Struggling to overcome differences with a friend

My partner is 24. I am 31. He is hiv positive and has been for
just over a year now and we have been together on and off for
only 5 or 6 months. My purpose for writing this is to get things
off my chest and hopfully begin talking with others in my
situation. I will call him "Mike" even though that isn't his real
name. Mike and I met after I moved here in November of 1996. He
moved here with his partner at the time with whom he used and
sold drugs in another state. Mike wanted to move here to get away
from all of that. His partner at the time began the same thing
here and hurt Mike a great deal. I'm not sure Mike has gotten
over that. Mike has never been accepted by his family and has
been "used" by so many other people for sex and drugs. He has
told me several times that he isn't sure he can believe anyone
who shows him they care. I am one of those people. We were
together for a short time before he began to go back to drugs. I
didn't handle any of that well and lost his trust at the same
time I felt I was losing his. He mentioned several times that I
had "written him off" and I know that's what he felt. I love him
more than I would ever be able to completly say and can't write
him off. I sometimes feel that maybe the differences were making
him uncfortable; I am several years older, am well educated and
have a good job. It seems shallow to me to thing those
disimilarities would make such a difference but they have. He is
struggling so hard between where he has been with the drugs and
sex where is probably was "comfortable" to where he wnats to go.
He has made so many great changes in his life but I never looked
at them, I focused on the negative. We haven't really talked in a
few months, just running into each other and a quick hello which
has been significant to me. I guess what I am hoping is to hear
from other guys who are or have been where I am now. Thanks G K
P.O. Box 112041 Salt Lake City, UT 84147-2041 801-595-8312

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