Today, my boyfriend (28M) and I (26F) had a conversation about our relationship.
I shared how I have changed because I no longer feel safe being vulnerable around him. Many times, I couldn’t talk about sensitive or intimate topics because he rarely understood me or knew how to be there for me. Gradually, this began to change who I am. Along with other factors, I started to feel disconnected from myself, more distant, keeping things to myself.
I am a more sensitive person than he is, and I feel that this is something he has never truly accepted from the beginning. When I cry in front of him, I sense a certain discomfort or even disgust, and he has accused me of crying in order to “make him feel empathy". Oof.
I also felt belittled in relation to my personality. At times, I would make a random comment or ask a simple question, and he would visibly react as if it were something stupid or correct me over something trivial.
I told him about a situation that hurt me deeply. We had an argument, and when I opened up to him, something he had asked me to do, he looked at me with clear disdain and then went to play video games without saying anything else. I explained that this made me feel unseen and unloved.
During today’s discussion, he responded by saying that these were entirely my feelings, that I needed to deal with them alone, that I don’t look at myself or take care of myself, and that if I do look at myself, I have FAILED.
Hearing this from someone I love deeply left me speechless. The tone was deeply and unnecessarily cruel.
I have been going through many difficulties since returning to my hometown, and even on my worst days, I have stayed strong and continued taking care of myself. Hearing someone say that I have failed in this way left me unsure of what to think.
At that point, I simply said goodbye and went to do something else. That was when I realized he would never be able to truly hold space for me, not even in a conversation whose purpose was for both of us to open our hearts to each other.
I need advice on how to move forward from this, because I’ve never dealt with someone so emotionally avoidant, and I don’t know how healthy that is.
TL;DR I had a discussion with my boyfriend about our relationship where I opened up about feeling emotionally unsupported. He responded by saying these were entirely my feelings, that I needed to deal with them alone, that I don’t take care of myself, and that if I look at myself, I have failed. That conversation changed how I see our relationship.