MiSoberbio

There *is* something you can do: let go of his illness and work on yourself.

When I first heard advice like that, I rejected it as cold and heartless. I wondered how anyone could claim that they cared for an addicted loved one while allowing that person to continue down a path of self-destruction. I acted as if I was the all-knowing one who should be guiding others down a "better" path. This is called "hubris" and it blinds us, binds us, and obligates us to live in a perpetual state of suffering.

You'll see it said here on SR in a thousand different posts: you cannot change another person, and maintaining a desire to change another is only corrosive and debilitating. It will eat at your heart, your soul, your relationships (both intimate and "public") AND at the loved one that you're trying to "save."

It's not a question of loving enough, or giving enough, or sacrificing enough – the issue, for you, is how far you will go before your boyfriend's illness consumes you entirely, or better stated, before you find yourself made so ill by the symbiotic process of consuming (your boyfriend consuming you and you consuming your boyfriend's illness) that you end up emotionally and spiritually paralyzed.



OK, so I just said some strong stuff. When I first heard similar things directed at me, I outright denied that I was obsessed, denied that I was a part of the problem (for MY illness, not for his), denied that my relationship with my partner was so twisted. But, over time, I couldn't deny it any longer – basically everything that folks with similar experiences said to me about my clearly unhappy state of being was spot on. I began to untwist, and I began to see results.

This "hubris" thing is nothing new: it's at the core of most ancient Greek tragedies. As a species/culture, we've been living with it for thousands of years, if not forever. When you take your boyfriend's pills without him knowing, you are playing into a very old, destructive game. I'm not speaking to you from some higher ground – I did the same. Once, I tracked my partner to a public park and encountered him consuming a substance. I grabbed it out of his hands and he attacked me, leaped on top of me and tried to strangle me, while a group of 8 or so other addicts calmly watched.

Those of us who try to take the lives of others into our own hands are courting disaster. You have made a VERY smart move in deciding to lease your own apartment – I urge you to keep listening to the internal voice that told you to do that. This has nothing to do with love – what you feel for your boyfriend and what he may feel for you are not at all related to what his illness is making him do. Protect yourself and work on yourself – if you two are "meant" to be together, that will be revealed over time. Put yourself first and let him discover what it is that he's looking for.