I find relationships really, really hard sometimes.

I have bipolar and I struggle in relationships. I have had my fair share of partners with issues over the years, the relationships and failures have contributed to my feelings of low self-worth and mistrust in partners. I have also had some really great partners who I have hurt, from misbehavior because I struggled to communicate properly. I have spent five years alone feeling like I couldn't do relationships and feeling a lot of shame about how I interact in relationships and the anxiety I feel. Lots of the time I spent alone, I spent building my career, trying to build up my self-worth and confidence and trying to develop new friendships and hobbies.

I am dating someone now who I think is great. I respect him and feel comfortable being myself with him. I enjoy spending time with him, and he always has seemed very self-assured and patient which has been reassuring for me. I met him in October last year and we started dating in February. He is extremely social and spends a lot of time with friends, he prioritises me but we have some differences when it comes to what quality time looks like. He also recently came out of a ten-year relationship. When I first went out with him and he told me this and that he was probably looking for something more casual, I messaged afterward and let him know I had a great time, but I probably didn't want to catch up again as I was looking for something more serious. Casual sex has always made me feel awful and it's not something I want now that I am older and realise it doesn't give me what I actually want, which is deep connection. Anyway, he ended up saying he would really like to spend more time together and that it's not a closed door for him. I chose to continue seeing him. I struggled with the way he communicated (or didn't) sometimes, but I felt like it was a 'me' problem and mostly kept my feelings to myself. Eventually, after four months of seeing each other, things got more serious and we started dating. We were having a lot of fun and I finally started to relax around him and understand the way he communicated more. I started to see him with all his faults and feel very warmly of him anyway, which to me was a great indicator that I liked him a lot and was ready to become more solid with him.

Unfortunately, I found out a month in that he had been seeing another person 2-3 times a week who he was sleeping with at the same time as dating me. I had a bad gut feeling when he went out with them one day, telling me they were just a friend. I essentially told him what I was afraid had happened and he told me I was right, that his 'friend' was actually a girl he had been sleeping with up until a few weeks earlier. He told me he just got himself too far in with it and avoided telling me but that he had stopped sleeping with her weeks before we started officially dating. I was angry with him and told him that, I told him I didn't think I wanted to be with him, and I feel like I could have been more of an adult about that, take my feelings away and come back to him. Anyway, he acted like she knew about me, and they were both friends, I said I was confused as to how she felt comfortable with that and also why he didn't want me to come along to drinks with her a week or so before. He eventually admitted it was because he hadn't told her he had a girlfriend, and he was worried she would feel upset or uncomfortable. I felt so hurt by this, he had lied twice to me despite me giving him the opportunity to tell the truth. His whole shtick was that he avoided the problem and it got too big and blew up in his face and that he was sorry. I kept seeing him because I really enjoyed the good parts of our relationship. But told him that I needed him to see a therapist and work on his communication if I was to remain in the relationship because he needs to be able to communicate uncomfortable things to me or we wouldn't work. He did do this.

I found out he lied about a few different things that related back to that 'friendship'. There was also a time where I had had the worst week of work ever (working double overtime and managing a very large event autonomously). He didn't attend the event despite me asking if he would. He also told me he couldn't come to my place after the event because he had had a few drinks with his friends, so I drove to his place at 11pm after a 14-hour day. He had promised we would have a quiet evening and get dinner together the next night but then he made plans to have dinner with his friends. He knew I was upset about it, but I didn't tell him not to do it because I don't feel comfortable telling him not to spend time with his friends (he later told me he has a one-track mind and needs me to communicate when I'm not okay with something because he just won't think about it). So, that night, I said yeah sure I will have a quiet dinner with you, your friend and his partner. It ended up getting spoken about at morning coffee and then 10 people were over at his house. I was so tired I felt like crying, plus I was trying to be my best to meet his friends. I came to him a few times throughout the night to ask if he could end the dinner as it was getting progressively more intense/ party-ish and I couldn't drive home because I had drunk. He said yes but never did it, later he told me this was because he feels uncomfortable putting a boundary in. I ended up sneaking off to the bedroom to try and sleep but they were in the garage which is right beside the bedroom, and I still couldn't sleep, I honestly just wanted him to tell everyone to go because I was exhausted. I ended up coming out and saying I was going home, he looked at me and said, 'uh okay' and let me go. Apparently, his friend then said, what the hell dude, we'll go its super late. They all left, and I was in his living room half-dressed apologising because I was embarrassed that it was my fault everyone was leaving. I said don't worry, I will go it's fine!! But everyone was like no, don't worry about it at all and left. I felt so unsupported by him.

During this time, my grandma, who has been the most important person in my life, was diagnosed with dementia and within under a year she passed away. My grandma essentialy emotionally raised me as my mum is not great with 'feelings' and hugs and things. It has been the hardest time in my life and the first time that it feels something very external I cannot control is impacting so intensely on my mental health. I love my grandma with all my heart and I miss her every day. I wake up crying about here like once a week and I struggle when I think about the fact that no one will ever love me the way that she loved me. I think she was the best person I have ever and will ever know and it makes me cry just writing about it now.

This has all happened over four months of us being in an official partnership. Then, his ex girlfriend asked him for her 'candles' and came over and collected them from him. He usually is happy for me to be round on a Tuesday but on this day he asked me to go home, saying he had to 'study'. Then, the next day, he said he felt bad and guilty and told me she came round. He told me she just came to get them and that was it and that he didn't let her in the house and just walked out to give them to her. What I was hurt about was that he had orchestrated these little lies to get me out of the way and wasn't intending to tell me she had been round until he felt guilty. I also couldn't help but not understand how he thought she was really just coming for her candles after 1 year of not communicating. I felt like I had been slapped in the face. That weekend, he had a party coming up and told me he wanted me to come but he was nervous about whether I would get anxiety and want to leave (because of the party thing that I discussed earlier). I reassured him, saying there was context to why I wanted to leave last time and that if I wanted to leave he could just stay. When he came round to get him, I told him how I really felt about his ex coming round and I asked (in the most gentle, polite way that I could) if he would be okay with showing me the message to her. He did show me and it turned out he had returned her sex toys to her, not her candles. I didn't really mind this to be honest, because it made sense why he felt so uncomfortable telling me now but I wish he had have been honest. It reassured me seeing the messages she sent because he hadn't replied to any of her attempts to contact her for the past 6 moths or so.

We went out that night and around 11pm I said I was tired and wanted to go home. I asked if he wanted to come with me and told him he could stay if he wanted and he said yeah I will come, I don't want to get too shitfaced and be out all night. I asked if he was sure because I was happy to go alone. He came with me and later told me he felt like what I said was a 'threat' based on his experience with his ex-girlfriend. I seriously don't know how I could have been more neutral. I deliberately tried to be neutral despite knowing I get anxiety now when he is out, I know they are my problem feelings so I manage them. I felt insulted when he said that to me.

Anyway, now we get to the main reason for writing this post. I am struggling really badly with my behaviour in the relationship now. He is modelling to me that he is changing his behaviour. He has started seeing a therapist and he told me as soon as his ex messaged him recently and he also finally messaged her and said he didnt want to communicate with her anymore and he had nothing else of hers to give back and he didnt think the texts were appropriate because he has a partner. This stuff makes me feel a little reassured that he wants me in his life.

He has also started pointing out things in my behaviour that I know are real and true and I really hate the fact that I am hurting him, and I am struggling with have a mirror reflecting my poor habits. These are the things I am talking about:

- I struggle with him having a female friend, I would never stop this happening but I definitely get intense anxiety about it when he mentions her. I question him about their friendship and the things they do together and whether there are appropriate boundaries in place.

- He told me he feels a bit anxious to tell me when he is going out with friends because he's not sure how I'll react. I struggle with him going out with his friends impulsively, not because I'm concerned about what he's doing but because I feel like we don't do a lot of quality time activities and I feel like I am always waiting around for him. He never updates me on what time he'll be done so I feel like it's hard for me to plan myself and then I end up feeling unimportant.

- He told me I steamroll him in conversations. I know this is something I do and I hate it. It affects me at work and I have tried working on it with my manager as I bought it up as something I notice in myself. I definitely don't think my opinions are more important than others and I don't EVER want to make someone feel like their thoughts are not important, I just have a very hard time holding things in and they all sort of get blurted out and spilled everywhere.

- He feels like he's always 'a dollar short' and that I always have a problem. I know I do this too and I feel ashamed. I just struggle to regulate my emotions before I figure out what the real issue is to neutrally discuss things with him. It ends up that I'm always complaining about something that he's done. They always boil down to my deep feelings of mistrust in the relationship, my fear it will end or my fear that he doesn't care that much about our relationship.

- I am more fixated on the relationship than I should be and aren't focussing as much on myself. I am still prioritising doing my own hobbies and such but he said he wants someone to be 'independent' and I was for 5 years before this!!! to be honest, it feels a bit rich to ask for that when I feel so insecure in the partnership at the moment.

I recognise the anxious attachment and the themes of abandoment/ mistrust that are happening here and I am trying really hard with my therapist to work on these. I recognise he is a little bit avoidant inclined and the issues that come with this. I do believe we have a great ability to communicate and discuss what's going on, I feel like I just approach smaller things in a much bigger way than they need to be.

I have made so much progress in my life up until this point and this stuff is just insanely difficult for me. I want to be the best version of myself for my partner and our relationship and I also don't want to ruin it by constantly poking holes in things. Despite the crap at the start, I really care about him, and I think he's a great guy. I am scared that eventually it will just be too hard, and he has admitted he's scared of that too which makes me feel even less hopeful and more ashamed. Anything anyone has to say about this that they have done which has worked would be wildly helpful. Or just knowing someone else has struggled with similar things would be supportive.

Thanks for reading.