Me and my boyfriend have been on a rough patch for the last 2 years. There are several factors into play: we both have been suffering from depression, we both have bad relationships with our families, he has been unemployeed and pursuing different interests for the past 4-years, due to not be able to keep living with my parents and being unable to rent an appartment I bough a house (completely alone) and have been living alone for 1-year now (I always told him he was welcome to come live with me if he got a job, even a part-time one, just to help with the living expenses).
I truly love him and wish for us to have a life together. He has been actively looking for a job for the last 6 months but with no luck as of yet. This has put a tremendous strain in our relationship. He feels like I gave up on him when I decided to buy a house, I feel like me having a house would make it easier from him to move out from his parents and into a safe environment.
Since he has been actively searching for work, we have had less fights about this matter. I’m proud of the effort he has been sending CVs, having interviews every other day, going to job fairs, taking courses in udemy and so on (although all this gives him a lot of anxiety). However, this matter is always looming over us. He says that it’s something he has running on the background of his head everytime he is with me. That he feels pressured and anxious and is afraid I’ll talk about the matter.
In the last 2 months things have been ok. We have spent every weekend together and have been having a great time and enjoying eachothers company. I feel our communication (which is really really really bad) improved a little regarding his work situation.
However, I feel all the events and fights of the last couple years have made serious damage to our relationship and neither of us knows how to fix them / proceed. One of them is intimacy.
I tried to calmly approach the subject on saturday. I started to explain that we have been having less and less sex (though we constantly kiss, hug, take showers, sleep close to each other etc.). I was trying to understand what were his reasons and what could I do to change this. He told me he hadn’t really thought about it and didn’t have anything to say. I did not push and the conversation ended there.
We had a great day afterward but on Sunday I woke up really depressed and was withdrawn all morning. He tried to ask me what was going on a couple of times, but I didn’t really want to speak since I didn’t feel I was in the right mind to do so.
He ended up leaving after lunch, leaving me alone in the couch doing nothing (I told him to take my car since I didn’t need it and he was carrying a heavy backpack). It stung a little, but I can’t really blame him since he likes to be left alone when he is like this.
I slept for most of the afternoon, but I could not get out of the spiral of bad thoughts I was falling into. After a couple of senseless messages, I decided to approach the intimicy problem once more. I wrote why it was affecting me, why I though this was happening, why I wanted to work on it.
From there a terrible discussion started and he finally said that something changed between us and he didn’t feel comfortable being that way with me. He didn’t pinpoint what changed nor what I did to make him uncomfortable. I (though it retrospective might have not been right in doing so) states everything I try to do to make him feel comfortable and loved here at home. He argued that I did only what I want and not what he asks of me.
I pulled back from the discussion and tried to get some sleep, since we were at a stage we were only hurting each other. He appeared later to give me back tbe car key (which really hurt me) and to try and solve things. He were both hurt and angry and honestly the hole discussion is somewhat of a blur. He says he has difficulties seeing me as a partner, he reinforced that something change and whenever I try to initiate he freezes and gets nervous. He said he cannot be the only one in a relationship to change and solve problems and that I need to step up. He left saying he couldn’t do this anymore and I went afterhim, pleading for him not to go leaving things like this. He broke up with me then and said he would ask a friend to come and take his things. I begged him and begged him not to go.
I completely broke down, because 8h earlier he was saying he loved me, organizing the fridge and cleaning the kitchen because I didnt have the strenght to do it myself, kissing me in the couch and saying he loved me and really enjoyed spending time with me.
I was unable to sleep and I know how wrong it was, but I went and left everything that was his in bags at the door of his parents house.
He agreed to speak with me later today. But i don’t know what to say, where to beggin. I’m not good at being rational or presenting solid arguments, I’m easily swayed by my emotions. I just want to fix things. Because even though we have problems I want to solve them and have a life with him.
TL;DR: My boyfriend of 12 years broke up with me yesterday after a big fight. I feel we have trouble communicating and are too stuck in our own emotions / side of the story. I would like to speak with him and tey to fix things, but don’t know where to beggin, how to prevent the conversation from becoming another fight.
10 comments
Relationships that start when you’re a teenager and extend into adulthood often have this issue where there isn’t a big incompatibility or problem but things go towards a breakup anyways.
A lot of the time something inconsequential will be given as a reason for a breakup because the person breaking up can’t easily articulate “this relationship has just run it’s course” or feels like without a “reason” they can’t break up.
It sounds like maybe this breakup is a long time coming but hasn’t happened because of being comfortable and scared of change.
It’s been twelve years and it’s not moving forward and it’s not making either of you happy. I’d be apart for a year and see after that if you think you should get back together or not.
Girl, this guy is still a child. I know this is so hard because it’s all you’ve ever known – but it’s not good for you anymore. He hasn’t had a job in 4 years and is resentful because you won’t let his unemployed butt come shack up in your house. You are a grown up with a job and a home and he wants to be 15 forever. I think if you can let yourself get some space from this, you’ll start to see that it really is for the best.
Why are you putting up with this child? He’s mad he has to get a job?! Seriously, you’ve tried discussing issues with him and he acts immature. It’s time to move on. Get some therapy about why you let him walk all over you.
What is he asking of you that you ignore?
Sounds like hes gaslighting you.
You behave like an adult and he still acts like a teenager.
Youve been together for 10 years, its ok if he was like this 10 years ago but if he hasnt grown up in the first 5 years. You put up with a bad relationship long enough
​
You’ve been together since you were 16, things have been bad for two years.
Are we sure this is fixable? Are we sure it SHOULD be fixable?
It’s something of a truism that people don’t know how to break up until they’ve done it a few times, and neither of you have. It’s quite common for people to feel trapped in a relationship that isn’t working because they love the other person, no matter how badly it isn’t working.
And it sounds like this hasn’t been working. For a while. And I think that if you two had more relationship experience, if you’d broken up a couple of times, that this wouldn’t big that big a deal. You would have pulled the plug months ago.
But you don’t know how to do that.
So I suspect the problem isn’t any of his specifics, and I don’t even want to call it gaslighting or whatever, because the simple truth is that he’s wanted to end the relationship for a while, and doesn’t know how to do it, and thus has been slowly building you up in his head as a monster so that he has the strength to do it. Again, this is *common* behavior.
I mean, you can talk to him and you can ask him to list specific ways he’s felt you haven’t changed or done your share of the work in the relationship, but I don’t think any of his specifics matter at all. The relationship – as almost all relationships that start when you’re 16 do – has run its course.
His specifics are almost certainly irrelevant, because the real problem is that he no longer wants to be in this relationship, which is the only thing he’s known in his entire adult life.
So you’ve tried to initiate a conversation multiple times about the issue and he has stated things have changed but can’t tell you how for some reason. This is not someone capable of building a life with if they can’t have a serious conversation before you’ve even gotten married( if that were in the cards of course). What im trying to say is that he isn’t worthy of the effort you’re trying to put in to save the relationship if his solution was to leave and tell you you need to work on yourself, without even giving a real reason for it.
>He has been actively looking for a job for the last 6 months but with no luck as of yet.
He has not been actively looking. Businesses are *desperate* for labor. He just doesn’t want to take the kind of job that would have him.
Look, I know he has some issues he’s dealing with. But at a certain point he needs to grow the fuck up. It’s not your responsibility to wait it out until he does.
Sounds like he is having a rough go at life. He needs to put himself back together. Probably without you there as a partner.
He needs his own motivation and his own inner pressure to figure this out.
Probably without you.
You have been very supportive. But he probably feels like your kid and not his own adult self.
He did you a fav by breaking up with you . He needs to grow up, learn how to communicate..
It appears the only thing you are asking from him is to get a job (even part time) and move forward in being fiscally respond for himself. What other changes are you asking of him? He seems butt hurt that you won’t carry him financially so he can perpetuate his boyhood.
You’re growing as an adult and he is stunted. Only speak with him if you can work through these immediate strong emotions. Get into therapy and work through the reality of the relationship not the things he’s telling you that you don’t feel to be true.