I had written a SharePost "When Both People in The Relationship/Marriage are Bipolar".  At the time of that post I was wondering if a relationship between couple last over 5 years had a better chance of making it in the long haul.  Now thinking about the question in different light and very different circumstances, I can see why I asked the question.  I asked that question because I was insecure about my relationship with the guy I was with and needed some reassurance that if we held one for a few more years to that 5 year mark we had chance of making it.  How silly I was!!

Our relationship started to fall apart in sometime in 2008.  I was unhappy, very unhappy.  I didn't know how to get out of the relationship.  I knew he wasn't happy.  I was tired of being the one who had the income for the both of us.  He would get a job but it didn't last for long.  All along he had been trying to get Social Security.  The process of that was just dragging on and on.  His addictions were getting to me.  While he wasn't drinking, that I knew about, he was smoked cigarettes, which I did too, and I still do.  It is hard to support one person's smoking habit let alone two with one small SSDI income.  His parents would help for a while then stop.  They would do this on and off.  I could have screamed at them but didn't.  I never asked them for much, if anything, but asked my boyfriend to ask if they could help in that one area.  When they did, it was when they felt like it.  My ex-boyfriend needed to have instant gratification in almost everything he does.  He would smoke as much as he can.  He had no idea how to control it.  The same with his drinking.  Now I wouldn't buy alcohol.  He had to get that one his own.

I also was finding out that he was not very honest with me on many things.  Actually on most all things.  He only told me what he wanted.  Sometimes he told things if only if I asked.  If he got caught doing something he knew wasn't right or good for our relationship he would apologize.  Later, after he moved out, I realized he was sorry but it was he was sorry he got caught.

I look back on the 3 years I spent with him and I'm not going to say it was all bad.  I thought we had a healthy relationship.  I now know I was the one who was doing most of the work at trying to make it work.  For him, he had a place to live, a TV to watch, Netflix, music to listen too (something he loved very much) and food to eat and all of it for free!!!  Now what was wrong with me?? Why did I allow this to happen?  I had low self esteem, fear of being alone, needing a man to love me or at least thinking he did, and I needed someone who I thought I could change.  I know that in those 3 years my self esteem, fear being alone, needing to be love or changing him didn't improve. 

So what did improve?  He moved out.  I knew if I broke up with him I would be the "bad guy" so I set it up for him to break up with me.  It was a tricky situation and when it happened I didn't even know it was gone to happen right at the time it did.  The thing is it did.  In month, the spring of 2009, he found a place to live.