Rehab, coco1212, wouldn’t that be a luxury. If only. My bf said prison was the free rehab, I can’t see it as that, but I hear what he’s saying. – it’s the weekend, so he’s back to being a satellite again.
Oh no, the paranoia. I know how you feel. It’s so hard, you want to help and not want to become his enemy at the same time, I went through the same. That’s when I started to just walk away. Leaving the room didn’t end the conversation more often than not though, not in the beginning, it took me a while longer to realise I could never win, but when I did I stopped fighting. Do you think your bf knows what he’s doing to himself? What if you stop trying to intervene and police his own rules? What would happen? I’ve found that to not be his enemy, sometimes I have to not be his friend. Letting my bf get on with it I think helped him actually. Its like to him I was always fighting his fight, but when I stopped questioning, stopped catching him out, stopped pulling him up on it, it was as though he was like “hang on, she doesn’t care anymore, id better fix up a bit” – as he might put it. That’s how I imagine he must’ve considered it anyway, that’s how it felt to me.
The logic that sometimes you have to let a person make their own mistakes. I totally live by that now.
Also, if you and him agree completely as to how he wants you to support him and he then tries to move the goal posts / tries to get around you / tried to break his own rules, that’s his failure, not yours. He has to take ownership of his own problem. If he gets cross at you, re-agree the terms of how you support him. Eventually you’ll have to get to a point where he’s unable to penalise you. You have to look out for number one Coco. You mustn’t be his enemy, even, as I say, if that means you’re also not his friend.
Stay safe xxxx