I’ve been in this relationship for three years now. Right now, my boyfriend is going through a crisis. I’ve tried to be there for him for three days in a row. Every day that I’ve gone over, he has something to criticize about my appearance. He places such a huge emphasis on his partner looking good that he considers it a need, which feels like an impossible request to fulfill on some days when I am a full-time student and work.
There is an issue that honestly might break our relationship if we can’t see eye-to-eye on, and that’s selfishness. I’ve felt so hurt by his comments on my appearance and overwhelmed by my schoolwork, that I told him that I wanted to take three days for myself. He thinks it’s laughable and views it as me abandoning him, since he’s going through a crisis right now.
He says that I’m being selfish for picking myself. I’m telling him that he’s selfish too for wanting me to be there for him all the time. It’s such a strange paradox…
He’s the kind of person who would die for his family, even when they’re being so mean to him. I have a past where I’ve given so much that I had nothing left to give myself. So the current person I am is I would choose myself. I know that relationships are about giving and getting. Yet… I don’t know if I should choose myself. At least saving myself won’t make the situation worse?? Yet it did for his crisis. I know he was alone when I had to withdraw and take care of myself. Yet when I’ve told him that I’m just taking care of myself, he has said three times that that’s just an excuse for leaving him. I don’t know what’s right, or if there is even a right. It feels as if there isn’t a balance in this situation, and that I might have to choose one or another.