u/lettuce567

Note: This was previously posted on r/relationship_advice, then I figured it may be a dependency thing and should maybe ask here.

They got together a couple years ago, and their relationship has been pretty rough for a long time. I initially wasn't aware of this until his partner, we'll call them Potato, opened up to me about some issues in their relationship. Ex best friend of 7 years, we'll call him Lead, and I were still best friends at the time, while Potato was a mutual friend of like a year and a half, I think, and the two had been together for maybe around 8 months when this happened. There were, and still are, a lot of difficulties and unhealthy dynamics in the relationship, but I've been thinking about something specific that I find hard to explain and don't really know how to categorize. Bear with me pls

In the past, Lead had witnessed Potato at a pretty low point, mental health wise. But at the time of these events, Potato was doing significantly better already, just still kinda depressed, and fully intended to manage things on their own. They had to quit school for the rest of the year due to not getting a doctor's note for when they were severely depressed and not attending their internship, and temporarily got kicked out for that, so they were just kinda trying to manage for the time being. They continued to attend school normally the following year.

Now the problem is hard to describe because it doesn't sound bad at first. Basically, Lead was trying to push Potato to improve, to get a job for the rest of the year, to start taking driving lessons, therapy, all that. Sounds great, right? Supportive boyfriend who just wants the best for his partner and encourages them do better for themselves.

The issue was how Lead went about it. He basically wanted Potato to get EVERYTHING in order NOW, when Potato was still just trying to manage. Whether or not Potato actually had any of his plans on their agenda was secondary, like the drivers license thing (the whole reason Lead wanted that was because Potato complained about public transport sometimes. We're German. Everyone fucking complains about the public transport. Also driving lessons are really expensive here.)

I get the logic of being annoyed that someone continuously complains about the same thing over and over again while not doing anything about it, but this was getting out of hand imo. Basically, if Potato wasn't fixing their life and speedrunning their mental health like he wanted them to, he would get degrading and insult Potato, was dismissive when Potato needed to vent about literally anything, and basically said that Potato has to "prove themselves" for his comfort or something. He treated Potato as incompetent and incapable of caring for themselves, regardless of how often Potato tried to assert their independence, and basically insisted that being mean and insulting Potato was the only way to get them to do anything. Which didn't work but okay.

I actually went back and read some of the chats from back then, and found these messages from Lead:

"I hate the way I treat the person I love the most, but you leave me no other choice."

"But I promise I'll comfort you again when you prove to me that you can learn from your mistakes."

I don't know if it sounds as insane to someone who wasn't present for everything but in hindsight I'm like... yo what the fuck

Another friend and I often tried to help and talk the two through their issues, and we often tried to explain to Lead that there's a difference between being a supportive partner and trying to forcefully fix someone's life for them, and that getting better takes time and Potato sometimes just needed an open ear and that was all. But it was like talking to a brick wall, he'd get upset and argue that if he didn't do all that, he'd basically just be letting Potato destroy themselves. Potato wasn't at peak mental health but like. They were handling themselves pretty okay at this point from what I could tell. Lead insisted they were being "actively self destructive" but I honestly have no clue what exactly he meant by that except Potato just being depressed and not doing much. Sure, Potato could've been doing better, but they weren't in any danger, they weren't suicidal or harming themselves or doing drugs or anything like that. Just in a slump.

For the record, Potato never expected any of this "help" and didn't depend on Lead to single handedly take care of them emotionally either, Potato just wanted a pretty normal amount of support from their boyfriend. (Lead expected Potato to do that for him though.)

To me, in hindsight, it seems more like Lead just wanted Potato to be fixed and perfectly healed immediately because HE couldn't handle Potato having problems because he got way too emotionally involved in issues that weren't his, and felt the need to control the situation, and got frustrated when that didn't work. But that's only my interpretation.

Quite a while has passed since this happened and I do think Lead stopped that specific behavior eventually, but that may also be because Potato just stopped talking about their problems. I'm not sure.

Lead got into this relationship not too long after ending another one, which basically had the same problem but the lite version. He was also trying to fix his partner then, but wasn't as emotionally attached and the relationship was long-distance, so it never got as bad.

I've never really heard of a comparable situation, and I honestly have no clue what to call this kind of thing or how to categorize it or anything, and I feel kind of insane trying to explain it. I'm trying to understand what happened better and make some sense of it, ideally so I can avoid making similar mistakes or being treated like this myself in the future, so any insight would be appreciated.

TL;DR: Ex best friend tried to force-fix his partner by demeaning them when they didn't improve fast enough for him, am trying to better understand this whole dynamic.

We'll call my friend Potato and their partner Lead. Lead is also my ex-best friend, whom I'm no-contact with. This is not up for debate, so please do not try to suggest I talk to Lead. I wish him the best and all, but I'm keeping him out of my life, I'm mostly just posting this out of concern for Potato. Now for some context:

Lead's condition showed up a bit over a year into their relationship, and according to him, stems from him talking to his OCs inside his head so much that they took on a life of their own until one day, while hanging out with Potato, they became able to "take over", basically. Lead and Potato had been together for a year at this point.

Their relationship was already pretty unhealthy and rocky before. Lead tends to cling to one person and try to fulfill all his emotional needs with them, to the detriment of the other person's mental health as the role of involuntary therapist/emotional support dispenser becomes too heavy. Lead pretty much wanted constant access to Potato because of how intensely attached he was and didn't take it very well if Potato wanted to spend a weekend alone/with friends or family or didn't want to be touched sometimes, and Potato will sometimes instinctively pull back just to get a bit of space, which makes Lead more clingy, and so on, just to name an example of how their relationship was difficult. There was, and most likely still is, a lot of walking on eggshells, high expectations and responsibilities placed on Potato, emotional dependency and manipulation, Lead prioritizing his own feelings over everyone else's and expecting Potato to do the same, lack of boundaries and accountability, things like that. I don't see their relationship in action anymore since we're done with school and I haven't seen him since then, but I don't think anything's changed significantly.

This whole condition basically just made it worse. For example, an alter we'll call Prick, who's a rude, entitled, emotionally manipulative asshole who causes problems and won't take accountability for it is out all the time. This was already an issue when we were still friends. Basically, Prick would cause problems, my friends and I would tell Lead about it later, and he'd just seem kind of exasperated and then refuse to engage with the issue any further. For example, he wouldn't read any of "their" chats with us to respect their privacy (although they had full access to his memories and all his chats by extension). And we didn't get to really be upset about it because, well, it wasn't REALLY him. So, no one would take accountability in the end.

From what I hear from Potato, this is still a continuous issue. Prick starts shit, won't do anything to fix it, and Potato doesn't get to be mad about it because their REAL boyfriend didn't do it.

Tbh I find it a bit strange because a lot of the behaviors that suck in Prick were things Lead was already doing by himself before, so it's not like that was ever exclusive to this edgy OC alter and Lead is all innocent.

Moving on, what I currently know about his condition is that Lead has been mostly dormant for like a year or something, it's mostly been Prick and a new one that's apparently based on an anime vampire (I think that's called an introject?), who recently told my friend, Acorn, that Lead felt so guilty that he "deleted himself"/he had grown into someone he didn't want to be, so his brain gave him a reset to his state from age 16/17 so he could start over. Idk if that's actually how it works but I digress.

But anyway, I'm really worried about Potato. They just seem so drained and defeated at this point. Everything revolves around Lead, and they don't see a way out. Of course it's amazing to be supportive of your partner and everything, but carrying their mental health on your back the way Potato has just isn't sustainable, and I'm afraid the pressure is tearing them apart on the inside. We managed to hang out together recently and Potato blew off some much needed steam, saying things like "I want out" (they say that quite often these days) and "I hate Prick but he's keeping my boyfriend alive, so..." and generally just seeming very unhappy with a situation they can't really talk to most people about, Lead included. I'd say communicate, compromise, yada yada yada, but I know from experience that that doesn't really work with Lead, at all. Or it'll work a little bit, only for him to somehow hold it against you later.

Potato really does care a lot about Lead, and I'm sure Lead cares about Potato too, but as far as I can tell, they're just not emotionally safe in that relationship. It's all just such a messy situation. Lead has basically been in near constant crisis for years at this point, and I know it must be really hard for him to deal with his mental health, and of course it's important to have support from loved ones, but I don't think it's right for Potato to just endure being treated like this and take on such a huge responsibility that they're in no way equipped to handle. It must be awful and complicated for them both and I have no idea how this could be handled in a way that ends with everyone being safe and happy.

Never brought my ex-best friends condition up on other subreddits before because I feared he'd be judged unfairly due to people focusing too much on whether or not he's faking rather than the situation at hand, so now I'm here hoping for some insight from people who might know more about this topic than me as to how this situation could be handled/what advice I could pass on to Potato.

Will probably delete this post later. I apologize if I was rude or ignorant at any point.

They got together a couple years ago, and their relationship has been pretty rough for a long time. I initially wasn't aware of this until his partner, we'll call them Potato, opened up to me about some issues in their relationship. Ex best friend of 7 years, we'll call him Lead, and I were still best friends at the time, while Potato was a mutual friend of like a year and a half, I think, and the two had been together for maybe around 8 months when this happened. There were, and still are, a lot of difficulties and unhealthy dynamics in the relationship, but I've been thinking about something specific that I find hard to explain and don't really know how to categorize. Bear with me pls

In the past, Lead had witnessed Potato at a pretty low point, mental health wise. At the time of these events, Potato was doing significantly better already, just still kinda depressed, and fully intended to manage things on their own. They had to quit school for the rest of the year due to not getting a doctor's note for when they were severely depressed and not attending their internship, and temporarily got kicked out for that, so they were just kinda trying to manage for the time being. They continued to attend school normally the following year.

Now the problem is hard to describe because it doesn't sound bad at first. Basically, Lead was trying to push Potato to improve, to get a job for the rest of the year, to start taking driving lessons, therapy, all that. Sounds great, right? Supportive boyfriend who just wants the best for his partner and encourages them do better for themselves.

The issue was how Lead went about it. He basically wanted Potato to get EVERYTHING in order NOW, when Potato was still just trying to manage. Whether or not Potato actually had any of his plans on their agenda was secondary, like the drivers license thing (the whole reason Lead wanted that was because Potato complained about public transport sometimes. We're German. Everyone fucking complains about the public transport. Also driving lessons are really expensive here.)

I get the logic of being annoyed that someone continuously complains about the same thing over and over again while not doing anything about it, but this was getting out of hand imo. Basically, if Potato wasn't fixing their life and speedrunning their mental health like he wanted them to, he would get degrading and insult Potato, was dismissive when Potato needed to vent about literally anything, and basically said that Potato has to "prove themselves" for his comfort or something. He treated Potato as incompetent and incapable of caring for themselves, regardless of how often Potato tried to assert their independence, and basically insisted that being mean and insulting Potato was the only way to get them to do anything. Which didn't work but okay.

I actually went back and read some of the chats from back then, and found these messages from Lead:

"I hate the way I treat the person I love the most, but you leave me no other choice."

"But I promise I'll comfort you again when you prove to me that you can learn from your mistakes."

I don't know if it sounds as insane to someone who wasn't present for everything but in hindsight I'm like... yo what the fuck

Another friend and I often tried to help and talk the two through their issues, and we often tried to explain to Lead that there's a difference between being a supportive partner and trying to forcefully fix someone's life for them, and that getting better takes time and Potato sometimes just needed an open ear and that was all. But it was like talking to a brick wall, he'd get upset and argue that if he didn't do all that, he'd basically just be letting Potato destroy themselves. Potato wasn't at peak mental health but like. They were handling themselves pretty okay at this point from what I could tell. Lead insisted they were being "actively self destructive" but I honestly have no clue what exactly he meant by that except Potato just being depressed and not doing much. Sure, Potato could've been doing better, but they weren't in any danger, they weren't suicidal or harming themselves or doing drugs or anything like that. Just in a slump.

For the record, Potato never expected any of this "help" and didn't depend on Lead to single handedly take care of them emotionally either, Potato just wanted a pretty normal amount of support from their boyfriend. (Lead expected Potato to do that for him though.)

To me, in hindsight, it seems more like Lead just wanted Potato to be fixed and perfectly healed immediately because HE couldn't handle Potato having problems because he got way too emotionally involved in issues that weren't his, and felt the need to control the situation, and got frustrated when that didn't work. But that's only my interpretation.

Quite a while has passed since this happened and I do think Lead stopped that specific behavior eventually, but that may also be because Potato just stopped talking about their problems. I'm not sure.

Lead got into this relationship not too long after ending another one, which basically had the same problem but the lite version. He was also trying to fix his partner then, but wasn't as emotionally attached and the relationship was long-distance, so it never got as bad.

I've never really heard of a comparable situation, and I honestly have no clue what to call this kind of thing or how to categorize it or anything, and I feel kind of insane trying to explain it. I'm trying to understand what happened better and make some sense of it, ideally so I can avoid making similar mistakes or being treated like this myself in the future, so any insight would be appreciated.

TL;DR: Ex best friend tried to force-fix his partner by demeaning them when they didn't improve fast enough for him, am trying to better understand this whole dynamic.

We'll call my ex best friend Lead moving forward, and their partner Potato.

After Lead asked for clarity about a month ago on whether or not we'd properly reconcile and said he'd still want to but that I should leave it be otherwise, I sent back a polite, short message saying that I want to let the friendship rest and wished him the best, then blocked him immediately after to ensure there wouldn't be any room to try to bargain and debate my boundaries (because he has done that before). A lot happened and after everything, I'm done with the friendship for good and don't wish to revisit this chapter of my life. I figured saying so and blocking him would make this very clear.

However, last evening Potato texted me (we were already decent friends before they got together and are still on good terms) while they were in a call with him and basically acted as the messenger boy between us, because APPARENTLY blocking him didn't make it clear that I'm done. They told me I haunt his dreams and he wanted to know "what that blocking was about". I'm not even sure how you could interpret a plain message and getting blocked as anything other than "no thank you, I'm done", especially since I usually never block people, so it's not something I do on the fly or just to piss someone off. Other than that, there was a bit of trying to debate some of my replies and at one point claiming I had agreed to meet him to talk irl one last time. I swear I have no idea where he even got this from, because I sure don't remember wanting or agreeing to anything like that. Maybe there was a misunderstanding? Those already happened a lot with him when we were still friends, although I have no clue what I might've said that could possibly be interpreted that way. He claimed he could find the message where I agreed to this, but it was never shown to me.

I tried to just plainly make it clear where I stand and that nothing would persuade me to want to talk to or meet him again. I could tell Potato hated being in that position too, and frankly, I didn't wanna put up with this either, so when they said they didn't really want to do this, I just ended it myself by declaring that I would refuse to answer anything else, so he could just blame it all on me since Potato can't control what I do or don't do.

Today while I was at work, Potato texted something Lead had texted, again. He now wants a phone call to have a last talk. "Just three minutes of her time", he said. To ask how I'm doing, if I hate him, to say goodbye and to hear my voice one last time. And that's all he needs to move on and he won't bother me anymore, he says. I was feeling very wary about this and said no, and tried to suggest a compromise, like voice messages or me answering his questions through Potato and Potato then sending me whatever last thing he wants to say. But nope, he didn't accept anything. He insists on that three minute call.

I'm kind of torn at this point. I tried to firmly decline a couple times but he keeps insisting. At this point I'm considering just letting it happen, just so I can hold him to that promise that he'll leave me alone. And maybe it'll be good to have one last talk? I don't know. My worry is that 1. he may be dishonest about his intentions with that call and 2. if I back down on a previously stated boundary, he'll take it as a challenge to see how far he can get me to let him cross them, even if he claimed to leave me alone afterwards. I told my sister about this and she doesn't quite believe him either and thinks he'll probably find a "reason" to contact me again anyway.

We live in the same general area (he's one town over) and I work at pretty much the one easily accessible cinema in the area, so there's always a risk of accidentally running into him, in which case I don't know how he might react or if he'll try to "confront" me or whatever. Has anyone else dealt with a situation like this? Do you think it's better to remain firm or agree to that phone call? My nervous system is already conditioned to expect stress when Lead shows up again and it's currently kind of shitting itself and I really just want to be done with this whole thing already, so I'm worried I might make the wrong decision due to not thinking clearly in the moment.