[bleedinjlove]

Hey all. My name is Lauren and I'm 17. Currently I'm dating a girl (yes it's a girl on girl relationship) named Kari who's 18. We've been together for 2/3 of a year. Prior to us begininng to date, Kari and I were bestfriends for about 3 years. We met through our ice-skating team, became bestfriends and then fell in love.

Neither Kari or I are lesbian, nor bisexual. Frankly, at first, I thought this was ridiculous. I thought because I liked Kari I was a lesbian. But I soon found that this is not the case, I'm not attracted to girls- just Kari and even that didn't come right away. The emotional attraction was always there because I fell in love with the person she was. But the physical attraction came later, sprouting from my emotional attraction. One day, after fighting the elephant in the room, Kari told me she liked me and we've been dating ever since.

The agony of being in love with my bestfriend was only the beginning of the pain I was going to feel. Initially the first couple months of the relationship was the best time of my life. I've never been happier. But such bliss can only last so long. Soon both of our parents became suspicious of our "friendship." Questions arose and considering Kari's very, extremely conservative parents- we were forced to keep it a secret. From this point on things only got worse. Our time together was severely restricted and closely monitored.

In addition to problems with our relationship's disclosure, Kari had a plethora of problems she was dealing with herself. In her previous years, Kari widely experimented with drugs and sex, all behind her parents back. Her parents were of the worst kind- they would lock her up and supress her to the fullest of their ability. In the time that we were together Kari's recently cleaned slate because very dirty, yet again. Kari smoked tons of weed, drank way too much, blew her money on ectascy and cocaine and then drove home. Even worse than this, was Kari's mental instability. Kari cut herself, often. I watched her fall apart, trying my best to put back together the pieces.

I know what you must be thinking, it's what I thought too: You have to love yourself to love someone else. This is very true, Kari's inability to love herself limited her ability to love me. She did love me, just not the way I love her. The relationship went from 50/50 to 75/25. I pushed myself to the edge of my sanity for her. The sickest part of it all, was while trying to help her, while she fell apart, I was falling too. I fell more and more in love with her with every mistake she made. And then Kari broke up with me.

She claimed it wasn't something I had done, wasn't my fault. She claimed she had to clean herself up, which I now see is very true. I was heartbroken. She was my world. I still feel that pain. I didn't sleep for days, couldn't eat. I didn't attend school that entire week. I hated everything and I couldn't breath. Even though I hated her for what she did to me, I wanted her so badly. As soon as I began to get back on my feet, and as soon as I could bare to see her beautiful face every other day (ice skating team, mind you) she began to **** with my mind again. She would talk about how much she missed me, how she wanted to hang out, etc. And all I could think about was how much it hurt, and how much I did and didn't want her to stop. Eventually, after torturing me, she asked for me back. Blinded by pure love, I got back together with her- vowing to make this time better, to be more stable.

This worked. I felt content, I felt okay, for a good couple weeks.
But now we're here.

Kari and my conversation has hit a wall, kind of similar to a writers block.
We don't have sex, Kari often claims she's "not in the mood."
She hasn't said I love you too in like a week (txt messaging)
Drugs are becoming a part of her life again.

Kari isn't happy. There's nothing I can do about that, I've tried everything. She used to be happy, I fell in love with that person. I'm not in love with this person. I'm in love with the idea that maybe, I can have old-Kari back. And now I'm just holding on, barely, as she ****s up more and more. And I get more and more hurt.

What do I do?

[teethbrushes]

I think you need to break up with her. You cannot rescue someone and its so hard to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't love themselves. Maybe you should break-up with her...this is just too difficult to do until she cleans herself up.

[bleedinjlove]

What puzzles me so much about my whole situation and primarily me debating whether or not to break up with her is shouldn't love conquer all? Am I supposed to leave her? I'm very much in love with her, it's hard not to be after all we've been together. Is there anything more important than being in love?

[KamKakes]

At times, I do believe love can conquer all but if you love Kari, you need to get her professional help. There is no way you can save this girl on your own, you've already expressed that while you were trying to keep her from falling apart, you lost yourself too.

This is the moment when you need to say, enough is enough. You cannot sacrifice your own mental health and stability at this time.

And yes, there are more important things than being in love. There's everything else that comes with it including support and stability which neither of you have. Stop dwelling on "love" and focus on things like your health and self-esteem/will, whatever you wish to call it.

Perhaps it's time to bring in her parents... while I do agree that suppressing her is wrong, everyone should be allowed freedom within range. But remember, if your bring her parents in, you will probably be forbidden from seeing her and she probably will "hate" you for a while (that I'm sure she'll get over once she is in the right mind and on her way to recovery) but that's better than seeing her lying in a casket or her remains in an urn.

[teethbrushes]

Sometimes its the mature thing to do to put the love on hold. There are some instances when love just isn't enough...

[bleedinjlove]

Thank you both for your advice.

As far as professional help goes - Kari is seeing a therapist (forced by her parents), but she's probably not including ALL the gritty details. I don't know how to MAKE her want to clean herself up.

[teethbrushes]

Sadly, you cannot make someone want to clean themselves up.