Having a Partner

What is your experience with very close/intimate relationships (partners, spouses, etc.)?  Is it possible to have an intimate relationship even if you’re DID?

4 thoughts on “Having a Partner

  1. jigsaw analogy--ellis

    how do you define “intimate”? seriously, though, i have several close relationships, with my partner and with my friends. i haven’t found that being multiple is a problem, but i’m definitely aware of the ways that having gone through abuse as a child caused problems.

    there’s a lot of difficulty with things like trust, safety, and being able to let people get close to me, or being able to rely on them.

    what’s interesting is that, since beginning to acknowledge that i am multiple, it’s been easier to be close with people. partly, this is because as each part is able to spend time in therapy, they’re able to work through some of the reasons they have trouble trusting people.

    but a lot of it is that the people in my life are pretty good, and their response to me being multiple was that they made efforts to welcome all of my parts, even the ones that are really difficult to be with.

    it’s not like our relationships focus on me being multiple, but it’s definitely a part of what’s going on, and it’s something i don’t need to hide. and knowing i’m multiple helps my friends–and definitely my partner–to understand me, and why i seem to change opinions or emotions so suddenly.

    thinking about it, the problems i have with close relationships have very little to do with being multiple, and much more to do with all of the aftermath of abuse. and while, yeah, the abuse may have shaped the multiplicity, that’s not where i have problems. but the trust issues, the difficulty with having people be close, plus all of the other anxiety and depression and low-self-worth stuff? that’s the major roadblock to relationships, and i’d have that whether or not i was multiple.

  2. bob

    my partner has severe DID and we’ve found it impossible to be together now or even have any contact as she gets so triggered. we miss each other so. any advice or thoughts??? — bob

  3. chariots

    Hm. well my thoughts are that it can just take tiiiimmmmmeee for triggers to become less uh, triggery. Also, it seems really good that you guys miss each other! That seems to spell hope for a future. If you are able to persevere through this time, it will likely pass. As my therapist likes to say “nothing stays the same forever, things always change at some point”.

  4. JigsawAnalogy

    I’m sorry to hear about your partner.

    One thing that helped a *lot* with me and my partner was getting separate bedrooms. A lot of the triggers I have come from not having a space of my own, where I can sleep by myself. When I started sleeping in a room of my own, the triggers were reduced significantly. I was more able to be close to my partner when it was clearly a choice, and not something I had to do.

    We also worked on being able to set limits. We experimented with different ways of setting boundaries. So, for instance, we’d spend time where I just worked on being able to say “no” and she demonstrated that she would stop as soon as I said “no.”

    Another thing that helped was me working to make sure that young parts weren’t present when W and I were getting physically intimate. They could be there for cuddling, and they are more physically affectionate, but it was difficult to figure out how to make sure that them cuddling didn’t lead to anything that wasn’t kid-appropriate.

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