Supporting my partner

I have posted before and since then things have moved considerably. My partner has been diagnosed and sees a psychiatrist regularly and will be getting further support shortly.

My problem is that she really struggles to set boundaries and it is not helped that due to her mental condition she really doesn’t always make the right choices. As a couple we work very hard to be equals in decisions and will discuss them together. I try (but don’t always succeed) to not make decisions for her.

The major issue is that her family and friends do not provide this kind of support. They take over and become her voice and impose their viewpoints on her and she gets really overwhelmed and scared by it.

As an example she is visiting a friend interstate who out of the blue messaged me and told me I was no longer to contact my partner/wife as she disagrees with the chaos in our lives. I confronted the friend and said I would totally respect my partner if that was her desire, and the friends response was that ‘you won’t get that from her, she doesn’t know what’s good for her’. I’ve spoken to my partner and she is now terrified of talking or messaging me and sneaks off to make contact while she is at the friends.

So she now has people trying to force her into drug rehab believing she’s on drugs and that I somehow support her on that, she absolutely is not on drugs. I know this for a fact as she’s done drug tests and come up clean. I understand how the friend has the best intentions, but in my view her actions cross over into abuse.

Sadly much of my partners problems stem from trauma and abuse and the best thing for her to do, would be to sever ties to her abusive and toxic past, but that is not my decision to make.

So we go through this cycle of getting well and making progress and then she wants to go and ‘put things right’ back home, and then she falls apart completely and asks me to rescue her from the situation.