No, really, no harm intended, but get out of her face. If there's something she needs to tell you, she will. Don't try to pry it out of her - this is intrusive and sometimes constitutes a threat. Yes, I know you live with her, but respect her wishes.

Shiloh (from a.s.d.) adds: When she comes home from the therapist's office or hospital, don't leap right in and insist on knowing what happened. If she wants to mention what transpired, she'll do it on her own, and in her own time. She might even be more happy to tell you if she doesn't feel pressured to spill it all immediately.

Are you angry about something? Don't immediately hammer her when she walks in the door. Don't accuse. Don't threaten. Try to state your dilemma in even tones. If she feels threatened, she might start switching.

The above is excellent advice for `normal' couples too.

Don't `therapize'. Someone's paying good money for therapist visits. Hopefully, the therapist is a trained professional who knows just what to say. You are a supportive partner - that's your job. Take care of her and yourself to the best of your abilities. Of course there are times when you can help, like showing her all men aren't bad or reminding someone they're in the present.

I am intensely curious about how people work, and even moreso now. So I have to watch myself in this regard. You may know more about what's going on than your SO, but don't open your mouth unless you're asked to. This is a hard lesson for us hard heads, but a valuable one. She gets shrunk enough at the doctor's and at the hospital.

If you need questions answered, ask your own therapist or hers, with her permission. NO SECRETS.

Rainbow Colors (from a.s.d.) wants you to know: What seems like arbitrary behaviour without reason isn't.

We _are_ genuinely just as confused as you are about all of this. If we could, we would stop it!

It _really_ doesn't matter what the SO thinks of multiplicity. It could be facets or parts, it could be all delusional, it could be possession by aliens *grin*, it doesn't matter. All that matters is what the person who is multiple believes it to be. This is a major ego shock to many people, but it is vital to getting along with a multiple. (many therapists have trouble with this as well)

While in therapy we will be working on changing unsuccessful behaviours, learning new coping skills, and changing some basic aspects of ourselves. This is hard work! We are going to act very odd at times; it won't be a quick process. If you can't cope say so and get help or get out, don't lie and drag it out. This just gets in the way.

Our therapy isn't about you (the SO). You really have no business being involved unless we want you to be and then only in the ways we want it to be. This problem isn't because of you and it isn't about you so you don't get to be involved just because you want to be. (again, a harsh ego slap that many people have trouble with)

Accept what we believe and work from that framework. Any changes will come from therapy and not from the SO. Let us go at our pace and accept that this will be a _long_ process. Remember, we aren't doing this for fun and if we could we wouldn't do it at all!!!

[Jeff's Note: if that sounds tough, it is, but it's 100% true. You didn't cause the problem, and aside from support, there isn't much you can do to `fix' it. She'll get better on her own time, at her own pace. She might not be comfortable with you at the therapist's office. Most therapy will take place without you, with the possible exception of couples issues]

tatiana states: i personally have a lousy memory. that's just the facts. then the whole time loss / dissociation thing gets it way outta whack.

daily things aren't even the hardest part, however. as abuse survivors, i feel we all need a lot of positive reinforcement to destroy the old tapes. as multiples, we need this for just about everyone in the system. this is not to say that one's SO is specifically responsible for this area, that'd be enough to drive a person gagootz. what i am saying is that there should be a *big* *honking* *reminder* (*&*&*&*&* honking? quacking? *&*&*&*&* ;) to SO's for when they feel they've been through the "you are not a horrible bad person" song and dance a million times. a reminder that says that we appreciate what they are doing for each person individually. that we know even one survivor is tough to support in a relationship, and that they should be commended for their patience with so many. though you may feel like you are saying things a million times, there may be some who have not even heard. perhaps a list of creative suggestions for more enduring support.

*a card that says things that you want them all to know.

*flowers with notes on them.

WHAT IS SHE FEELING?

Rainbow Colors says: We have no idea! You will probably understand better than we do at any given time so maybe you can tell us *grin* Remember, feelings might be coming from other alters, from dissociated memories, from a non-verbal part of the brain (memories are stored in different ways so if it's an emotional response that is stored tactilely for example it might not be accessible by the verbal centers of the brain because of the dissociation or because of storage problems)

And of course the feelings might change in mid feeling as others inside get into the act.

Please read the section for dissociatives to gain a little more information from their perspective.

THIS ISN'T ABOUT ME - **********the most important lesson of all**********

Guess what... it *is*.

A common reaction of most partners is that all of the problems in the relationship stem from their SO's disorder. They don't.

The problem isn't about what SHE does - it's about your REACTION to what she does. It's really that simple.

I have deliberately saved this for the last section of the partner portion of this file. This is the most important thing that you have to take with you, even if you get nothing else from this.

You are responsible for only YOU. You have to make sure to take care of YOU.

This might sound ridiculously simple, but it isn't. I learned the same way everyone else does: through trial and (mostly) error. Snuffy (who runs the SO email support group) brought this to my attention after I went on about banging my head against the wall, trying to `take care of' my SO.

I drove myself nuts thinking only of her welfare. I worried about everything that happened, fought with a protector alt a lot (unknowingly), and went into deep financial trouble, all for love.

Well, not all for love.... also for what I found out was codependency. I thought that was just another sensitive guy psychobabble term, until I saw myself doing it. What is codependency? It's love taken to an extreme. It's when your happiness is dictated by the state of your SO. When things are going well, you feel great. When things start to get ugly, you're totally miserable and depressed. When she's in the hospital, you can't function. You draw your happiness solely from HER.

Why? Probably something from your past. I know, I know more psychobabble, Jeff. But hear me out, guys.... maybe you lost a parent when you were little. Maybe someone mistreated you. Whatever happened in your past contributed to the person you are today, but not always in a positive way. If you were hurt, you can have a fear of someone hurting you that can hinder relationships. If you lost someone(s), you could have a fear of abandonment, leading to a controlling tendency. This is your own defense mechanism. It keeps YOU from being hurt, much the same way DID keeps your spouse from getting hurt.

So what do you do? Well, support her to the best of your abilities. But do something for you too. Get a life outside of being a caretaker. Spend some time alone and with friends. See a movie. Surf the web. Play a musical instrument. Catch up on email. Whatever your hobbies are - indulge yourself.

You're going to need some support from someone - friends, family, email buddies, a support group. People you can go to for help, people you can bitch to, people who are also interested in you.

Detach a bit. Let your SO heal. You're not going to speed anything up, so sit back and do what you can. You also are not allowed to be consumed by what MIGHT be. This might sound harsh, but you have to sit back and let her drive, even if it means she's sleeping in the back seat.

She might try to commit suicide. You can only do what you can to prevent this, but you really have no control over it. I'm not suggesting that you leave razor blades around the house, but you can't spend all of your time worrying about what she MIGHT do next. In a short time, it'll be YOU in that hospital.

Again, I'm not trying to be anything but brutally honest. Again, this is the most important section for partners. This is called boundaries, and you have to have healthy ones to survive.

This was the hardest thing for me to learn. I thought the people who told me this sort of thing were almost cruel. After some therapy and some reading, I realized they were right. Now I'm telling you - make yourself a life outside of being a SO or a caretaker.

If it gets to be too much to handle, think hard on it. You might have to leave to protect yourself. Don't hang in because you think you'll hurt her. Ultimately, it's about YOU. You'll only hurt her more in the long run by staying. I cannot emphasize this point enough. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF TOO.

The person who helped me a lot (snuffy) has this to say: On keeping your SO her from danger.... She has to do it. She has to come to the decision to live, through therapy and then will need to make the decision to heal, after which she will have to over and over again remake the decision to live. Fact is that during the process of healing through therapy many time issues which cause my wife to actually believe it is not worth the pain to heal come up regularly. She has to battle within herself to regain the will to live. You see this stuff is all about her, not about me. Your SO's stuff is all about her, not about you. The best you can do is to be her friend. The worst is to beat yourself up if you happen to trigger her. They have so many triggers, and until they have had each one pulled they don't even know it exists.

That is why you need to work on you. Do you attend counseling? You need to be able to be strong enough to survive if she fails in her attempt to heal and go on and have a life of your own.

Allow me to close this section with some tremendously valuable words from KE, a SO and generally wise person: I disagree with some of the stuff you've been told. I agree that what is going on is "not about you", and that there is a need to deal with the reality of your SO's history, etc. And I agree that we as partners AND as people ALWAYS bring our own feelings and behaviours into the relationship, and that the feelings affect how we handle our partners' distress....

However, I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to expect us to have NO expectations regarding our primary relationships, or to expect us to have NO feelings related to our loved ones' inconsistency, withdrawal, distress, etc. That's just bullshit. (pardon my french).

I think that partnering someone through this process requires a tremendous amount of patience, flexibility, and ego-strength (self-esteem, solid sense of self and self worth). But even when we have these attributes, there are times when we get frustrated, hurt, angry, and MANY MANY times when we feel completely helpless/powerless. We need to find ways to sustain ourselves through these times.

It is also true that circumstances require us, far too often, to stuff our own feelings (at least temporarily) . I think we need to work to find other ways and times to express those things (obviously one of the purposes of this list).

I think your suggestion to "do something for yourself" is really key here. Because these relationships we are in can be so complicated and sometimes so draining, I think we need, each of us, to make sure that we aren't trying to draw all of our sense of self/self-worth from our relationship with that person. Actually, I don't think that that kind of pattern is healthy for anyone in any partnership, multiple or not. But I think it is particularly dangerous for those of us who are partners of multiples--- partly because of how easy it is to get caught up in the whirlwind, and partly because we are probably IN these relationships in the first place because we are caretakers/rescuers/fixers by our own inclinations....right?