I’m in a 3 month relationship now with a boy who I fell head over heels for on my first day at university. He’s my dream boy in many ways and I often feel truly lucky to have him. He warned me before we got into a relationship that his past relationships had ended as a result of his mental health problems yet I assured him that i would support him through it all, and I have. It’s only been a few months and I’m starting to fear our relationship will end just like the others.

He has a whole other layer to him that I discovered about three or four weeks after we first met. My boyfriend suffers from ptsd (as a result of bullying and exclusion) and anxiety and often has episodes of hyper-arousal and panic attacks. He has an extremely reliant personality and often a simple call from me can reassure him and he can go from entirely freaked to completely fine in seconds.

There has been times where he has had episodes outside of my house and I have had to let him stay the night in my house (although I wasn’t allowed to have him stay in my family house) and upon coming indoors he would be be totally recovered in as little as ten minutes. Sometimes I feel like I’m his only method of feeling better. I find it hard to relate to his ability to feel almost ‘healed’ after attention from me. When I myself am going through a mentally tough time it can often take days for me to feel alright and no interaction with anyone, let alone him, is of that much help to me.

Recently our relationship has become a source of extreme anxiety for him. We have very little problems together and should still be in the honeymoon stage, yet recently I have made it clear to him that I need a little space as the relationship can be all-consuming at times and this was taking a toll on my mental health (we spend a lot of time together - I explained this in my last post, look to that for explanation!). This was nothing against him, I made this perfectly clear, and he seemed to understand at the time. I encouraged him to meet more friends, pick up hobbies, get a job and he seemed to take it in.

Now I’ve been sick over the past few days and needed a lot of alone time to recover. This has sent him into a spiralling anxiety attack and he has had to get me to call him at numerous times to reassure him that I still ‘like him’ and that he isn’t the ‘worst boyfriend ever’. He mentioned that everything i suggested the other day about needing autonomy and encouraging him to get out more made him feel like a ‘loser’ and stressed him out a lot. We ended the call with him making sure that we arranged to meet up tomorrow (won’t be having another alone day) and asking me to make sure that next time he felt like this I would instantly call him no matter what.

This is exactly what I feared. I’ve become his crutch. I have no autonomy. He doesn’t and won’t understand that my own mental health depends on independence in the relationship. I feel terrible for him and almost feel like his mental health would be better out of a relationship at all. I really don’t want to end the relationship, and I don’t plan on it but I just don’t know what to do. How do I make him see what he’s doing without stressing him out more. I’m walking on eggshells around him. Please help me.