I didn’t mean for this to be a long read but I don’t know how else to get through everything that happened without me typing it all out. I’m sorry in advance about the length and if any of my phrasing is off or anything (trying to get it all right but still always learning). If mods need me to type a shorter version I will try to. 
If you have the capacity to sit through it and offer advice, I really can’t say how much I would appreciate it. If not, I just appreciate having a place to get this all out. 

CW - abuse, suicidal ideation and attempt

Tl;dr - I am in a situation with my partner who has BPD where I am trying to discuss us not moving in together because things have gotten very unhealthy for us but my partner is upset and threatening self-harm. We are in a temporary housing situation (Airbnb) and cannot make further plans because my partner cannot and will not discuss anything that isn’t plans for us living together.
Our relationship has gotten to be pretty abusive, and although I know my partner’s heart is good and I know my partner loves me and it feels really nice when things are going well, I can’t deal with being talked to and treated the way I am whenever things aren’t going right any more. 

We have been together almost 4 years. In that time I’ve fallen in love with this wonderful person who can make me feel so cared for when things are good.
The problem is that things aren’t always good. When things don’t go right, my partner flips. Withholding affection, becoming short-fused and dismissive of my feelings, saying really horrible things. This didn’t happen the first 1.5 years or so, but it has gotten more and more common since then. My partner also has always struggled with massive depression and suicidal feelings, but as they have gotten more abusive towards me they have also gotten more inclined towards self-harm. I have seen them right before and during attempts, pulled knives from their hands, pulled them from a window before they tried to hop out, called them and talked them down from buildings or dangerous car rides, responded to police calls from people worried for their health, all of it. And it went from being rare a few years ago to me being worried for their safety any time we had any form of conflict later on, which made me feel terrified to even stand up for myself just so there wouldn’t be an explosive &amp; possibly dangerous situation that followed. 

My partner lived with just me on and off for the first 2.5 years of our relationship due to school, then moved in with myself and my brother after that just over a year ago. My brother and partner were friendly before then but their relationship fell apart over time, starting with my partner being very abusive towards me in front of my entire family during the weekend of my sister’s wedding just over a year ago, and especially after my partner had a massive break and used an old sword we had from a renaissance fair to damage parts of the house before I got home from work to stop it, my brother never felt safe again. Still, we stayed together for several more months as things got more and more unhealthy. It was finally in April when my partner was staying with myself, my brother, and my parents at the beginning of quarantine that everything boiled over, leading to a major argument between my partner and my whole family, and included my partner trying to commit in front of my family and saying some of the most abusive stuff towards me they’d ever said. Throughout everything, they always expressed a reason later on that whatever they did or whatever they felt was understandable given different circumstances, and they still feel their issues with people in my family are almost completely the fault of my family. I didn’t really see a lot of things the way my partner did, but I have always tried to at least understand their perspective on things so that I could operate in respect of their feelings. I always tried to stay directed towards things getting better between us, always tried to come up with plans and be honest about my needs and discuss steps we could take for things to get better, but things just get better. They really didn’t. 

A the fall-out with my family, my partner and I decided to spend some time apart. My brother had expressed that he didn’t want to live with my partner anymore, and because my partner’s name was not on the lease, they were asked to go. I also said at the time that I needed space to heal and they needed to work on some of the issues in our relationship I’d been talking about for some time, including the abuse. We spent three weeks in the house preparing for my partner to move out to spend some time in their hometown, at first with family but after a short time and an inability to stay with their family due to their personal family issues, in airbnb’s. My partner always had hopes of us moving back in with each other but I always expressed a need to see them work through some of what impacted my ability to feel safe in our relationship. 
I know that they have tried to take some of the steps that I have needed for things to get better, but they haven’t really included me in that process and as a result have self-prescribed solutions for issues I was trying to bring light to, which meant the issues weren’t actually getting resolved. In a long distance-ish thing, the abuse continued. My partner felt anger at my brother and myself for “displacing” them, because they didn’t consent to moving out of the house and they claim they didn’t realize that was what was happening (despite us talking about it repeatedly over the weeks leading up to them leaving). My partner blamed any lack of progress in the way they treated me on the lasting impact of the conflict that had happened with my family, as well as their inability to feel stable in their hometown, and whenever I would express that there were still issues, my partner would respond very explosively because “now their efforts apparently don’t mean shit, it means nothing.” I know that they have been trying to work on stuff, and I think it does actually show in certain ways. Those things mean a lot to me. But there are major things that *aren’t* getting better, and those things mean a lot to me as well. 

I tried to carry on and make things better for a while. Repeatedly, my partner made threats saying “if you don’t help me in X way, I want you to know that I am going to kill myself.” So I always helped. Eventually, my partner was overwhelmed of being in their hometown in general and made a plan to come back to my city, tell my brother to leave the house “just for a little bit so they could get their things in order” then find a place to live up here, and to have me move in with them. That was exactly what they did, and my brother left the house for two days because they were coming no matter what I said. Then I convinced them to go to an Airbnb with me so he could come back to the house, which led them to have such anger at me. They feel it is unjust that they were kicked from the house, that to take my brother’s side above them on that front shows a major issue in me, and that there shouldn’t have been this big fear built from some of what happened because they are much smaller than myself and my brother and because they only did some of those things in very unhealthy head spaces, but I honestly don’t think it’s unreasonable for that fear to exist even if my partner is physically smaller than myself or my brother. 

So we end up in an Airbnb, and we’re having conversations about next steps. I followed my partner to the Airbnb because I was worried about what would happen if I didn’t. We end up talking in this place for weeks about what we were going to do going forward. I expressed that I was still seeing a lot of things that had for a long time made me worried about our relationship, and that as much as my partner wanted me to, I didn’t feel comfortable finding a place and moving back in together. I explained that I love my partner but we need to take more time to work on things. 
This had a huge impact. I understand this - I think me not wanting to live with my partner was probably their biggest fear. They said that it would be humiliating to take a step backwards like that, that me wanting to do that means that they would just want to never talk again and we would go no contact. I told them that my only decisions for sure was that I didn’t think it would be a good idea to move in together, and I held firm on that, and that whatever they chose as a response to that was their choice. I have put their needs front and center for four years, and I have been working through therapy on trying to center my wellness and my needs more. I need to have that space, and what I had seen in the last few weeks only confirmed that.

Upon hearing, certainly out of fear and anger and splitting, they said really nasty things to me. They also told me they would hurt themself and I would be responsible. They told me they would make posts on social media smearing myself and my family, especially because they are black and I/my family is white, so they said they’d post that my family is unsafe for black people and things like that. They gave me no options except: move in together, don’t move in together and my partner commits suicide, or don’t move in together but then it would be my responsibility to find them a place, set the place up, and literally take care of them to the point that I’d be bringing them food and groceries because otherwise they would just refuse to eat until they get sick and die anyway. They said I could try calling emergency responders, but they “would just run at the cops and let the police shoot them” anyway. It was literally, do this or I will commit. And I still held to what I needed, because over the years my partner has made that threat many times and I have always adjusted to meet whatever they were telling me. I can’t live my life like that, it’s unhealthy for us both. 

It isn’t the times that they were saying horrible, angry, mean things to me that I got emotional for. I’ve learned to let that stuff roll off of me.
It’s those moments when they’re showing actual sadness - telling me how scared they are of navigating the world alone or without me, how much it hurts them to see me leave, how much it feels like I’m throwing them away - those are the moments that actually hurt. Those are the moments that I want to break, to put my arms around them and tell them we can try again, but this has to be the last time. But then it’s back to the abuse. 

“You are the garbage taking itself out.”
“You are destined to not be shit.”
“Hope your classes go well! Hope you like it when your partner kills themself”
“Bitch boy,” “not a man”
This is just some of the past week-ish
Older stuff included - 
“You were a waste of my years”
“I’m so glad we’re polyamorous, plenty of other interested people. I’ll just stay with you until someone better comes along.”
These are just some of what has been said, there is more, but it really isn’t necessary for me to put everything. Beyond this, when I try to talk about it with my partner, there is always a reason that I shouldn’t be upset the way I am. It’s never so simple as “that was really shitty, I shouldn’t do that, and I’m sorry.” It’s always blame-shifting and explaining why I need to be understanding of that and explaining that it comes from their mental illness. But that’s bullshit, and I know that. I deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, period. And I have put my feelings and well-being on the back burner for too long. They occasionally will finally have something “click” and they’ll see what I’ve been saying when I bring up these types of things. But I’ve been talking with my partner about our relationship being unhealthy since June 2019 and I’ve been specifically naming it as abuse since they were massively abusive to me on a family trip to my sister’s wedding in September 2019. This is how long I’ve been explicitly pushing for things to be different. And my partner always says they want to try and are trying, but this stuff is still happening. 

Finally last week, after all of this time and all of these discussions, my partner starts telling me about the things I’ve always asked. They say they’ve started DBT classes, which I begged them to do for years. They say they’re open to reconnecting with some of my family, something I never thought they’d care to do. They say they’re down to do couple’s counseling, something I talked about long ago but they never wanted. They say they’re down to pay for most of the cost to stay at a place for one month, just to try it, just to see how it feels, so they can show me they mean it that they want to do better but giving me space to leave at any time.
But what am I to do? Believe all of this again, just to be hurt again? Just to be here again? 

These conversations were constant for days. It was just a cycle of the same conversations, the same anger, the promises, the anger again, me saying that I didn’t think it was a good idea. My partner would later forget or just think I changed my mind for some reason so we’d have to keep re-having the conversation. Every time it had the threat of me either being verbally abused or my partner threatening self harm. I went to several people for advice including a counselor who I have been seeing for the past few months, and we came up with an action plan if my partner ended up in another self-harm crisis so that I could refer to a local mobile mental health crisis response team so I wouldn’t have to call police to respond to a situation if it felt unsafe. 

About a week ago, we ended up continuing the same conversation again and when I said that I still didn’t feel that moving in together was a good idea, my partner started to have a meltdown. It got very bad, they began screaming and banging things and they got very angry, then threatened to commit if I did not change my mind, then pleaded with me and said they’d do anything I ask if I would reconsider, then got angry again, then threatened to commit, then pleaded for a while, then threatened to commit. I told them that I felt like we needed to take some time for both of us to work through things and that I needed space to heal from some of what has happened, and they kept telling me that I was responsible for their death then. I asked them to please talk with me about a plan to keep them safe and still allow me the space I need. Then they suddenly ran full speed and leaped head first into the wall. They fell back, I caught them, and held them for a moment asking them to please stop. They yelled and thrashed but eventually sort of calmed down. I got up and called the mobile crisis response team, and as I was dialing the number, they ran into the wall the same way a second time. I was so fucking terrified. I held them down so they couldn’t do this anymore while I dialed this number, then started talking to the therapist on the phone. She said she was about 45 minutes away and after I told her what was happening she asked to talk to my partner for a minute. They calmed down a bit at this point, and talked to the therapist on the phone. The woman asked what was going on, partner said the same thing I did, she asked if my partner was feeling like self-harming, partner said “that depends what [my name] does.” She asked if they had a specific plan on how they would self harm, to which my partner said they have a long list of ideas. The therapist asked to put me back on the phone, she told me she felt like this was an emergency and that she was going to call for my partner to be hospitalized. 
Cut to about 10 minutes later, police arrive and I talk to them, tell them my partner has suggested they may run at the police but that it’s only talk, there are no weapons inside, and to please not respond with force. They said they understood and needed to talk to my partner, and after a few minutes the police took my partner in handcuffs to the hospital to be committed there for 24-72+ hours under state law. My partner looked at me, looked so scared and was calling my name to help but there was just nothing I could do for them then. It hurt so bad. 

I spent the rest of the day feeling miserable, trying to process what happened, trying to make a plan for what would come next, and trying to type everything out for this post. I fell asleep before I finished and shortly after I woke up the next day, my partner called from the hospital and told me they were being released, overall about 19 hours after they were first brought in. 
I didn’t expect them to be released so soon, and to be honest as much as I understand involuntary holds like that are incredibly difficult to go through, I was very afraid that this was too soon. The hospital didn’t give them any medications and they couldn’t access their own medications so they were released entirely unmedicated less than 24 hours after being brought in. They were just told to take whatever they had when they returned home.  Nonetheless, I waited at the Airbnb for my partner to arrive, at which point they started crying, apologizing for what happened and promising it would never happen again, asking me to please move in with them, crying saying they feel like they ruined their chance at living with me because of what happened, and stuff like that. I told them they needed to settle in, take their medications and let those kick in, take a shower (they felt like they were really dirty), breathe, eat, and we could talk more later. Naturally, I was terrified of that later conversation. 

My plan while they were hospitalized was going to be calling some of their friends (unfortunately based in a different city) and asking the friends to help take my partner in and help my partner get back on their feet and to start a solid treatment plan. My partner has consistently refused to do that outreach, so it felt like it finally was my responsibility and I was ready to do that, especially because my partner doesn’t have many local close friends to provide that help. But then my partner was let out way before I planned and still wanted me to reconsider. 

I am so, so deeply in love with this person. This is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do. Hurting them is the last thing I ever want, and making them feel so lost and abandoned is tearing me up inside. Hearing them say “I feel so lost,” hearing them deal with the intense feelings that come with losing an FP is gut-wrenching. That said, I do not think it is good for *either* of us long-term to move into a place together, and even if I thought it was, I couldn’t do that the way they want me to - I would still need time to deal with current situation. I can’t suddenly disappear from the house when they come to town never to move back in or talk about it again. But again, beyond that logistical issue, it does not feel like we are even close to healthy enough to be living together right now. 
But still, my partner can’t imagine a world not living with me. They feel so hurt and alone and they always say they “just want to be a good partner for me” and I believe them, I really really do, but I can’t keep repeating these same cycles hoping it’ll be different this time.

We’re now at an Airbnb that ends soon. My partner still wants to live with me, and they’re willing to do anything I ask to make it work. I just need to take time to focus on myself and I don’t think that is changing. I recognize that this decision will likely mean not talking to this person again, and that hurts a lot, but I think we both need to take this space and at the very least I know that I do. 
Right now my best idea is contacting some of their friends in other cities *for* them, establishing some sort of support plan for them, then have the conversation again but with a clear plan in place for them to have to go with. And with friends who know what’s up and who can try to show up and take care of them, since they need that support and aren’t reaching for it themself. 

I don’t know what to do any more. I don’t know how to help any more. I don’t know what to say any more. I feel like I’ve done and tried everything that I have in me, then done and tried more, then did everything I had again, then still done and tried more. I just need advice from people who maybe understand my partner’s perspective more than I can. I just feel so lost and drained. How do I deal with this?