20/M(bf) | 20/F (me) Do I keep fighting for this relationship, or is it time to let go?

I don’t know if I’m looking for advice, a reality check, or just someone to tell me what they see from the outside because I feel too emotionally involved to think clearly anymore.

For some background, my boyfriend has been diagnosed with depressive schizophrenia, depression, and generalized anxiety. Before we met, he struggled with self-harm through drugs and medication misuse and spent most of his life feeling alone.
As for me, I have Bipolar Disorder, depression, and I’m currently being monitored for Borderline Personality Disorder. We also have something else in common—we both came from toxic families, and we’re both the eldest child.
When we first got together, it honestly felt like we saved each other. We stopped our addictions, left our vices behind, and became each other’s safe place. We understood each other in ways no one else did. Eventually, we decided to live together.
That’s when things started changing.
Living together wasn’t easy because we were both struggling with our own mental illnesses. During episodes, neither of us knew how to regulate ourselves or each other.
One incident still haunts me. I prepared a surprise birthday party for him. Instead of being happy, he panicked because he didn’t know how to handle a surprised, its his birthday so he thinks he’s obligated to entertain and give food, in reality our friends just saved up for a small cake for him they don’t care about foods. He started crying uncontrollably. I panicked too because I thought I had ruined his birthday.
I locked myself in the bathroom, crying on the floor. He kept banging on the door, asking me to come out. I eventually told everyone to just go home because everything had fallen apart.
When I came out, he grabbed my arms and wrists so tightly that they were left covered in red marks. I became scared and decided to leave with our friends for a while, but I couldn’t even make it down the stairs because I was worried about him.
I waited outside until he came out.
When he did, I saw him holding pills and trying to take all of them at once. I grabbed them and threw them into the toilet. He became furious, cornered me in a chair, and screamed at me until he was exhausted.
After that day, our relationship was never the same.
I became afraid of him.
I slowly stopped talking about my own feelings because I was scared of how he would react. month passed
Eventually, I had to move to another country to stay with my parents, while he remained in the Philippines. We’ve been doing long distance ever since.
A few months ago, he was under a lot of stress because of problems with building their house. We got into an argument, and he ghosted me for a week.
During that time, I found out he had another girl riding on the back of our motorcycle. When I confronted him, he said there were no feelings involved and that he only gave her a ride because he felt obligated. I chose to forgive him.
But after that, everything became even darker.
Whenever I bring up how much that situation hurt me, he completely loses control. He screams over our calls so loudly that the neighbors have complained. Even his own mother has become worried, but instead of helping, she confronted me and blamed me for upsetting him.
Whenever he starts screaming and crying, I hang up because I’m terrified.
The problem is that every time I try to talk about something he did that hurt me, the conversation somehow becomes about his panic attack instead. I end up apologizing because I feel guilty for making him panic.
The truth is… I have panic attacks too.
I just never tell him.
I swallow everything because I feel like his emotions are always more important than mine. I’m scared that if I express my feelings, it’ll only make things worse.
Lately, he also keeps telling me his blood pressure goes up whenever he gets angry, and somehow that becomes another reason why I have to be careful with everything I say.
I’ve realized something that scares me.
Whenever I bring up a problem, I somehow become responsible for comforting him about the problem he caused me.
I’m always carrying emotions that don’t even belong to me.

I’ve started asking myself:
Where am I in this relationship?
Who takes care of me?
Why do I always have to disappear so someone else can be okay?

I still love him. I know mental illness isn’t someone’s fault, and I know he’s carrying pain that most people couldn’t imagine. But I also know that I’m exhausted.
I’m scared of him when he gets angry.
I’m scared to communicate.
I’m scared of being blamed.
I’m scared that I’ve become more of a caretaker than a partner.

So I guess my question is…
Am I giving up too early, or am I staying in something that’s already hurting both of bus?

Posted Jul 23, 2026, 10:11 AM UTC

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