“She’s Going Through a Rough Time”

My partner is going through serious problems with her very dysfunctional family right now, including among other things a recent death and another family member in rehab, and these things are really fucking with her psychologically, along with stress at work and hormonal changes due to menopause. I love her, and we’ve been together for seven years and they have been good years, but this past year has been hell, and I sometimes feel like her punching bag (not literally). I also can’t fathom breaking up because our lives are so intertwined. I don’t know where to draw the line at all, I know her behavior is emotionally abusive but it’s also not something that I ever saw from her, prior to these things. She’s been sober since before we met and has stayed sober through all of this and I am proud of her for that. Sometimes I wonder if she has the self-control to avoid alcohol, can’t she have the self-control to stop being mean to me? I just don’t know what to do.

Valerie: You say you can’t fathom breaking up because your lives are intertwined, but I think you need to ask yourself this: If she woke up tomorrow and was in a better place and not treating you like this, would you still want to break up? Are you only considering this because things are bad right now? Has your love for her changed, or just the situation? There are no wrong answers, the answer will just change your approach to this situation. If this past year has caused your feelings toward her to change, and the ONLY reason you haven’t broken up with her yet is because it will be logistically difficult, you need to get your most organized friend and start a checklist, make a plan, and then break up with your partner. If you still love her and want to give her a chance to fix this, you need to talk to her. Explain to her that you understand why she has been having a hard time and going through a lot and that you want to be there for her and support her, but that her behavior is unacceptable. Tell her how she’s hurting you, what things she’s doing that are not okay. Set a firm boundary. “Hurt people hurt people” is an explanation, not an excuse. Just because she’s going through it does not make it okay for her to be taking it out on you. “Self-control” isn’t a universal on-off switch, so it’s not like she’s choosing to control her drinking but not her behavior. There could be a lot of reasons this is happening. She could genuinely just be moving through the world differently because of all that’s happened to her and she does not realize how her change in behavior is affecting you. She could be (purposefully or subconsciously) lashing out at you as a way to control something in her life. She could be self-sabotaging out of fear your relationship could be the next thing she loses in the wake of the loss she’s experienced. None of these things make it OKAY she’s treating you this way of course, but a lot of those things can be redirected if she realizes and is willing to do the work. So it’s up to you if you think this relationship is worth the effort it will take to save it, or if you think that the past year has created a hurdle you can’t or don’t want to get over. Either option is valid, and neither is easy, but either way you know things cannot stay as they are.

Summer: Nobody needs to stay in an abusive relationship on account of the ‘potential’ for their partner to be better. Potential isn’t a guarantee. It’s undoubtedly painful for you to see that your partner was once a much better person, but the here and now is taking a toll on you. On some level, she is choosing to mistreat you as an outlet for her frustrations.

Mental health difficulties or a downturn in someone’s life phase doesn’t justify emotionally abusive behavior. At most, it explains it. In your difficult position, I’d ask whether you’re better off leaving with 7 mostly good years to think about, or risking a continued stay that drags both of you further down. It’s your call, but I’m usually on the side of ‘leave the abusive relationship’ because it’s not your job to fix someone who hurts you.

Nico: So, you ask why she cannot have the self-control to not emotionally abuse you. A sad fact about emotional abuse is that it is not about losing control, it is actually about the abuser using coercion to get what they want, which, in some cases, might be to feel better by putting someone else down when they feel poorly about themselves. If you’ve asked your partner to stop being mean to you and she does not stop, then I don’t think that is going to change. As you’ve mentioned, she’s exhibited a great deal of strength and resolve in her sobriety, so there is little reason she should not be able to control her behavior when it comes to her treatment of you. In the book Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft, he describes an abuse victim who says that her partner loses control and has fits where he destroys things. Bancroft gently questions her, and she comes to realize that he only ever destroys her things, and that while he claims he is sorry, she is the one left to clean it up. The key here is that while he seemed to be out of control and suffering from emotional overwhelm, aspects of his outbursts were actually quite calculated. It can be a calculated thing to know that you can take out your emotional overwhelm on your intimate partner within the context of a relationship where that partner feels that it would be difficult to leave.

However, people untangle the most intertwined lives when they break up. When it comes to anything you have to untangle, someone has been in a similar situation prior. It’s understandable for someone to go through a rough patch (though they should still not use you as a punching bag), but if you’ve already lived through a year of hell, there is no reason to think things will improve, even with six good years behind you.

But, you don’t have to decide right away and I would advise holding off on telling her if you decide you want a breakup until you have an exit strategy. There are two things I advise starting with and they are:

To answer your question directly, you can decide you want to break up as soon as you are ready, but knowing that with abusive relationships that things tend to escalate at the leaving stage, I would be more or less ready to leave before delivering the actual breakup news, if you can handle pretending for that period of time. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think there’s a point in staying. If she was going to correct her behavior, she could have done so by now.

Riese: I do think that ‘who a person is’ is not just who they are during the good times but who they are during the bad times, too. Like their bad time behavior is not necessarily a deviation from their true self — that’s part of that true self. That’s the whole picture. And it’s possible to go through a hard time and not use your very kind partner as a ‘punching bag’, no matter how shitty you feel. Imagine how you’d behave in a similar scenario, you know? I have a feeling your answer would not be “I’d be mean to my wife.”

You cannot stay in a relationship like this. Of course, it’s up to you if you want to give her the chance to repair things, to 1) see a doctor to help mitigate the menopause-related symptoms that are influencing her behavior and 2) really listen to you, acknowledge the hurt and pain she has caused, and commit to changing and repairing the relationship, and doing so no matter what else is happening in her life. Anything short of that, including any reluctance to commit to that plan with her whole self, and you’ve gotta go.

i have kept my ex on my health insurance as my domestic partner after we broke up even though technically i was supposed to notify HR that we broke up and no longer live together, she’s staying with a family member now, so also hasn’t changed her address officially just in case that might trigger something with the insurance. she sends me $100 a month to cover the part i have to pay my employer for her. she’s a freelancer and has a chronic health condition and i’ve kept this going because health insurance in this country is a bitch. but renewal is coming up and i feel weird about renewing the lie. i also feel weird about feeling weird about it because like, rules created by an oppressive corporation. is it wrong for me to cut her off now? how can i make sure she still gets care? we are both in relationships with other people now, and happy, and my current person doesn’t need health insurance. would it be cruel for me to suggest moving her off my health insurance now, and changing her address?

Valerie: I think this is a conversation you have to have with your ex. Explain to her that you don’t want to risk your job or the punishment if you’re found out, give her time to work something else out. I think it was a really great idea for you to keep her on it and have her pay you for as long as you did, because you’re right that health insurance is a bitch. And as much as I want to encourage you to just keep her on (because you’re right, who cares about this corporation) the truth is there could be real consequences for getting caught. And your ex is not your responsibility. So as much as it sucks, I think it’s okay to tell her it’s over. You can even help her find marketplace insurance or apply for Medicaid if you really want to help ease the transition.

Summer: You’re right that it’s a tough call to think about severing a part of someone’s healthcare because you live in a repressive and terrible society. This is actually an unjust decision nobody in our world of plentiful technology and means should even have to consider.

I’m in a similar situation where I still have my ex listed as a beneficiary to my life insurance. So in the unlikely event that Hell gets a new tenant, she gets a chunk of the payout. But I’m not incurring any risk from my workplaces by doing this — it’s not a lie. And my ex is still my best friend, so I care about her. Those two questions ring in my mind when I read your situation:

I don’t think you owe her anything, especially since you’ve already allowed her to impose risk on you for her benefit for some time. You shouldn’t be in a scenario where you feel compelled to take this risk because society is unjust. But you don’t have to address that injustice by imperiling yourself — if you don’t want to.

Nico: As my colleagues have said, this ultimately comes down to your risk calculations and what you are willing to take on. There is no real right answer, and much of the calculation depends on how large the risk actually is, what you are willing to risk, and what you think will ultimately be the best choice. I think it’s the time to have an open and honest conversation with your ex about this. Additionally, I get a vibe from your note that you feel this all falls on you, but actually, it is not on you to find solutions. It is her healthcare coverage, so she should be helping to research options and alternatives for you two to compare with the current coverage you’re facilitating for her at risk to yourself. Does her current partner have a policy she can be added to, for example? Does she fall within the income qualifications for medicaid (which Summer suggested) or does her chronic health condition help qualify her for state assistance? If she has just been using your health insurance because it is easier than putting in the research and legwork on her end, then I definitely think you have no obligation to keep her on it, but if she has explored other options to the best of her ability and learned that options are lacking, then you have some thinking to do.