Help me stay strong in leaving please

[Anonymousse2]

This is a bit of a long one…. I have come to realise I am in a terrible relationship. I have tried to end things recently but he is making it extremely difficult.

We have been together 6 years. The first 2 were amazing, this is when we had our child. Then it went downhill. He had a very traumatic upbringing. He has held on to a lot and over the years I have taken on a lot and helped him through a massive amount. It has got to the point where I am basically just keeping him above water and solely looking after his needs.

Every time I try and speak to him about my needs, and how I am unhappy, everything gets turned back around to me and how I do things wrong. He never brings anything to me separately, only when I come to him with an issue. We started couples therapy but he twists everything he hears and it really is affecting my mental health now. Everything i say is misconstrued and I feel like I don’t even have a voice anymore.

I am trying to end things however. Luckily he has his own home to go to, and I never gave up my place. But now I am being made into the bad guy as I am ‘kicking him out to be all alone’ and I get to stay here with the children. Just to add that my children (from a past relationship) have a very good bond with him, they never see us argue and he only seems to be this way towards me. This is hard for me, as I will have to break the news to them, and it will hurt them as they won’t see that there is anything wrong. He keeps on saying things like ‘you’re going to keep my child from me, you will be with someone new next week’….. this also hurts a lot as he has seen me with my ex and knows my kids always come first and I would never stop them from seeing their dad. Me and my ex have a very good co-parenting relationship. In fact, my partner is the only thing that seems to get in the way of this good co parenting. Trying to always say horrible things about my ex and the way we choose to parent.

I seem to be the reason for everything that is wrong in his life. He takes zero responsibility for anything and I always get the brunt of it. Anyway, I am rambling, but I am trying to stay strong in this. I love him but I can’t put up with it any longer. Am I doing the right thing by finally putting me first? I am so hurt by it all, all I’ve ever done is look after him and now he’s making out like I’m a horrible person for doing this. I just feel so defeated and all I want at this point is peace.

You must make him leave. Your child is the one and only thing that matters here. He will ruin their childhood.
You cannot cure a man like this. Only he can decide to get better with therapy. You are actually making him worse and doing him harm by continually propping him up.
You only recover from childhood trauma when you decide to take control of your own life. And that is what he must do. He isn't homeless.

Yes I do agree. He needs to start to take responsibility for himself or he will only get worse. It’s just hard as he always is nice whenever I try to walk away

They always are. My ex had similar problems. I made him leave and now he has picked himself up, got a job and a new woman and is .aking something of himself. It irritates me that he couldn't do that when he was with me but he put .e in the role of his mother and carer and we all suffered as a result. I want a man not another child.

Yes

To be honest it sounds like he has learnt not to self-reflect, maybe as a coping mechanism for whatever happened in his childhood, or maybe just because he is a dick.

Either way it isn't your job to do this for him or teach him how to be a functioning adult. You need to compartmentalise his abusive rants that it is "all your fault" and see it for what it is, projection of issues he can't even admit he was part of let alone work through. I've been with a guy like this and it's exhausting because you can start to believe the gaslighting even after patiently trying to explain the reasoning. The main thing is he isn't mature enough at this point to take half responsibility with you, as a bare minimum, so you have more to loose from keeping communicating with him. You need to become good at drawing boundaries to protect yourself as these people are like leeches and spot any weakness to exploit your good nature. It sounds like you've explained yourself, you need to put the wheels in motion now and try not to engage at all. Let him process. Don't give more because you feel guilty because he will take that as an admission of guilt when it's just humanity. Be firm, you've already been fair.

I'm so sorry to read this and what you are going through.
Only you can make the decision to leave.

The only advise I have is to keep who you are central. Regardless of how he acts or what he says just keep calm, think of what you want and need and act accordingly for you. If you know he is not taking responsibility and you are not in the wrong then regardless of what he says just hold onto that knowledge. Ultimately thats all that matters. Keep true to yourself.

You are not a support human for crappy men OP.

I tried to keep 'What do I want?' at the front of my mind when in your situation (been there 3 times).

It centres your reasons for doing it. What he says / wants then becomes less central. YOU aren't happy. Therefore you need to do what will help you make your life happier.

Look after you then you can carry on being a good mum to your children without this hanging over you.
Children are very resilient your children will be fine they already have a mum & a dad your partner is bringing the children into it to make you feel guilty .
Be strong don't care what he thinks of you and make this decision to start a new chapter in your life without him.
You will be so much happier without this burden hanging over you .. he can go get counselling and sort himself out he is an adult x