My boyfriend of 10 years - needs serious help...I just don't know how to help him :(

[dee_1]

Good Afternoon

So, I have been dating my bf for 10 years now and words can not describe how much I love him. However, it's become increasingly hard to be around him.

From the time we had started dating, he had been suffering a bit from an acne breakout. He was not used to this, because in high school he never had any.
He has not been able to deal with acne at all and in fact it has made him the most miserable person to be around with. I have tried so hard to be supportive of my bf. I moved away from my family who lived in another state, to move to his state to be with him because I thought we would start out our lives and everything would be easy. It wasn't...in a strange town where I had no family, except for my bf - I did everything on my own.

I started living life for the both of us. Thankfully, his mother got him a horrible cleaning job when he hit 24 years of age but this did not help him with his confidence. He enjoyed getting the money and thankfully his job was the only reason for not locking himself up indoors and hiding from the world.
In the past, 5 years because of stress, and worry, and depression and anger - his hair has receded and he still has acne.

He is now in a dangerous mind frame, because every day he continuously tells himself that he is ugly, he doesn't want to be a part of this life, he is worthless. On and on it goes.

I am very supportive of my partner, he has spent over 100000$ on himself in the last two years and I've barely opposed to it. He has not invested much money on us just himself and I've watched him sell off his belongings to get some thing better or because he wasn't good enough and I could see that his self worth was getting worse.
Everything is done for this man, cooking, cleaning, ironing his shirts, making his lunch, looking after our pets, making sure I'm maintaining my diet and still nothing is good enough for this guy.

I'm at a loss because I've suggested counselling because there is no way...he can fight through this alone. And he has been on antidepressants but they didn't work one bit. I wish I could take all his acne and pain away and have it on me because I would want nothing more than to see him happy but I just can't.
What can I do to ease his pain? I want to see him smile - I want him to be so happy. His pain is awful I see it in his eyes. What can he do to improve his outlook on himself :(?

Sorry this is really long but I have no idea who to talk to - I just want to help him so bad.

[Just Sara]

Hi Dee;

Wow! You've been busy hun. Welcome back, take a seat and make a coffee.

I've read every word you've written and have come to one conclusion: who and where are you in these dot points? It's all about your BF! There's a term called 'transference'. It means basically you've given your life to 'him' thinking if you fix him, you'll feel better and life will be grand and full of life. However, while this was happening, you lost sight of 'you' and what you want for yourself. Is this situation what you planned for your life??

"You are NOT accountable or to blame for his thoughts, words or actions!"

Everything he does is about 'him', not you. You've been 'enabling' him to just continue taking advantage of you...sounds like his mother yes? He isn't your child, he's a grown man.

You wrote the words; 'he' and 'him' so many times I couldn't count. That's why I asked you to dot point the issues. I only found one issue for you; how much you hate where you are. Sound right?

There's a cycle in how the dynamics of your relationship has evolved. Read over your own words and see if you agree. While ever your BF has 'sympathy' from you, he'll milk it for everything he can get. I've got a great saying that puts people back to reality..."Oh that's awful, what are you going to do about it?"

Responsibility is always on the shoulders of the individual, not those around who suffer 'for them'. That's transference...feeling their feelings. How about feeling for 'you'!!?

Ask yourself the hard hitting questions Dee. 'Am I happy with my current life?' 'What am I willing to do about it?' 'Am I worth more than how I'm being treated?' 'Can I make him change, and if not, am I willing to suffer the consequences?' 'Is my value based on him loving me, or is it about how I love and respect myself?'

There are so many more, but those will do for now. Are you 'getting' where I'm going with this? Dee, you feel helpless, angry, disappointed, sad, betrayed, abandoned, frustrated, frightened and so many more things that cause you grief.

What does 'love' mean to you? Because it isn't co-dependence...

I'm here for you Dee...

Love and respect...Sara xo

[geoff]

dear Dee, it's quite an extensive post for a situation that now you have decided on what you are going to do, move back to QLD, because he isn't going to change his attitude, how he lives his life and what he expects you to do for him, it's just that you have to do this because he is self conscious of how he looks, the hair and the acne.
Spending all that money on himself without even considering what you would like to have, or the fact that all this money could be used for a much better cause, indicates a sign of depression, because people can go out on a spending binge which they believe will make them happier, but of course it doesn't in the long run.
Acne can also be caused by drugs, whether there're party or recreational drugs, because for no reason they have just appeared, but please I'm not suggesting this at all and I don't want to upset you by saying this, it's just something which maybe hasn't been discussed or identified.
You can't keep on helping him if he doesn't want to help himself and you can't do even more than you usually do to try and convince him to seek help.
I know that 10 years together is quite a long time, and in those years a direction should have been found, in other words what are your plans, where do you want to live, do you want to have children, go overseas, but unfortunately I can't see any of this, unless I have missed a part of your post, but what I do see is that it's all about him, his hair loss and his acne with no real concern for you or about you, although occasionly he does say he's sorry, but you have to determine which has most weight here, all the times he wants and complains compared to him being sorry.
You however have thought this through and want to move back to QLD, so I wonder whether it's still going to happen, just a question only. Geoff. x

[dee_1]

Good Morning everyone

Thank you so much for your wonderful replies. It's really amazing coming here and knowing that people care about your feelings.

Right after this conversation, I spoke with him about how hard every thing has become. And he apologised for everything once again and has acknowledged that every thing I'm doing makes things hard on me.

He even went ahead to say that he didn't want me to leave - without me he'd be lost. This may sound silly but these are words I've been wanting to hear since the day I've met him.

However, there is still an issue with whether things will change or not.

He did impress me this week, because unfortunately I've been made redundant from my work place. I'm very scared because I've got no savings in my pocket. My boyfriend showed me that he will support me while I look for another job. There is good in this man - I love him so much. I wish things were better for us.

I might need to take baby steps at a time but at the moment I'm feeling really lost. I might try to talk to him about chores and splitting them so I'm not doing everything for him.

Thank you so much for all the helpful advice 🙂