The Forums › Forums › For The Non-ADD › Relationships › A means to the end? › Reply To: A means to the end?
I hope you are ready for some strong words, because I am more worried about YOU than I am about your partner. You are clearly a good and caring person who likes to take care of people you love.
However, I hate to say this as someone who has ADD, but regarding your partner :
1) Some impulsivity can be forgiven and forgotten — like eating a whole box of cookies and not remembering most of it.
2) His other kinds of impulsive action can be life-threatening to you and dangerous for your sanity. His sleeping around is bad for your self-worth and could give you a fatal or very serious disease.
Please take care of yourself first. The odds are not good if you are depending on him to change for you.
You are the only one who can protect yourself. He probably is not manipulating you on purpose. Rather, he is doing whatever he needs to feel some kind of balance.
Having a close friend who went through this kind of relationship — and my getting dragged into dangerous situations because of it — I know that a person with this much dysfunction cannot be worried about your issues too.
He may say he wants to be there for you. He may cry terribly when you talk about splitting up. However, this remorse is almost always temporary.
You don’t even have to justify any choice to take care of yourself by explaining it to him. In fact, an explanation is not required and may be problematic for you.
I haven’t had the same problems as you, but I’ve been very abused by my employers, who I tried to help to do better for many years. Seeing a therapist was a tremendous help to me in putting my own worth into perspective, vs. what my employers wanted me to think. None of it was really my fault.
I truly hope this helps. Good luck.
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