Dear Lady:

“his lostness and emotions that he battles with.. most of the time it’s got nothing to do with me”- his terrible childhood of course, has a lot to do with his emotional troubles, his depression, what you refer to as his laziness, his habit of procrastinating, and so forth. Problem as I see it, is that you are not helping him and he is not helping you.

It is as if you are certain deep inside you, that you can’t live without him. It is as if you have two options: life with him,  or no life at all. You hold on to him because you don’t perceive a life without him.

You do a lot of rationalizing and use a lot of words that sound good, but all together, in context of what you shared through the years, what motivates you is very singular: a belief that there can not be life for you without him in it.

“he doesn’t see things clearly”- but you don’t either. You don’t see that this relationship is unhealthy and dysfunctional, and has been so from its beginning.

Here is the evidence of this dysfunction: you tried a lot to help him, encourage him and so forth. But there is one thing you didn’t try: separation. I don’t mean disappearing for a weekend as you did once, or asking him if he wants you to move  out, but actually moving out.

When you did ask him if he wants you to move out many months ago, his answer was something along the line of: how will you, Lady, survive without me, how will you make it without me? (He remembers well that you told him you were considering suicide that one time he broke up with you before you moved in with him).

Did you consider that you need him desperately, but he may not need you?

“in reality .. he has a partner who is loving, understanding, patient, forgiving and helps him with almost everything”-

– no, in reality he has a woman so desperate to live with him that she will keep him with her no matter how much it hurts him.

“I truly want the best for him”- only if he stays with you. If it is best for him to separate- you are not willing to do that for him.

“Love is about accepting each other for better or for worse”- love is also about giving up on the relationship when the evidence over time points to the relationship being harmful to the man you supposedly love. In other words, you need him way more than you love him.

anita