After i broke up with my boyfriend a few months ago, we've been chatting everyday. Most of the time its just happy casual conversation but over the last week things have gone completely to crap. His landlord is kicking his family out, His mother is getting sued, and ontop of it all he went back to some extremely unhealthy Crystal Meth related reasons. He's been stressed out over it all and i feel i haven't been able to help him out, considering he's on the other side of the country. The problem is, and i feel psycoticly selfish and evil for being this way, but the stress of my own life as well as trying to help him with his problems have created alot of stress on myself. I just don't know if i can do this much more. What should i do? Suck it up and help him? Leave? i dont' know. Help me please
People make their own decisions, and must take their own responsibility. First and foremost, you have to take care of yourself, because if you don't do that, you won't be of any help to anyone else. So if you are too stressed at the moment to be helpful to him, you can gently tell him that. It wasn't clear from your message exactly what he's doing, but if he's gone back to using crystal meth, you need to encourage him to get help right away, as meth is extremely, extremely addictive, but even more so for former addicts. He needs to find an NA sponsor *today* and go to a meeting and get some help. If he won't do that, there really isn't anything else you can or should do until he's ready to help himself. It sucks to have a bunch of stuff piling up on you, but it happens to all of us sometimes, and we need to learn, in order to be healthy, to buckle down and handle the stress, not to reach for alcohol or drugs to help us cope.
OK, first thing, let's be honest about the state of the relationship. Because if you really broke up with him and then chat every day happily and you have such strong feelings, then we need to know whether we're dealing with a friendship or more. Because I'd give two somewhat different answers to each case. So assuming that you really are "just good friends" at this point, then you can't afford to get too emotionally invested in his wellbeing to the point where it's affecting your life. Everyone has their own problems, and there's only so much you can do to help. You can offer moral support, you can listen, you can empathize, but there will be a limit to how much you can actually do. And for a friend, I'd be careful not to make the mistake of getting so invested that it brings you down. Especially if he's getting into dangerous hardcore drugs. A valuable lesson - in every relationship there comes a point where you have to be prepared to walk away. The more involved the relationship, the further in that point will be. But there is always a point, so make sure you know where it is and that you're not going beyond it.
