Tips For Partners Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder

Hi, my partner recently has been diagnosed with DID. For the last few months we’ve managed and I get along well with most of the other Alters. I just miss him. And sometimes i feel more like a caregiver than I do a partner. We talked about having kids together but they have some littles already and I’m not sure if that’d be too much on our plate. It was a big dream of ours. Anyone out there have a family with DID? How did you manage?

Hello!
I’ve been dating an individual with “high functioning DID” (their words) for about 9 months. I would say I’m in a relationship with 4 of them and love them all very much and have a very different relationship with each of them. I am polyamorous and so these relationships have worked for me and how my brain functions. In other words, I haven’t felt like I am sacrificing, settling or giving too much. Some days have been hard, others so happy- just like any relationship. But the highs are high and the lows are low. One alter is a self prescribed alcoholic and frequently has mental breakdowns and she has been out a lot recently. I feel like she is only stable when I am with her. On top of this, a destructive alter has been re-emerging for the last 2 months or so and has been preying on the alter previously mentioned who has frequent breakdowns. I have tried my hardest to talk to this destructive alter and reason with them, ask them what they want, make friends with them. They have said that their goal is integration- all alters merging into one. Even though this is the conventional form of healing for people with DID, this alter is going about it in all the wrong ways. He is “taking” alters away out of malice, not for the end goal of healing. Anyways, I don’t know what to do about this. Everything was going so great until this alters emerged. But I have to come back to the fact that this alter is a part of the ones that I love; they are all connected.
On top of all of this confusion on how to navigate these relationships, the first alter mentioned, had one of her mental breaks when I wasn’t able to be with her and decided to go to her moms house and tell her everything, which is a rule of the system to hide themselves from their mom. When this was going down I was encouraging of it because I thought the mom could help in my absence as I was afraid for their safety honestly. Anyways, their mom did not accept them, didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand their DID. This feeling of rejection from their family led to an intense mental break. I feel like I can’t leave their side now. I don’t know what to do. I want them to get better, but I don’t know how that is possible honestly. On top of this, I have my own dreams and aspirations. I don’t know how to balance my happiness with loving them. I don’t know if that sounds terrible. Don’t get me wrong, I need them too. I love them and would be devastated without them. But I don’t know how to have both even though I want to.
Is anyone else dealing with anything similar- difficult alters, unstable alters, difficulty balancing your personal lives and love lives?

I don’t know if this is the best place to do this, but here goes.
I am in a long term, 3 year though long distance, relationship with someone who has recently realized they have DID. They always seemed to flipflop between emotions and were very touchy at points, but I am a very similar way, having BPD and anxiety and being very sensitive to certain things as well as switching between extreme emotions at the drop of a hat, so of course, I always try my best to be completely understanding and forgiving. It helps a lot, and we work through almost all of our problems together this way. However, there has been a problem with cheating and monogamy in the past. All four of the alters claim to love me and are okay with me dating all of them, though all of them, including myself, claim to be monogamous. I fear I may be doing them a disservice calling myself that, as one of the alters has explained to me that I’m dating four different people which of course I know but is difficult to wrap my head around. That is not the issue however, the issue comes in my anxiety. I don’t know if I could have a life with them if they for any reason develop an alter that either doesn’t see me romantically, sees someone else romantically as well, or hates me outright. I know the body is not theirs, and if I could press a button and give them all their own bodies I would in a heartbeat, but I can’t, and the idea of seeing their body, even if I know in truth it isn’t them, with another parter hurts more than I can explain in words.
What can I do? Are my concernes valid? One of the alters seems upset that I ‘don’t understand’ they’re all separate and that the body isn’t theirs. I do understand that, but the idea of said body having relations with anyone else still makes my skin crawl. It hasn’t come up at all and is not an issue. But it is still a fear.
If I said anything wrong or see anything wrongly or don’t understand anything please correct me too, im trying to learn about DID as well for them, so any education is appreciated. Thank you.
I love all of them so very very much. Each of them are their own person and each of them expresses their love for me in a different way. We recently had a big thing (concerning cheating and another loved, yet monogamous, partner of an alter.) and an alter is in I guess what you could call ‘stasis’. I haven’t seen them in a while and I miss them so so much. I feel so incredibly lucky to have four people who love me so much, but recently they had a new alter (who I never met) form who was immediately removed due to them being harmful to the system as a whole. They’re the reason my mind began to spiral. I am open to the idea of polyamory, but only in the case that every member of the group loves eachother (i.e. i also love the potential other partner and they love me) as otherwise I fear I will become too jealous and/or spiral at the thought they may want to leave me for said partner. (Which is another concern of mine, an alter wanting to leave our family in the future and move out, hypothetically as living together has been a thing we’ve all discussed many times)
Anyways, anything to ease my worries or explain things to me would be greatly appreciated.
Much love and deepest thanks.

I'm really glad I found this site. If anyone here is still active and willing to read my story, I would appreciate any advice!
I'm 18 and my partner is 19. I'm currently working and they are in college. We are also long distance and can't reach each other physically without a plane ride. Still, we got together a year ago and have had a really great and stable relationship so far. We visit each other as often as possible and they lived with me and my mom over the summer so they didn't have to stay with their abusive parents. I love them with all my heart and my mom loves them too. I fully intend to marry them one day, but not for at least a few years. I've never been in love with anyone until I met them and they make my world seem like a brighter place. I know I mean the world to them too and it makes me so happy.
Unfortunately though I've been struggling to handle their recent discovery of having either DID or OSDD type 1B. They're not diagnosed as they want to go to a psychiatrist that specializes in DID and it's hard to find one in their area because of the stigma around it and the area they live in is very religious. And their insurance doesn't cover them where I live so it's hard to find the right person and the money for it. When they first started to consider that they might have DID it was because they had a "little" alter that they gave a different name to that I was already familiar with and was good friends with. So at first it was really easy for me to accept.
The more they researched things and the more they thought about it they realized the presence of a few more alters. I liked all of them when they told me about them but my relationship with one of them besides the sort of main host I've been dating is more complicated. I found out that during our relationship there was a lot of co-fronting between that alter and the one who goes by my partner's name. I am very monogamous and struggle to form romantic connections in the first place, plus I have some jealousy issues. But because I initially fell in love with both of them when I thought they were one person, I still possessed those feelings for both of them when I found out they were separate. The main host was obviously very in love with me and would even get a bit jealous of the other alter I had feelings for. However that alter doesn't feel the same way about me, which I was only recently told. They still care about me I think since I provide so much support for the main host and they are a protector. They're also an alter that holds most of the sexual trauma and is hypersexual and flirty because of it. They're also polyamorous. It hurt me a lot when I found out they didn't feel the same about me. Also I get really jealous of their closeness with an online friend of theirs. This friend is honestly really nice and supportive and has been really good for all of the alters, but it just makes me feel more insecure and like I'm being replaced even though I just want to be happy for them. I kind of messed up and had a fight with this alter and now they don't want to talk to me. I feel bad and I miss them but I know I'm not ready to mend things when I still have all this jealousy. They just want the freedom of being able to have sex with anyone they want and not be controlled by anyone else, but I just can't make myself feel okay with that. I know it's hypocritical of me since I like two of the alters but the thought of either of them with someone else hurts so incredibly badly.
I also have mental health issues and am starting to suspect I might have BPD. It would explain a lot for me and why I am so irrationally afraid of being replaced and why I lash out at the people I love when I simultaneously am screaming at myself to stop. I started going back to therapy but I've only had one session so far to establish things, and it feels like things are happening way too fast for me to deal with them. Not to mention my partner gets jealous of the other alter and wants me to let them have freedom so they can have me exclusively. I feel so stuck and conflicted and we've never struggled like this before. I need advice from people who have been through this. I want to be supportive, but it's not always easy.
Should I let the alter be able to hook up with whoever and try to bite the bullet? Should I stand my ground and set it as a clear boundary? Either way someone suffers. If anyone can offer advice or comfort or even just relate to this it would mean so much to hear from someone.