When is love not love anymore…..? He has to see he needs help and his problem won’t let him….

by Rod Smith

“I love my sometimes- abusive boyfriend very much. I moved out and I know that was a good step. I still deeply love him. He won’t get help for his problems because he doesn’t understand he has an illness. The illness prevents from seeing it. It’s circular. How can you get through to someone like this without setting them off or making them perceive you as the enemy? How can someone get the professional help they need if they don’t see that they have a problem? The person who is abusive has to recognize the problem and be willing to seek help. No one can force it. ‘Sorry’ is are all we have sometimes, and if you love someone how can you turn your back on them, especially if you can see they need help?” (Letter edited)

Rod Response:

At some point you have to love yourself more than you love your boyfriend, otherwise the relationship will destroy you. How will I ever get you to see this?

Focus on your health and not on his. This is not selfish, it is wise.

Believe it or not, there are more important things than love. Your survival is one of them.

Something is deeply amiss when your love is so compelling it is self-destructive.

This is, of course, when is ceases to be love.

7 Comments to “When is love not love anymore…..? He has to see he needs help and his problem won’t let him….”

  1. Rod is correct, you must love yourself first, you must value yourself. One of the reasons people are abusive is because they know they can be …
    Some people abuse the ones who love them because they feel that they can get away with it. The things they say and do to you are things they would never consider saying/doing to a co-worker or even a stranger. They are the way they are because we have allowed it. In other words we get what we allow/tolerate.
    Sounds like you would love to help him, however sounds like he does not believe he needs help, therefore you are turning your back on him. You have extended yourself to him, why would you allow yourself to feel guilty?
    What lessons have you learned from this relationship? How has this relationship helped you to grow? What is your deepest fear about ending this relationship, is it about how it will affect him or more how it will affect you?
    Know in the end that you have learned lessons that you can apply to have a healthier relationship in the future and lessons that will help you better understand yourself.
    As Rod said, choose to love yourself first, once you have done that, life will begin to fall into place.

  2. Wow. This is me. Ok, #1, I love myself. #2, I do not feel guilty at all and wouldn’t feel guilty about turning my back on him; that is not what I meant at all. I meant how can I give up on a love that is so strong and so true when I know that what is happening isn’t his fault or mine; it’s just an illness. #3, He can’t see he has one because he IS ILL. How do you get someone to see that they need help without being seen as the enemy? That is my question. Please help. Things are wonderful between us with us living separately. I have control over my own life back.

  3. Heavenandheck,
    Great to hear that you love yourself and that you have physically removed yourself from the situtation that you were in. You ask, “how do you get someone to see that they need help without being seen as the enemy?”. As you said, he is ill, and because he is ill, he does not see that he needs help. I believe at first no matter how much love you appoach him with, until he can see and admit that he needs help, he will somewhat see you as the enemy. Rememer none of us want to “Told” anything. Telling me I need help will only cause me to reinforce the barriers that I have constructed to avoid the truth. The trick and talent is to engage him in conversation where you ask questions constructed to get him to say out loud the things that he needs to acknowlage about his behavior and ask questions that are designed to get him acknowlage out loud that he wants to make a change and that he wants help. This takes preperation and timing. It is important that you have a plan to get him the help that he needs, i.e. when he does admit that he needs help, you should be able to lay out a structured plan on how to get him that professional help.
    Question, why are things wonderful now that you are living separately? What is the difference?
    Maybe your last statment says it all, you now feel in control of your life.

  4. That’s it exactly. I have my life back. I wonder if you can direct me toward the “right questions” that will draw him to talk about things. I have timing down, I think. He’s ALMOST admitted things before, but some examples of good questions to ask would really help. Thank you.

  5. Heavenandheck,
    I will be happy to help you with formulating some effective questions. I can do this one of two ways, I can make up a scenario and design questions around that scenario to demonstrate how the questions are put together to get a person to say what you want them to say or, and probably more effective, would be to better understand your boyfriends behavior, what you want to change and what you want him to say out loud.
    Note, asking the right questions is only one part, it is also very important that your tone is correct, i.e. open, soft, non-accusing, non-threatening, helpful.
    The setting must be correct also, free from distractions, very difficult to do this if the TV is on, or the phone is ringing, kids running around, you get the picture.
    Let me know how you would like to precede.

    Rod, are you okay with us using your blog to do this, or would you like us to take this off line?

  6. email me at “happygurl1010” at “yahoo.com”

  7. I do not mind in the least — Rod Smith

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