Have You Had Happy Love Relationships with Untreated Mentally Ill or PD People?

[BrokenDollMagnet]

I have complex PTSD from a dNPD father and am properly medicated for severe depression and GAD.

In short, I am poly and my household is looking to expand. We are in no hurry and are being very careful.

I am feeling guilty about our screening criteria. I am in my 30s and have had numerous relationships over the years. In looking back, I realized that those relationships that ended peacefully and due to incompatibility were those with people who did not have CPTSD, untreated mental illness, or personality disorders.

I am the 'dumper' in every relationship, but only after trying very hard to make the relationship work through healthy communication, compassion, and good listening skills. I am very loving, I am told, and I agree with the assessment. I don't yell, and I try very hard to encourage my partners to grow, achieve goals, and get treatment for any illness. For this reason, my exes were all 'surprised' when I would end the relationship. This flabbergasted me because by the time I dismiss someone, I am at my wits end have explained again and again how their behavior or words were hurtful and needed to change or I would end the relationship.

I am very empathic and loving, but I won't tolerate being treated badly.

In looking back, the pattern is clear: when I have a relationship with a person who has a mental illness or personality disorder, it will end on bad terms with my being at the end of my patience. The relationships in which I am still friends with the ex were ones with mentally healthy people or mentally ill people who were were medicated. I have never had a successful or remotely hapoy relationship with a personality disordered person.

So now, my criteria is: no one with an untreated mental illness, no one with personality disorders, and no one with a temper.

I am currently in a wonderful household with kind and healthy people who fit those criteria. I don't want to put them through a doomed and miserable relationship.

My perspective is not that I look down on people who are ill or disordered, afterall, I am mentally ill myself, but that there is something wrong with me because I cannot just accept their behavior. I am the common denominator.

Does anyone have experience of having successful and happy romantic relationships with untreated mentally ill people or people with personality disorders? Is it possible to have a relationship with people with untreated anger management issues?

I won't change my criteria. Whether the issue is with the or me, there is no point in my considering them. If that means I might lose out, avoiding the bad experiences it is still worth the loss of hypothetical 'good' relationships.

I just wonder if anyone has had success. Is it just me, or is it nearly impossible for those people to maintain a healthy relationship without hurting their partner?

[mourningdove]

I am feeling guilty about our screening criteria.

I don't think you have any reason to feel guilty about wanting healthy relationships. That said, you seem to be assuming that psychiatric drugs are the necessary solution for all diagnosed people, and when you used the phrase "when I dismiss someone," it felt like you were talking about employees rather than partners.

[BrokenDollMagnet]

Hmm, psychiatric medication has been instantaneously beneficial for me. I went from being bed-ridden with depression to be much happier and functioning in love and at work. Therapy has helped, but that is a slower process. I know that I do not have the resilience to tolerate abusive treatment while I wait for someone to slowly improve through therapy. So if someone was already treated through therapy and did not use medication, that would be fine. It's the abuse or misery of being in the company of someone in a great deal pain that I cannot endure without cycling into depressive episodes.

I doubt that my falling into a lethargic melancholy was very good for my unpleasant romantic relationships.

I was raised with the belief that it is a woman's obligation to tend to the ill and that we should seek out the ill and help them recover. Finally saying "no I deserve a healthy and happy relationship" was just as hard as admitting that I am not a magic fairy who can transform the mentally ill through the power if love. It felt cowardly.

I am dealing with my guilt and shame, which has taken its toll.

My major goal now is to nurture my present healthy and happy relationships and to not feel guilty for not trying to 'save' people who have not even found the strength to help themselves.

(And yes, 'dismiss' means the same thing as 'dump' in my case.)