I was with my boy-friend for 5 years and everything was perfect. We met and became super close friends immediately and then got together when I was 18 and he was 19. We spent 5 great years truly enjoying each other’s company. He is a creative and sensitive person who never fails to make me laugh. Lately however we went through a bit of a crisis. I had to deal with some very stressful situations in my university work and his reactions weren’t of comfort. He felt like he needed to be left out of my all-encompassing anxiety state and that the relationship should be preserved from all of that. A feeling I definitely understand and share but reality for me was very different.
We entered a time of crisis and I ended up breaking up with him because I felt something was not right and I wasn’t feeling the same way anymore. After a month of no contact we reached out and started seeing each other again.
Through this time, I started to realize something with each interaction I had with him. I saw that he failed to acknowledge parts of myself and my character which were not the nicest or prettiest but were nevertheless part of me. These sides may have not been super obvious from the beginning of the relationship because I tend to be a comforting person and a people-pleaser, but they existed anyway. For example, he says that when I am super anxious he “doesn’t recognize me anymore”. He also said he felt I was “disrespectful” to his feelings a couple of times when I tried to tell him he had pushed my boundaries too much (e.g., didn’t leave me enough alone time when I needed it).
I talked to him about it and said this makes me feel like he is in love with the picture-perfect image of me he has in his head, not with the real me with all the hard and difficult parts. He insists this is not the case, he just felt like when I used that kind of behavior in interactions with him I was not being my usual self.
I feel like I have kind of stopped people-pleasing and I am trying to be my most authentic self, but in the end he doesn’t like that person all that much. I also feel like he doesn’t fully realize this and I don’t know if he ever will.
Idk what to do and how to go on from here. Any advice?
TL;DR: my (24F) boyfriend (25M) is in love with an idealized version of me.
1 comment
Get a large poster of the Marilyn Monroe gimmick where it says “If you don’t love me at my worst you don’t get me at my best” and hang it up in the living room. Also redecorate the entire house in animal prints and hot pink shit. This will let him know what is up.
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My fellow worker says try weed together.