I (m23) am confused about the behaviour of my gf(23) and am not sure how I can move
My (m23) relationship of almost 5 years with my gf(23) is changing and I do not know where it is headed
In the last months my life has been pretty straining and stressful as I need to work 6/7 days per week because that is just how it is now and I can deal with it. I can withstand sometimes more but also of course with that comes the occassional burnout and emotion depletion and exhaustion. So before I started my internship in February I came home and finally broke down in a while because I could not handle the stress anymore. My gf was there and witnessed it all.
We have been living together in a foreign country already 4 years in the same studio in the same place without really a space for each of us. She made the decision to move here because of me because I started studying here and we had a good 1st year of long distance but I also kept it honest that I am not sure if I could continue on any longer. Hence her moving to this country.
Now for all these years I feel like I had lived with some sort of guilt that she had to do that and carried the relationship along just so she always had a safe space here and feel good and inspired and living. And she does and she did. However, that usually meant me mostly putting the effort in of going for dates somewhere, inviting her to places, making her dinner, doing most of the household chores to the point where it went into an autopilot. And I had to initiate everything. Now fast forward to the last couple of months where I had turned on that autopilot and just told myself I just need to put a smile on that face and go through, I cannot get angry at things because then it will be a waste of my energy.
Now the internship started and I decided i need to have a routine to keep myself stable and available as a person, meaning gym often, make proper food go to bed properly, play video games with friends to wind down etc. So a lot of self-care to prevent me being overly exhausted. Now when I started doing these things alone like also going to the gym because she stopped going with me because she felt tired and I cannot drag her along every time, but she kept on telling me I dont love her. That started off as a joke but the more I did things alone the more she said I dont love her and I enjoy being everywhere except around her. I see it as false because all of those efforts of mine are for me to be available and stable.
Now, in my internship I met a coworker who was light funny and could understand me and sort of see the new me who is trying to transition into a happy kind and lighthearted person. We sort of kicked it off, had nice talks blabla, texted a bit but to the point I realized I start to feel guilty because this is not in a friendly manner anymore, so this week we decided both to sort of pull the plug because it was pushing the border. Okay so I looked at myself and said there must have been something wrong with me that I let my guard down and could let someone else in on my emotions besides my partner. I had shutdown from her because every time I came home I felt guilty for being outside or trying to better myself so I also signed up for therapy.
So this week’s been a bit of a hell. There was a lot of tension between me and my partner and I hadnt emotionally interacted for a week already because I realized I am lost somewhere and something was off in me. I told her about me feeling off and not in the right space right now. I went to my GP to get a refferal to a psychologist and wrote down some notes what to tell them. Last two days of the working week I got to work from home so 3 days ago I just woke up and started to do stuff for my internship and locked in because I have stuff to do. I went to pickup lunch for both of us and the atmosphere was tense but handlable. Then I had a nap and when i woke up i decided to go to gym and I got screamed at for waking her up and out of spite she went to gym with me. Okay, no problem I dont react because I am managing my energy. We came home and I went to grab a drink with my friend and she refused to join although I invited her.
Next day, again I do my imternship stuff and I tell her I will go for a walk and invited her along and she just coldly said I will not join. So I thought whatever and went for a nice walk at the beach came home didnt say much and went to take a nap to suddenly hear screaming that i will only talk to her if she asks me questions. So I said that is not true and please I am tired I need to sleep a bit. I woke up and then asked her if she d like to join me for project hail mary (nice movie btw) and we went. We saw it was nice, went home I got inspired to do internship stuff so I did something and she went to bed.
Next day I took an extra shift at my part time job and I said, I am tired but its only physical I can handle it. So I went to shift was working and suddenly I got a text from her ( i couldnt believe its a text), whether I want to break up with her. And I couldnt believe it because she knew im tired. I had told her for months yet she decided to weaponize it against me. Now late after shift I went home and wondered where that came from. I came home just to see shes not there and on the table it was my notebook of the notes I gave to my Gp and she underlined the part where it said that I feel like I am changing and I need to see how our relationship fits into the new me. She saw it as a threat however I was completely left in shock and felt super disrespected because she took my personal notes, and not only just read and left it be but UNDERLINED THE PART. So I could not believe how disrespectful that was of my privacy and now its the next day.
I talked it out I told her I am deeply hurt and sad that she did that and I am not sure how I will be able to move on from that. So now I am confused. I think I want to be separate for a moment now but in this country its quite difficult to find that.
And I know I was also a bad person to let my guard down with the coworker and get all emotional with her but I think it exposed me as in to what I have been missing for some while.
Tl;dr I think my girlfriend used my vulnerabilities and weaponized my weaknesses and I do not know how/if I can move past that.