My bf and I are supposed to be getting married soon but I’m starting to wonder if we are incompatible or if some of our issues are teething issues or issues included in the “nobody’s perfect” stuff. He is 32 & I am 28, we have been together less than a year and are in a LDR. I come from a single parent household and neither parent has had healthy successful relationships so I don’t actually know sometimes what is an unacceptable amount of imperfections a relationship should/can have. Would much appreciate your advice.
Some examples of issues we’ve had in the last 2 weeks:
He struggles to take on any negative feedback. He never really takes it on and apologises with the intent to do better. It’s almost as if we speak different languages and dont understand each other and he usually turns it into a points scoring exercise so only then does he bring up any issues he may have had with me.
We had a civil ceremony booked for elopement. During an argument we both heatedly said we should probably put it off for now. The next day he cancelled the ceremony & took half of the money lost from money he had given me to help me with an expense I incurred when we were last together. I get that tensions were high but this came off as a red flag.
I’m not a Christmas person but he is so we decided to make our day special yesterday. On 3 occasions in the day he sat on his comp and played games for about 45mins each time. I had imagined this was supposed to be a day of us spending quality time together. We did watch movies and eat together at other points but still. When I brought up that I was unhappy with him playing games which he already does daily and would’ve loved if he took time of for Christmas he didn’t see where I was coming from and caused an argument. I shut the argument down by refusing to engage and went to bed.
I felt uncomfortable with his friendship to his female friend so voiced this but it turned into in argument which led to me saying he had to put some boundaries in place and if not I would be breaking up with him. This was our 2nd time discussing this issue in 6 months and it actually seemed that their bond had grown rather than been controlled. Admittedly it wasn’t that bad it’s just that a lot of communication that I felt uncomfortable with had taken place in the few days that I was with him so it didn’t look good (he’s also never introduced me to her). During an argument I then said I wanted to see his call log to prove how much they had been talking on the phone and he said that he would show me the call log but if he does that, he’ll be returning gifts he bought me for my birthday back to the store ahead of my birthday. There was no correlation there and it felt manipulative. There was no cause for concern on the call log, it just highlighted that they had called each other constantly over those few days by chance but I am concerned about him thinking threatening to take my gifts back is an appropriate measure or even an option. He later said it was a joke and they were engraved so he wouldn’t have actually done it but I believe it was a thought he strongly considered out of spite.
We also seem to not see eye to eye because he prefers a woman who chips in more financially whereas I prefer a man who takes care of things financially. I have tried to accommodate him more but I somehow still feel the ick and feel uncomfortable when that is said and done. Also he earns a lot more than me.
Outside of this he is kind, fun, serious about the future, is intentional, gets me flowers, understanding of my health issues, good with daily communication & supportive with any of my career moves etc but I am wondering if this relationship is doomed and I should just quit whilst I’m ahead. We are in a LDR so all these issues have come about whilst we are together for Christmas but we have had some arguments when not together although they weren’t this bad.