What's a good boundary you learned to set?

I think I really needed to see this today.

My partner, whom I love dearly, suffers from quite severe mood swings that can last days and even weeks. When she’s in this low moods, she’s impossibly irrational about everything and I immediately have to walk on egg shells because anything I say might get taken severely out of context and misconstrued as something else, causing her to spiral even more.

During these times, she spends most of her time hols up in bed, usually in a mixture of physical and emotional pain.

I’m exhausted, guys. I’ve been living with this for 7+ years now and there’s no end to it.

I worry if I end the relationship, she’s going to be unable to look after herself and that weighs heavily on me because I don’t see how that ends well. But things don’t get better, either, I’m just trapped in this spiral and don’t know what to do.

Spent the last two years whittling myself to the bone to compensate for my boss, who… is going through a lot. Doesn’t know what he’s doing. He got forced into a managerial role because his boss took his own life a while back. That was one of the first things I learned about the place.

Guy spent half of the time watching Twitch streams (not hyperbole) and I convinced myself he was just burying a lot of trauma and needed support. Didn’t matter that I was brand new to IT and he’d been doing this since I was in middleschool, I just needed to learn and do everything on my own because he resisted any change as simple as using PowerShell.

Sat there about a month ago and realized that I was having full-blown panic attacks at work and drinking myself to death over a guy twice my age who was waiting on me to do everything for him. Trauma or not, I’m not less important than him. I want a chance to live my own life and help more than just one fucking guy, y’know? But I can’t do that if I don’t take care of myself first.

… Suddenly he’s a lot more motivated now that I put in my two weeks. Lesson learned, I guess. Ugh. Wish I could’ve figured it out in two months instead of two years.

management’s refusal to acknowledge available resources and schedule projects accordingly is not my problem when it’s been well documented for multiple years now

my contract says I’m off Friday, I have my hours in now on Thursday aft, I’m clocking out and submitting my timesheet and I’m not checking messages tomorrow

edit: the key to this is not stressing about the things that you could have handled this week but are now Monday’s problem. just work at the pace that is sustainable, and don’t stress over the things that you can’t control. that is the hard part, though.

Thanks, this comes at a time i need it the most. My wife is an anxious avoidant type and we really only found out about two years ago after she suddenly quit our relationship completely because she was done with relationships for the rest of her life. mind you after having three kids with me and explaining that I can get a side piece or leave it i don’t like it.

Since then has been a daily struggle with the typical cycle of her coming closer, me getting my hope up, her acting aggressive to get me to a safe distance and us not talking for a week. Then the cycle starts from the beginning. I have been very clear about what needs to change and what is her responsibility. I have offered counseling as well as partner therapy, i offered paying for it and also going together, but to no avail. On top of that she refuses to plan for separation as she well knows I won’t leave until the kids are grown. She flat out refuses to look for work to get her own career going so she can support herself some day when I’m gone. She refuses any reality her decisions might bring on and I’m constantly torn between taking care of a mentally unhealthy partner and my own desire and need for a partnership.

On top of that my health started failing me about a year ago and the doctors have no idea what’s happening. And instead of supporting me, she has basically chosen to tell anybody I was faking it while not visiting me in the stroke unit until I begged her to at least bring the kids over for multiple days. My empathy knows no bounds with her, I love her to the moon and back. I understand this is her protecting herself against anything that might trigger an emotional bond that might make her vulnerable. more than ever she is afraid to lose me and be hurt by that. Ironically she is more afraid of even touching me than anybody else in her life just to keep me at arms length.

I’m at a point where that doesn’t make any difference anymore. She is unable to be a partner to me and I’m so alone and afraid. It doesn’t matter why she can’t be there for me. If that had been a real stroke I would have died alone, she told me to get a grip when I called the ambulance. I asked her opinion because I was scared if i should call and she flat out refused to give an opinion.

I’m the sole bread winner, I have set everything up so she can take care of the kids and herself basically forever if I actually die. But there is not even a hint of acknowledgement or even worry. I met the fucking neighbor in the ICU who had stroke like symptoms, guess who was with her?! Her husband and father of their three kids.

Today i looked at her the first time in 13 years and didn’t see the beautiful women i love and the mother of my three kids. I couldn’t even recognize the human husk sitting there straddling her phone and pretending she didn’t see me looking at her. I think she finally neglected me enough and refused to change for long enough it might actually stop hurting me…

I have contacted a specialist therapist today for her opinion if my health issues might be caused by the ups and downs here at home. The daily anxiety of losing my kids and being alone for the rest of my days and not knowing if that shit might make me unable to work or live my life. I’m having panic attack like states and other days I’m like in a haze and then again I know it’s not her fault but her shitty parents. But it is her responsibility and I need to set a boundary to protect myself. Sadly my emotions seem to finally do that by themselves.

Finally after years of being unable to even look at another woman as potentially worthy of being a next partner I seem to at least cool off on the emotions to her. And I’m still not sure i actually like that at all….

It’s good to have loads of empathy. But it’s extremely important to talk with the counterparty about who’s responsible for fixing what things - I often see empathetic people taking wayyy too much responsibility where they instead should spend the energy on aligning expectations