How to manage a partner who consistently blames

[OWO2468]

My partner of over 12 years has quite severe mental illness. In his early 20's he was diagnosed with Depression, Anxiety and Bipolar. (Now in his 40's) In my experience, I don't feel that he suffers from Bipolar disorder, but possibly BPD. We have 2 kids together. The reason for my post is due to the consistent theme throughout our relationship, being blame and lack of personal accountability. He has very intense emotions that can last hours at a time (when things don't go the way he thinks they should) and he doesn't manage these emotions effectively. He has a very hard time empathising with anyone else's perspective/feelings and in turn, he blames. Huge long story that I couldn't possibly fit in a post, but to bring it to the present day, I keep getting blamed for his unhappiness, his struggling relationship with the kids and also our relationship problems. He feels lonely and his self esteem is very low. He keeps pushing me further away by blaming me, yelling at me and trying to solve problems using anger to get his message across (he says he does this because if he asks nicely, nothing changes, even though in reality that is not the case) I have been reading and trying to learn how to respond to his intense emotions, using empathy and understanding, to set boundaries for myself by letting him know that I feel that he is blaming me and it hurts my feelings, that I understand why he feels a certain way. He automatically gets angrier and insists he is not blaming me and I'm just trying to blame him and make everything all his fault. But when he says "if you just stayed out later that wouldn't have happened, if you'd just went to bed instead of getting in the way, I would have more time with ....., if you'd just send the kids to bed earlier, we wouldn't have these problems, if you'd just do this, this wouldn't happen. It is clear blame and his way of trying to understand why things are the way they are. He tends to come around eventually and apologise. I want to work on breaking this cycle, but don't know how best to respond. So much more to the situation, but I'm hoping to hear some suggestions on the best way to respond to this consistent blame. He also blames the kids when they don't behave in a way he would like or they don't want to do/enjoy what he wants them to and it greatly affects their self esteem. I want to better learn how to respond in a calm effective way. FYI He sees a psych and I'm waiting for my appointment. Seen them in the past also.

[geoff]

Hello OWO, if you do decide to leave then you're not sure whether or not he may improve, that's something no one knows until it happens.

I know when I was going through a divorce while the house was being sold, which I certainly didn't want to happen, however that's when I started to improve.

I don't want to blame my ex at all, it takes two to tango, and I actually put most of the blame on myself, but now she and I communicate quite regularly, but we couldn't live together again, solely because the same problems may arise, although I still love her very much.

Best wishes.

Geoff.