Hello,
My story is very long, you can find it in another thread. Long story short…i had a 7 years long relationship with a schizophrenic man. The relationship has always been good in terms of getting along and affection, love. But we went through different countries and difficulties together than seemed connected to his needs and the instability people experience nowadays with Jobs and housing.
I finally got a home here in my country and I wanted him to live with me, he came but left several times because he wanted to get back is pension in his country. After being homeles and poor with my support and help ( also economic) he got back his pension and now he also has his own apartment. He told me I saved his life.
So after careful consideration ( and it was not out of the blue as we discussed this several times) I decided that now that he had his place I should have moved there to be together again ( we lived together several times already). But when I went to visit him to discuss this he told me he doesn’t want the relationship anymore as it pressures him and he likes to be alone. He started saying that the relationship makes him paranoid and that he is not worth it, not a good man, that he is afraid of dragging me in his desire to die. ( He is medicated, yes and goes to support every week). I was shocked and I left before scheduled.
He contacted me back offering to continue text and callings without a relationship because we have a connection. He said he was losing it and that he needed time to think.
I was puzzled, I thought he needed really some time to think and gave him some space like a week or so but I started to think that this was only a way for him to have a smooth exit and I started to think I didn’t know how to behave. I still love him so what should I have done? Faking to be a friend?
We had some phone calls after sometimes just chit chat sometimes we talked more about this. Basically he told me that he was pressuring himself because he felt he had to play a role, being responsible, told me he is scared of growing old with someone, told me he was scared that if I went there he would have tried to escape again.
It has been now 24 days and I’ve spent all this time analysing everything only to realize, something that I never realized…he was not escaping from situations and problems as I thought he was escaping from me and what the relationship was carrying with itself responsibility, care…and yet he was also coming back to it and never really ended it as he was keeping in touch on the phone and we made promises and plans and sharing love and so on.
So I got shocked about this. Basically he was staying then it became too much ( but I was taking care of everything…too much means to much real, too much stable, too much scary) and he was leaving.
He keeps texting every day, simple things. I try to figure out if there is something left to save. I wrote a letter where I said I understand him, his fears, that I still love him, that I was there for him always, but that he put me in this situation where I’m close to him but also far, that I don’t feel chosen and that I don’t know what he expects from me. He was very happy to read the letter, felt understood and recognized that I was there for him and how I’m feeling. He said he would have called to talk more, but he didn’t.
So after a few days I texted again explaining again that I don’t know what he expects from me.
He said he is sorry I feel like that, that he got scared and the illness destroys everything, he agreed there is a bond and feelings…that he has fears and that he is working on it. I don’t know on what he is working on but he didn’t talk about reinstablish the relationship ( even if it has to be long distance for now again, so not so much “danger” for him) and I am left again in this limbo. He is ambiguous and ambivalent.
You can tell me it’s my choice, probably. But I love this man and I tried to be understanding and finding a solution if he still cares, which it seems but it seems also he cannot overcome the pressure and fears I don’t know. I got this place for us, everything I did was for us. And now after all this rollercoaster I find myself in this place that is mine but it was not exactly where I “planned” ( it was supposed to be a place where starting to build something else, or rest a bit and then decided what to do with our lives) infact I wanted to move there where he is because of his pension…I even though at some point to buy a place there.
and I don’t know what to do now
Sometimes they feel like excuses.. I also spoke with a psychiatrist that confirmed sz work like that and that he was a high functioning one, but he could not resist and had to leave everytime. That they prefer to live alone so they don’t have to function and they don’t feel bad. The doctor told me he might come back but no one knows, even him doesn’t know and suggested I go on with my life.
He never tells me he wants us to he friends which means he wants to keep me close but far, caring and loving but he doesn’t want to be that too.
Has someone experienced something like that? I don’t manage to go on, I always hope to find a way back to each other…but sometimes I’m caught in the doubt that they are all excuses.. sometimes I feel it’s really the illness that makes this.
I don’t know if he is really working on it or not, but what I know that I’m really suffering and struggling and I really tried everything. I feel guilty at times because I always tried to create stability for us and he was escaping because I didn’t know he was escaping from that, I thought he was escaping from the instability we had ( because yes I was trying to make things stable but they were still unstable untill I got this house here…and that is the thing that scared him the most I think..the idea that it was the end of his freedom, tha he was gonna be trapped). The funny thing is that by himself he seems to manage to stay even though he is, afterall, more trapped because the rent this time is in his name, he has to attend meetings and stuff, lives in a city he doesn’t like…
It hurts me sometimes that when I was taking care of everything (rents, stuff) he wasn’t helping (except for the groceries and cooking) and now I understand why…while now that he is alone he made the effort to look for a place, manage it, thinking about bills and stuff…
I don’t even know if I should hope anymore. And I don’t know what is the illness and what’s the man