs to bear in mind, he's not actually doing her any favours by having this dependence on him.

But tbh, I think he likes being so darned important.

@category12 has completely nailed it, as usual. Totally agree with every word.

Have you ever supported someone really close to you who's attempted suicide or ended their life?

If so, your responses surprise me.

This woman isn't really close to him. She's someone he had four dates with and who then threatened suicide. It's not his niece, sister, mother of his kids or childhood friend.

He’s getting a good ego stroke from this, beware. People who allow this are codependent

He’s codependent and could benefit from a therapist to help him detach.

he doesn’t have to drop her, but he really needs to learn to distance.

I understand he feels responsible, but I am not sure how long you’re supposed to tolerate him lying and hiding you.

i am not sure why his being open about his relationship would be a life-ending thing for her- that doesn’t make sense, unless he’s been stringing her along in any way romantically.

You know how, when you start a relationship with someone who has children or pets, you have to take on board that they come with the person? You basically have a relationship with them and their 'others', or it's not a real relationship.

Well, I think you're in a similar situation here. You either adopt this melodramatic third party or leave the two of them to be intensely co-dependent without you.

That his friends have already banned talk of her shows how deeply that drama consumes his attentions. You can ban it, too, and then you'll be faced with the covert phone calls and lies for as long as you put up with it. Your only alternative is to dive in there with them. And you'll always be in a threesome ...

He's already demonstrated a facility to lie, to withhold an important part of his life from you, to be co-dependent and drama addicted. FWIW, I don't think he's a good bet for your future.

It seems you don't want to be told that - and it does seem, going by your posts, that you're not averse to a bit of emotional blackmail and dramatic exaggeration yourself (Have you ever supported someone really close to you who's attempted suicide or ended their life?) So perhaps you'd enjoy being in an emotional threesome with this pair.

Gently OP,it isn’t his responsibility and he needs to accept that or he will never be free to be either you fully.

How would you respond if they had been together and she had made threats of suicide when he wanted to end the relationship? It would be abuse if she did so.

i think your first instinct is right. He needs to encourage her to seek support and disengage entire,y, then never ever look back. I suspect it she will make it unpleasant, and so he has avoided that difficult experience, but he isn’t being fair to your relationship to continue avoiding that hard conversation.

I'm not the poster you responded to but I think her responses are spot on.

And for context, I was in a long term relationship from my teen years because I was manipulated by suicide threats and attempts and made to feel like it was my responsibility to look after him. The suicide threats/attempts were because he had fallen for me and I didn't want to be with him.....common theme through the relationship and of course they continued over a decade later when I finally broke free. Went on for months and months and months. He stopped when I detached and stopped enabling it.

I supported friends through various mental health crises, and there was one in particular where I had to stop enabling and supporting her bad choices as I was worried about her child.

I've also been suicidal myself. I never leaned on anyone probably partly because I had been put in that position myself.

I also tell my kids to be cautious about ever being someones main or only support for mental health issues. It's not their job, they're not equipped to handle it, it can be upsetting/draining and mess with their own mental health and so on, and that it is not in the other persons best interests either as they could get extremely attached etc.

You don't.
You've known him just 9 months, his good friends don't allow him to witter on about her any more, they couldn't fix it for him & neither can you.

You cannot police his boundaries like this, you can only look to your own.
For whatever reason, he is consumed with this woman & her melodramas, & he allows that to leech into your time together. He even lies about you, as if YOU are the encroacher, & she is the g/f he's cheating on.

All you can do is tell him your boundary: you are uncomfortable with this woman's influence on him, suspicious of her 3 separate life-threatening illnesses in a 9 month period, & pissed off that a woman he met a few times 4 years ago is controlling him with suicide threats.

Tell him that he can of course continue his co-dependent relationship, but that you want no part in it. That the sensible, & therapeutically recommended course of action is as PP above suggest - kindly disengagement, contact with her friends/family to inform them she might need extra support due to that disengagement, & a welfare check (call police) when she inevitably goes Extinction Burst & threatens to top herself again. That this will entail him telling her that this is what he is doing, because she needs professional support, not to keep leaning on a random she dated years ago.

You then let him decide what to do.
If he decides to keep playing White Knight, you maintain your boundary by finishing with him.

Can't speak for Category12, but yeah, I have.

It's an absolute pisser, & people on the other end of it are not unreasonable to be angry, frustrated, let down & hurt by it.

Unless it's genuine, i.e. their mental torture has become so extreme they cannot see any other way forward, it's often a pile of steaming manipulative bullshit.

I don't know why you are able to be clearsightedly cynical about these convenient terminal illnesses she comes up with (3 in 9 months!!!) but are being hoodwinked by her staged 'suicide' attempts.

However, this woman isn't your problem. Your b/f is, & I think he;s a wrong'un. He's unhealthily enmeshed, so much so that he's pissed all his mates off. He's happy to do that to them, he'll happily do it to you too.

Surely this woman isn’t expecting him to be single forever. He needs to let her know he’s met someone next time she asks what he’s doing for the weekend. I understand the predicament he’s in. I’m the kind of person this would happen to as I have adopted all kinds of people from health groups as I’m a good listener and always reply. He might not be getting anything out of it, I certainly don’t when these people message me. I have got rid of most because my life got busier and I didn’t have as much time so that helped. He needs to reply less and less, try and withdraw gradually. He can say sorry I’m busy this weekend, hope you have a good weekend, let’s catch up Monday. Nothing wrong with saying that. He’s not responsible for her mental health and of course no-one wants a suicide on them.

I've learnt from experience you can't heal or fix someone else.

And he's not really supporting or helping her, as I see it. Because four years of this and she's no further on.

For four years, rather than get professional help, she has preferred to use your boyfriend as a MH crutch. And he's bought into this.

Is she moving on with her life herself, or is she essentially just on the end of a string for him? What good is he actually achieving for her by filling (& blocking) what should be the real life support gap?

At the end of the day, I think he's being more of an obstacle to her than help, although I daresay his intentions are good.

And in terms of personal experience, I come from a perspective of suicide threats keeping me in a relationship for about a year longer than I should have been.

Tl:Dr, he's still very much alive.

So he has told you all about her, but hasn’t mentioned to her his with you and spends lovely weekends with you…..why is that?

He doesn’t want her to stop, that’s why.

This should be non negotiable for you. He either tells her the truth about his relationship OR you leave.

Otherwise, you will always play 2nd fiddle to her.

I'm not sure how a healthy well balanced adult went on four dates with someone he met on OLD, and is responsible four years later after daily contact for keeping her alive, having never seen her since.

Can you appreciate that this isn't all one way? No doubt she has her issues, but your boyfriend is squarely 50% of this ongoing unhealthy unboundaried codependent relationship.

What do you do to fix it? Nothing. If you feel it's inappropriate, you tell him so and why, and that you will not be willing to continue in your relationship with him unless he takes decisive proactive steps to address the situation and show he's got a good grasp on his part in it and why it can't continue.

What you have got in him is a massive people pleaser. He will only stop this unhealthy practise when he gets his own therapy for whatever has made him this way. Look at how comfortably he lies to her, and makes you unhappy for her benefit!

By asking us "how would you advise him" you are also accepting some of this false narrative that he is responsible for her life, and now by extension you are too.

The only way she's ever going to get the help she needs is by people being honest with her and refusing to be her unpaid emotional support human. But I don't think your man wants to hear that, so I would personally break it off with him now before it goes any further.

PS Men like this, IME, often have an unhealthy enmeshment with a parent, which can also make them a nightmare as they will bend over backwards to prioritise the toxic parent at the expense of their relationship with you.

Also, I've been manipulated by suicide threats and an attempt from an ex boyfriend, he's also still very much alive and abusive. It sounds like your friend had very genuine mental health issues and I'm so sorry that you lost her. I do not think this situation is the same.

Ltb. He isn't a proper therapist.

And he isn't a proper bf either.
He is stating quite clearly you come second.
Is that your worth op?

Who ended their IRL dating and why ?

I would be questioning/investigating the authenticity of her claims, it's very easy to create a fantasy existence if it's all via text.

I agree with all pp re him being as much a part of this as her and you seeming to buy into the mess too by being his white knight.