Topic: Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who has mental health issues?

Now i know you're thinking dude what am i your therapist? Just hear me out a second. I have this girlfriend who I've been with since high school. We met when we were teenagers and we've had let's just say a very complicated past. We are both in our 40s now.

Anyway I love this girl more than anything in the world and i know she loves me. There's just been one major issue with the relationship. She has this thing where she will get extremely stressed about life or whatever and for reasons i just can't explain she will make up claims of physical or sexual abuse. She actually spent time in jail once for false informing. All i can figure is this must stem from some dark part of her past and every now and then it comes up again. This has been going on at least as long as I've known her. It's heartbreaking but I've always stuck by her. Most guys would have run screaming into the hills by now. I guess i like a challenge and i keep thinking if i keep loving her no matter what someday she might snap out of it. Either that or I'll loose my sanity. Whichever comes first.

So yeah anyway have you ever been in love with someone like that?

@Truegamer79 This is tough! My experience is very limited since I had/have/will have only one love in my life but this does not look normal to me.

My personal opinion is that this person need to go in a treatment facility.

There is nothing good about knowing that your future is doomed to be miserable.

Haven't dated anyone like that personally, but dealt with friends/family members with a variety of mental health issues.
I suffer from some as well - but I'm just a bit miserable. It's not one of the exciting ones.

I'm sure it's related to her past somehow. But if you have known her for so long then you must have a rough idea what her life was like? Or maybe the main issues happened before you came into the picture.

I might be saying too much about myself here, but I used to lie a lot. At first I didn't want people to worry, or to think that I was mentally ill....but it becomes natural fast. Before you know it you have told people this entire reality and you just have to go with it.
I stopped eventually but it felt like stopping an addiction. You're effectively breaking your trust with everyone, and what's left of you is sad and boring in comparison. I didn't have a close family or friends at the time so I didn't have much to lose, but I'm sure other people feel really trapped by it.

I'm not sure what mental illness she's dealing with, but from my experience the person and the illness are almost intertwined. And I include myself in that.
But I'm never sure how much it can improve. I always think "illness" equals something that can get better. Maybe mental issues are more about learning to live with the condition instead of curing it.

I'd try your best to talk about it with her. If you have seen the full extent of her issues then weigh it against how much it affects your everyday life and relationship.
It really affects different people in hugely different ways. But just try your best to be open and loving, and hopefully she will be comfortable enough to examine it at some point. She might not realise as much as you if she's been like this for decades, and it's hard to establish boundaries for it when you don't know what it is.

Hopefully other people have better things to say. Sometimes it's hard to separate the mental illness from the person, so everybody is different.

Yeah it's definitely a sensitive subject. I've tried talking to her about it but she just goes into her shell. I'll ask things like why would she lie about those things and she just starts with the waterworks and says she doesn't know. I am aware of a few things from her past involving abuse but i really don't like to bring that up to her. It only makes her close up more. I'm glad you guys are being so mature about the topic. I figured I'd get a bunch of jokes and mean comments. Being involved in a relationship that is like the one i have is no picnic and yes sometimes it feels like it's doomed to ultimately fail but love makes you crazy enough to keep pushing on.

You can move on from people like that.
It's not healthy to keep in toxic relationship with such people like that.
Find other peoples who can makes healthy relationship without abuse.

@Truegamer79
Please don't listen to @Anti-Matter I mean... bruh! 🤬

I have a lot of experience with mental health issues.
The most important and most difficult part is for the person to acknowledge themself they have a problem. This can take years, and for some it never happens, but without acknowledging you have a problem, you can't be helped. I don't believe in forced mental health care. I've never seen it work in the long run. They might get more relaxed or seem to be doing better because of heavy drugs for a while, but things like this can only be healed by either personal therapy or group therapy.

Especially when it involves a past trauma, this healing process can take many years and there will always remain symptoms. A full heal almost never happens. It's more about learning to recognize the symptoms and learning how to act on them.

As for the first step, I'd suggest trying to convince her to talk about it with someone she trusts, like her physician. Go with her for support if she wants, but don't force it. Put the idea in her head. Gently remind her about it every once in a while. Or talk to her physician yourself, tell them you worry about her and ask advice. If they're any good, they might make an inquiry during her next visit for an unrelated event. Eventually she might recognize that something needs changing and she takes the next step herself.

I hope this was helpful.
My best wishes to you and your girlfriend.

@Truegamer79 My partner is not on the same level as yours, but has gone through phases of mental unease. She's never gone to anyone else with accusations against me, but there was a spell where she started throwing the word 'abusive' at me if I said anything she didn't like.

There's more I could say here, but the crux of it is that I've repeatedly pointed out to her that her inability to cope with stress very well is usually exhibited in the form of having a go at me about anything her mind falls on at that particular moment.

For a fair few years I've been thinking I'd prefer to separate, but due to finances and logistics of parenting it has made sense to ride it out and I've not spoken about this to her out of fear of making her more insecure and stressed and basically harder to live with, but things came to a head at one point and I told her that we should separate. Thankfully this actually had the effect of making her address her behaviour a bit and things have improved.

TL;Dr... If you are prepared to tolerate her behaviour then evidence suggests she will keep behaving in the undesirable manner that she has been. If you're not prepared to tolerate it, then make some plans to separate temporarily/permanently and let her deal with whether she wants to change her ways to stay with you.

Used to but I was lucky to have supportive parents that told me when to get out of it. I listened, thank god, and my life was better off since. It’s important to be honest with yourself and to have people to give you a reality check.

The person you should love the most is you. It may sound selfish but it’s not.

@Truegamer79 Hey there! I appreciate the discussion taking place here & hope you manage to seek the advice you're looking for, however, I'm locking this thread now as this isn't necessarily the best site for this conversation. Thanks for your understanding!