I’ve been dating this person for about 6 months now. Some of the good things we have are that we want the same things from our future and have/want the same lifestyle, etc. We’re usually able to talk about anything easily (outside of being in conflict) and generally enjoy each other’s company.
In the past couple of months, we’ve moved past the honeymoon phase and we’re starting to come across some very real issues, mostly around conflict. Most of our conflicts are about unimportant things but they end up handled so poorly (definitely dual-fault on that, I am working on my part). It gets difficult when my BF often shuts down and won’t speak or says “I don’t know” or even “I’m not even going to talk”. I’ve tried a few different approaches to help the situation without different results. There’s also definitely been some instances where there were small things taken very personally — like me having a bad day and not being in a very good mood that caused a large conflict. In a lot of ways it seems that he’s really reactive to negative events (even perceived). We’ve definitely had conflicts that were based on a small perceived slight like tone of voice or expression, etc. I also think that he may be suffering from some low self esteem here and doesn’t believe in doing the type of self-work that I am often doing. It’s notable that he’s willing to work on himself within the relationship but not necessarily address deeper issues as an individual. I will say that these weekly/bi-weekly conflicts that aren’t getting addressed well are leaving me feeling more and more disconnected. Because of that I have often been wondering lately if this is still a good fit and feeling stuck in-between wanting to stay and wondering if I should go.
I have a great desire to be in a healthy long-term partnership and have (and continue to) do the work for myself. In the past I’ve not given people much of a chance or shown tolerance for people to be human, make mistakes or generally be imperfect. I’ve also never had a longterm relationship that experienced healthy conflict. I’m trying to remedy those things and do things differently, which leaves me with the question — how much tolerance is too much tolerance for the issues we’re having? I do care about this person and would like to give this a real chance but I am wondering at what point is this just not something we should be trying to keep working on and maybe we’re a poor fit. Or maybe I’m just uncomfortable because I’ve never handled things this way in the past. Hoping some of you might have some thoughts about what’s too much to tolerate, have maybe experienced this in the past or really just any advice in general.
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