Not Your Responsibility

Your partner is responsible for his own well-being. Deeply loving women struggle with caring profoundly for partners who are not good for them. They care for them with a love and a sensitivity to their spirits that their partners are not giving themselves — and certainly are not offering in return. It is a challenge to find a way to fully honor a partner who is embroiled in addiction, or who is suffering emotionally in other ways, but who periodically is cruel to you. And it can be unimaginably painful to leave a partner you love who is self-destructing.

Your partner’s relationships with others, his spiritual path, and his inner life are his own. If he grows and changes, it will not be because you repaired his relationships, found a spiritual path for him, or learned the inner workings of his psyche. When — if — he changes, it will be because he did these things himself. You can lay out your requirements or even outline resources for him, but then you must step away.

— Lundy Bancroft, Should I Stay or Should I Go?

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