The tipping points here, for me, were indifference and belligerence.
I was involved for more than nine years with someone who changed dramatically in some ways, while not at all in others. I have often cited his dependence on prescription pain killers as the cause of our breakup, but it was actually more involved.
When we met, I was still in a vulnerable stage, mourning the death of my partner in France two years previously. I was still wrestling with feelings of betrayal and abandonment and was looking for someone very secure and steady. And I had only recently reconnected with my career after a period of soul-searching, which was emotionally satisfying but not terribly remunerative, so was ready for someone to help me make the required decisions in order to translate my professional experience into a decent salary.
I believed that I'd found both. We met on what happened to be his first night ever in a gay bar (I was 35, he was 32 and a late bloomer) and had just begun a painful coming-out process to his friends (most of whom couldn't accept it) and family (who tried to be supportive but hadn't the emotional tools to deal with it). I found his utter lack of gay cultural references utterly intoxicating.
We had grown up in the same working-class suburb south of Boston. But whereas I'd fled to find acceptance and carve a life for myself in the city, he'd stayed and led a closeted life, not even experimenting with gay sex until he was in his late 20s. It's difficult to describe how much like home he felt after years of friends and lovers from all over the world. He just seemed very stable and very familiar. And where I'd added a gloss of sophistication and affectations of worldliness, his affect was still entirely working-class.
He worked construction and carpentry, drove a truck, listened to "classic rock" radio, worked hard and partied hard. He was a big guy, 5'11, 200 lbs, without seeming fat...just strong physically.
And he had an incredible confidence in his opinions of what was right and what was wrong. I have always tended to intellectualize and keep my mind open to the possibilities of what life out of the margins might offer, along with a strong relativistic streak that can seem like dithering, although I prefer to think of it as curiosity and an unwillingness to judge too harshly, lest I be judged in return.
Basically, we both thought that he could ground me from some of my odder eccentricities and that I could lift him from some of his more prosaic banalities. For several years it worked really well.
Four years after we'd met, we decided that it was time to move on from Boston, which I'd found limited my career options and which he'd found a little too urban for his tastes, although he cherished the relationships he'd developed with his family and the remaining friends who hadn't rejected him and didn't want to move too far away from them.
We settled on moving to Connecticut, where I was offered the job of my dreams and which was just a 2-3 hour car ride away from his connections.
But once there, his attitude began to change.
When we'd first met, he called me one afternoon asking if I wanted some company. Replying enthusiastically that I would, I asked why he wasn't at work. He answered that he'd been doing some demolition and that a stud had fallen from overhead, a large protruding nail having slammed unto his big toe, going all the way through the sole of his shoe.
"Why aren't you in the hospital?"
"They stitched me up in the ER, gave me some Percocets and told me to keep in covered, gave me a shot and let me go."
"Can you drive?"
"I'm perfectly fine...and have the weekend off."
This attitude amazed me, as I would have been a basket case if anything similar had happened to me. But I took this as his strength and "manliness". As long as these attributes worked peacefully, everything was fine.
But once in CT, his "manliness" turned to belligerence much more frequently. An altercation with a boss led to his being arrested, as did a similar dispute with our landlord. He refused to understand that, at least in my world (and the world we'd built together), it's not OK to have the Police and Courts involved in settling our affairs unless absolutely required. I might well have a wild side, but had reached the age of forty without having been arrested.
I made it clear that, as much as he might have felt justified, we couldn't be if he'd been arrested. Such belligerence was not acceptable, but I drew the line at threatening to walk out. I honestly thought that we could work everything out, as we'd always been very open and frank with each other before.
He blew out his back at a construction job and eventually required a Lumbar Fusion. His convalescence was protracted and lasted several years, during which time he went from respecting his pain meds to abusing them, and when in certain states of mind would become completely out of control. While visiting some family in New Hampshire, a party turned ugly and he attacked an adult niece with a screwdriver. I was stuck in CT working over the weekend when it happened, and had to tell him I couldn't drive up there and bail him out when he called from jail.
That led to a series of hospitalizations and rehabs, which he'd enter full of promises and eventually cut short, breaking those promises.
So back to the first paragraph: His indifference to my repeated demands that he attempt to get a grip on his life and stay in control led to frequent arrests and his gaining a huge amount of weight (he was over 350 when I finally pulled the plug); His belligerence made it impossible to be with him, as I turned from lover to guardian to eventual target of his bullying wrath.
As long as this post is, it barely covers the highlights.