Codependency Support Group
Codependency is defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for another person's struggles. A codependent person may try to change, or feel shame about their most private thoughts and feelings if they conflict with the other person's struggles. If you are on a journey towards self-love, this support group is for you. Join us and find others...
Okay, I lied about there not being any more posts >_< Just feeling really awful, after trying to deny it's my relationship, and trying to see if it could be my parents or this city or this apartment or whatever, I have to face it is my relationship.
I haven't asked a lot of codependents, but the couple of codependents I did ask, it was their partner who broke up with them or their partner had checked out already. I'm not planning on breaking up with my partner, and I really want to give this relationship a good shot because things before this year were pretty good, but especially these last two and a half month, it's been making me SEVERELY DEPRESSED and feeling absolutely crazy and anxious, and if things don't change, I feel like I'm going to have break up with him to save my sanity and I'm afraid I don't have the courage to do it.
He's just so negative and critical! Everything is a mistake with him. He just finds faults and gets pissed off at everything: the news, what's going on in the world, the weather, me, other people. Everything pisses him off. If I try to be positive with him, that pisses him off more. It's just a thundercloud of negativity. I thought it was me because I keep screwing up and not getting things right, and I thought, if only I could get it right, it'll get better. Except I can't control the weather, and I can't control if we get sick, and I can't control if the water shuts off for a couple of hours. Nevermind I can't control what other people in the news that upsets him. I stopped telling what's going in the news because he gets so offended by incompetence and money being wasted.
I wouldn't say today was the last straw, but it was something - I went to a job fair, but there ended up THOUSANDS more people who went to the fair than the government agency who was hiring was expected, and I ended up not being able to get inside. They cut it off early. For some reason, that pissed him beyond reason. It just proved the world is incompetent and stupid, and he hates incompetence and stupidity, so now he's just angry, like he gets at the government or the news or other people for being incompetent, and he's just sitting there hating the world. I was waiting outside in the cold for two hours and he's acting angry and disgusted at me for being some monkey who joined a thousand other idiots monkeys looking for an impossible job.
I'm just so tired of all the negativity. So much of what I do pisses him off (he tells me that constantly) but if I don't do anything, that will piss him off too. I do most of the chores, I found the apartment (crappy, true, but I moved all the furnitures and cleaned it as best as I could before he came here), I plan our outings because he will not leave the apartment unless I go with him and tell him which bus to take and where to go. He did admit that he can't do any of those things and he needs me because he hates figuring out bus routes and schedules and places to go and during one of his rare positive moments lately, he did thank me for all the work I did. To be honest, it's not that much work for me. I don't do that much, and I spend most of my time by myself reading books and playing games online and visiting my family, but he seems to resent it when I do those things and says mocking things about them, but when I try to be close to him, he gets standoffish. I'm feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells.
Our relationship wasn't this bad before this year. Things went South in 2019, and I could spend time and energy to figure out why, but I'm too tired at this point. I kept thinking, it was the apartment, and if I chose a better apartment, things would be better, but the truth was we had problems before, and from how everything is pissing him lately, I don't know even if I chose a better apartment that he would be happier. I'm beginning to think it would have be a better apartment, and better weather, and transportation agreeing with us, and everyone being competent all the time and never wasting money, and life never having any pain or stupidity, and then he'll be happy.
Like I said, I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet and break up, but the idea of spending the rest of my life with this type of constant negativity and criticism fills me with dread. I've never broken up with someone who I was living with, and he hasn't checked out of the relationship yet. I know he's still invested in it, and I'm still invested in it, but if things don't better, I'm going to find some serious courage to break his heart. Let's hope it doesn't come down to that, but if it does, has anyone done it? How do you deal with the guilt? Never the headache of figuring who goes where and who takes care of what.
(I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY hoping things improve.)
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Ever since I stopped doing therapy because of insurance, I've been feeling that old tense and irritable sense of anxiety and stress. I hate that. I was making so many strides and changes during therapy, my therapist would acknowledge all of my progress and accomplishments, and I miss that reassurance. Today I thought about it, and I made those changes! She would always tell me that I chose to...
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check out that smoke ring. It tasted really good. I smothered it with Maulls BBQ sauce which is Local to St. Louis and one of the best I ever had.....
The only person you have control over is You, and you have choices. Easy, no, doing nothing is a choice also.
Negative people are toxic. I get as far away from them as I can!
Good luck
God Bless
I have a term for negative people who I've had the unfortunate experience of dealing with....some people call them energy vampires. My term is "emotional hostage", do you feel damned if you do, and damned if you don't? Do you feel entrapment? Somehow if you want to live a happier life you'll need help to get an emotional backbone for strength, and emotional boundaries to keep you sane.
Being as negative as you write your partner is towards you, is in my mind, a passive aggressive form of abuse. Like I wrote in my first post, trying to talk, to change him is useless....the change starts with you and '''for you''' not him or your relationship....
Whatever he does or doesn't do,you've no control, nor cure, to change his behavior or the way he thinks...just won't happen no matter how much you try, how much you love or want to make the relationship to work.... that is his to sort....to make decisions or to change.
""""I'm Really Really Really Hoping Things Will Improve"""
“Change happens when the pain (fear) of staying the same, is greater than the pain (fear) of change.” ― Tony Robbins
I put the word 'fear' in two places simply because so many codependents live their lives in a fear based mode of feeling rejection, not being good enough, or trying to please to obtain crumbs of recognition that a narcissistic person can never give.
Challenge your fears and ask yourself why you are so afraid. Get to the root cause and forgive that bad experience or that toxic person so you can let it go., of the guilt, or the shame, Personally, I think that is why we are all here....to learn to let go of our fears....
I am still working on mine....but I am getting there!....:)
God Bless
You wrote about seeking a job, if money is an issue/living place an issue, than how can you make steps towards finding financial and living space freedom...
One day at a time, One step at a time.....try to focus on Real Fact Based concerns, and not the negative and fear based words, you can do this by staying in the present and plan for the future.
For me, I like to write out in journal form....what do you want to accomplish as your goal and then work backwards making steps to obtain the goal. For me today, I have a goal, and like you, I'm scared, in my head too much and feel overwhelmed by the enormity of my task.....than if I stop, breathe and take One Step, One Baby Step breaking down big overwhelming into tiny little bites I'm not so afraid.
Like Bob, it took me a lot to push past my fear of going to a group. One thing that you can take with you is that Every Person, Every Person walked in the same steps through that door....a first start to healing because they could not continue and Did Not Want to continue the Insanity they were living.
For me, I grew up with alcoholic's, I had all the behaviors and emotions and confidence of a limp rag being rung out....Along With a need to control what was Not Mine To Control.
Once you walk through those doors, and I believe you will, I hope you'll find a small group, Alanon for me was smaller and more supportive than Co-dependent group....keep Focused On You, and what You Can Control: Yourself
The "keep going ' is a life long process of learning...at 66 I'm still learning from New Comers Voices to remind me how to live.....Your Story, Your Journey will be a gift, as you focus on yourself, to heal, and move forward toward a happier life.
Keep Going because you are worth it! https://www.12step.org/references/commonly-used/recovery-slogans/