I just don’t know

i don’t know what to do, or even how to write all of this down. I have been in a relationship for 4 years. When i first met my partner he was in such a dark place, where he would harm himself and just be so angry but never at me. I know these were red flags, but seeing his pain made me feel so bad, seeing how unhappy he was reminded me of myself. I grew up in such a toxic home, my dad is a drunk and would physically abuse me weekly.. i went through so much and got through it thankfully and realized how much it means to actually be happy and i wanted that for my partner. After getting to know him i started to fall for him but the more i spent time with him i noticed his pain became my pain, he started taking it out on me now, he put his hands on me and when he did he punished himself. This is not okay and i know none of this is not my fault but i was so used to being treated like this that it didn’t affect m me like it should have. a few months go by here and there it would be bad and eventually it stopped, this lasted less than a year and i never realized why it stopped until someone told me that I’m the reason it stopped, i helped him better himself even tho i was hurting myself trying to help him. Now here i am 4 years in and he’s been doing so good but I’m no miracle worker or professional and i want him to still go talk to someone so i recently left so that he’ll actually take it serious and get help but now I’m back at my old home where i was at my lowest and it’s still as toxic, i don’t have other family to go to and i do want to move out with my partner but after he officially is better and tells me he is happy and controls his anger, even tho there is no more physical hurting, it can still happen but now I’m not happy on where I’m staying, what should i do.. i want him to go get help and if i go back he won’t probably won’t go, and i want to save so when he does get better we can move out. He tells me he is wrong, he understands he has a probably and is willing to speak to someone, i even called mental health for him once but they said he had to call, the process feels so long! He recently went to his doctor but they didn’t attend him and he tried making another appointment but now he won’t have health insurance until April, i don’t know how much i can take staying in my own home, i felt so much better being with him but i want no more problems, we are so good when he’s okay and it’s once every 3 months where he’ll get mad and just say mean stuff and it’s out of anger and he needs to fix that. What should i do

In my opinion, you need to work on yourself. There are more options than 1) staying where you are & 2) going back to your old relationship. I would advise putting a plan in place that allows you to be independent. What that is, I don’t know. What I do know is it won’t happen overnight.

One place to start might be reading up on codependence. Melody Beattie has written some excellent books on the subject: Codependent No More & Beyond Codependency. There are also support groups for codependency: CoDA.org.

From Wikipedia: “Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person’s addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity.”

Good luck in your journey.