Best way to deal with MI in relationships?

While I am good at advocating for mental illness and explaining what I experience... no one I've dated seems to really understand nor make any effort to.

I have tried sincere discussions, pamphlets, books on the subject through the sufferer's eyes as well as books from the clinical viewpoint, etc...

People either shrug it off, refuse to make any effort to read anything or just don't get it period.[Mostly people don't read any material moreso.]

My relationships can be summed up in stages whether 3 months long or 3 years long.

Stage one - Accepts all faults and claims to understand and be ok with how I am and how things are

Stage two - Begins to gripe about one or two symptoms I suffer but generally things are ok. Usual complaint is I don't want to socialize as the first complaint despite deep explanations about this from day one.

Stage three - Gripe about how I don't want to socialize and how I don't meet their family and friends and argumentative confrontations ensue about it. They begin to gripe about my hobbies or lifestyle despite my being clear from day one. I recommend material again but it goes unread.

Stage four - It is not-stop nitpicking about my "faults" due to my disorder and nothing I do is right in their eyes. They begin to loathe me because of my symptoms and needing my alone time. I get accused of not caring, cheating, working on some secret project or other ludicrous accusations they also claim they feel unneeded and chaos ensues.

Stage five - They become distant slowly breaking away and some start cheating at this point, some just start new relationships entirely without really ending ours, all sorts of vagueness ensues and they move on or I cut ties due to their disagreeable behaviors such as cheating.

Any advice?

The main issue seems to be my mental illness in every case. [StPD] They know fully what they're getting into but yet seem to despise me for the very same symptoms they know are part of who I am.

Looks like you're having problems choosing your partners. It seems like understanding is something that simply isn't in the blood of some people. We need to learn to spot them... Apparently only people who have felt misunderstood themselves [may] have this ability.

I suspect it's virtually impossible to have a long-lasting relationship with a "normal" person. They'll use your condition against you sooner or later and you'll be at a disadvantage. If they are "normal" (doesn't matter if it's a real thing or a perceived normalcy), they'll want a "normal" partner, even if they don't admit it at first. When a relationship starts with one side admitting to being disordered and the other side just... "acknowledging" it, the imbalance is inevitable. It's denial waiting to explode. And one day BOOM!, you don't have a problem, you are the problem.

When a relationship starts with one side admitting to being disordered and the other side just... "acknowledging" it, the imbalance is inevitable. It's denial waiting to explode. And one day BOOM!, you don't have a problem, you are the problem.

My experience finds this revelation very accurate.

How does one avoid such a pitfall? It is difficult to hide such things. Questions ensue.

Why are you taking those pills are you a drug addict?
Why dont you want to meet my friends/family? Dont you care about me?
Why do you not like the mall or [insert very social or busy place]?
Why are you acting so strange?
etc etc ad nauseum

Being bluntly honest bites me in the ass it seems.

This is a terrible area for dating. Very judgmental, material and social oriented quite heavily so at that and etc. Many Ive spoken to who were new to the area seemed to concur. Add mental illness to the mix and disasters ensue.

Your observation of difficulty/impossibility of a long-lasting relationship with norms does seem to be true in my experience. I did have a 3 year long relationship that ended up in engagement. The keyword being ended. I was left out of the blue 3 weeks prior to the wedding date citing the typical excuses to me. Now THAT was painful. Many years of slowly opening up and the vulnerability that ensued then followed by being dealt that blow and then being turned against and having your deepest thoughts spilled for all to hear.Ultimate betrayal.

I've dated one abnormal person if you wish to put it that way and it was a disaster she was bipolar and decided to go off meds mid-relationship and then developed a drug problem. It was problematic after that. It fell apart quickly. She could never accept my traits either.Hmm.

Indeed it seems I have problems with whom I choose....

I have an extremely difficult time in this department. I cannot read emotion very well at all. I certainly am the most terrible at expressing any.

People hate that I dont "need" them and don't say ILY.

Your insights are astute as always and very helpful ana.

The question becomes how do I fix this? I can't read people very well in many ways thus my difficulty in choosing appropriate partners. Another part of the issue is many do not share my ideals or at least tolerate them. It becomes a "change or else" ultimatum sooner or later.

UberGonzo wrote:The question becomes how do I fix this? I can't read people very well in many ways thus my difficulty in choosing appropriate partners. Another part of the issue is many do not share my ideals or at least tolerate them. It becomes a "change or else" ultimatum sooner or later.

This is a key question in my life too. Maybe even more so... The basic difference in practice is that you have made bad choices, I have made none. One actually. I was willing to make my life better to be with her. I was glad that I wanted to make my life better. I had a plan. She was part of it, and she kept me going. But she couldn't let me in.

She needed me to be unreal. So I had to be unreal... I fear she may become a ghost like everyone else is. I know she will... She was the mirror where I looked to see myself. No mirror, no self to be seen. Now the closest thing I have to my self is anagram. I don't like to be called by my birth name. It sounds odd to me. I don't like to be called by my old screen name either. Ana... nice ring to it... I guess I was thinking of it when I came up with this pseudonym.

I've been wondering my whole life how to make a good choice. Most girls I've been attracted to somehow, uncannily, made me feel really bad. I had to stay away from them. There have been exceptions. (Unsurprisingly, Ana is the name of one of them...) But no real progress. I've been studying my own feelings of attraction and trying to understand what is wrong and what is right with them. There must be some truth there.

I'm attracted to warm, careless types. Women who seem to be drifting in the void like me. Sounds like a good thing to me. A good match. But why do I feel bad about it then?.. Or why can't I find them? Or how/where could/should I? I can't face all the ghosts out there while I seek for her. All these ghosts... it's frightening... I'm weak without her, because I'm not myself. I need to know where she is. I don't know where to look...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N2CaGp_6A0

In short, yes: how do we fix this?

anagram wrote:This is a key question in my life too. Maybe even more so... The basic difference in practice is that you have made bad choices, I have made none. One actually. I was willing to make my life better to be with her. I was glad that I wanted to make my life better. I had a plan. She was part of it, and she kept me going. But she couldn't let me in.

I have reasons why I sought out people vs being alone. Reasons that many do not have in common. It's certainly complicated. I did indeed make bad choices but not intentionally. Sometimes the best of intentions turn out terribly.

The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

The relationship I thought was my match, was 3 years long two and a half without so much as a quarrel or issue. We seemed to just know what the other needed. Like having a shared mind. We spent every free moment together for two and a half years in ignorant bliss. She was blissful lol I was just content. Contentedness is all I really manage as I have few/restricted emotional responses. Everyone thought we were the picture perfect couple. One of the fatal flaws is that she decided she preferred to be more social and picked poor company. She began to emulate them and they of course disliked me as I wanted nothing of them, wouldn't meet them and wasn't like them. She began to listen to their silly notions and the downfall began. The fall from grace was a sharp and painful one.

It was impossible to predict this turn of events.

As far as the others go, they were bad choices and I am drawn to unusual people in a sense. I have a certain set of characteristics I am drawn to.

anagram wrote:She needed me to be unreal. So I had to be unreal... I fear she may become a ghost like everyone else is. I know she will... She was the mirror where I looked to see myself. No mirror, no self to be seen. Now the closest thing I have to my self is anagram. I don't like to be called by my birth name. It sounds odd to me. I don't like to be called by my old screen name either. Ana... nice ring to it... I guess I was thinking of it when I came up with this pseudonym.

I have always read your username as a name such as Ana Gramm or Anna Graham .

I also do not like being called by my name as it doesn't seem to fit me however but I cannot imagine a name that does. I intended to change my name for years until one day I realized no names ever sounded correct.

Luckily for me people almost never use my name. It is only used when they call me in for my appointments but never during them. People I know just start talking without referring to names. I can go months or years at times without hearing my name. Sometimes I wonder if one day I will forget it entirely.

anagram wrote:I've been wondering my whole life how to make a good choice. Most girls I've been attracted to somehow, uncannily, made me feel really bad. I had to stay away from them. There have been exceptions. (Unsurprisingly, Ana is the name of one of them...) But no real progress. I've been studying my own feelings of attraction and trying to understand what is wrong and what is right with them. There must be some truth there.

I'm attracted to warm, careless types. Women who seem to be drifting in the void like me. Sounds like a good thing to me. A good match. But why do I feel bad about it then?.. Or why can't I find them? Or how/where could/should I? I can't face all the ghosts out there while I seek for her. All these ghosts... it's frightening... I'm weak without her, because I'm not myself. I need to know where she is. I don't know where to look...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N2CaGp_6A0

In short, yes: how do we fix this?

What are warm, careless types? It sounds contradictory... Or did you mean careless as in carefree?

Ghosts are inevitable. How does one know another is what one has been searching for without experiencing much with them?

Often times matches in theory, do not make good matches in practice. There are too many variables. It seems from my observations that most humans find matches in people that they would never expect to have been a match. An ironic and contradictory notion.

Nice lyrics by the way. Very apropos.

Yes how do we?

It seems we would need an outside opinion, we are both way to close to this.