Is Your Partner’s Mental Illness Creating A Cycle Of Abuse?

Photo by _Mxsh_ on Unsplash

Love is hard enough as it is, but being in love with someone with a mental illness can present unique challenges to a relationship. How do you balance taking care of someone else with taking care of yourself? How can you juggle the roles of partner and therapist, lover and caretaker? When does it become too much, and how can you end a relationship without feeling as though you’re risking someone’s health and well-being by doing so?

If you’ve had to ask yourself these questions, it’s possible that your partner’s mental illness is perpetuating a cycle of abuse, or at the very least creating fertile ground for it, because guess what? These aren’t questions that people in relationships with stable individuals have to consider.

I should know — I’ve been there. My former husband had a long history of mental illness that began before we ever tied the knot. As the years passed, his inability (and at times, unwillingness) to manage his Bipolar Disorder and Depression eventually culminated in physical violence and death threats against me, himself, and our child. Years later, with hindsight, it’s easy to see that things didn’t spiral out of control as they seemed to at the time. Rather, it was a slow unraveling.

Over time, his mental illness and my attempts to help him manage it created behavioral patterns that were neither sustainable nor healthy — for either of us.

Only a licensed mental health professional can properly evaluate your individual situation, but if one or more of the following scenarios apply to you, it’s worth examining whether you’re in an abusive relationship.

You find yourself in a therapist role.

Everyone needs help sometimes, but if more than half of your interactions with your partner would fall under the role of a therapist (whether that’s reminders to take medications, checking in regarding their side effects, or talking them down from a ledge — metaphorically or literally), you’re operating outside the duties of girlfriend or boyfriend.

Maybe you don’t mind playing the role of a “good listener” who offers reassurances and advice, even if you’re having to play that role every single day. But chances are, you’re not a therapist. It…