My boyfriend (25M) treats me (25F) like I’m his mom. We’ve been dating for nearly 8 years, only once we started living together did this feeling start (3 years ago, once we were graduated from college).
It started by less sex and physical intimacy. I am a sexual person and was excited to live together because it meant sex more than once a week (a regular schedule in college for us). Turns out, it was significantly less. There have been stints of 3 months without physical intimacy. There is always a fight about it after the stint, I tell him how I am sad about not feeling attractive or wanted, or just straight up asking why he doesn’t want that with me. He gets defensive, and it ends up in an argument. So we both are upset, stop talking about it, then within the next week, he will initiate sex. Woo, i got what i wanted/begged for/cried over, right? wrong. because that only starts the next count of weeks or months until this entire situation happens again. This sex-less cycle has been going on for 3 years and my sexual personality and self-confidence has suffered because of it.
He is in grad-school, so I have been paying all the bills for 2 years now. For those two years, I have started to see another part of him. He’s become extremely co-dependent on me. We all know men ask their partners “where are my keys?”, “have you seen my wallet?”, etc. but on top of paying all of the bills, cleaning the house, having a full-time job, taking care of and training two dogs, making dinners 3/5 nights of the week, and also doing home repairs/renovations BY MYSELF b/c he “is not a very handy”, I cannot be a mother to a 25 y/o boy. I make all of the decisions, not because I want to, but because he looks to me for every decision. I am a happy/positive person (or at least I used to be) and I have become a NAGGING b-word. I am not a NAG, but he has forced me to be. It’s constant. He says “you tell me what to do and I’ll do it”. I am TIRED of telling, I am NOT his mom. I want him to take initiative, if something needs to be done, he does it. If he notices something, he just DOES it.
I’ve started to realize that it has something to do with how he was raised. A overly-attached mother, and a somewhat absent father (even though they are still married to this day). I don’t think his mom ever wanted him to “leave/grow-up”, and she always did everything for him. He truly never learned to be independent. If you’ve ever heard of the symbolism behind “milk and honey”, he unfortunately only got the milk. His parents did not show him what makes life sweet, or special. It is quite sad to think about but it is the truth. He doesn’t actually have very many memories from his childhood at all, not that it was bad or traumatic, but that he never got the honey.
I’m not saying that I am a perfect milk-and-honeyed up person. Or that I need him to be intimate with me every day. I just want to feel like I’m in a romantic relationship with this person, not like I am serving a platter of motherly love, when I didn’t even get to buy the cute baby clothes for this man. I feel like his words aren’t enough any more, I am so tired of feeling like this. I feel hollow and like a completely different person than I once was.
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\*\*TL;DR;\*\* : Boyfriend (of 8 years) never truly grew up, causing him to treat me like I’m his mom. I feel used and insignificant. Feel like I am not benefiting from being in this relationship in any way. Unsure what to do next.
10 comments
>I cannot be a mother to a 25 y/o boy
Then stop doing it.
Seriously. What could you possibly be getting out of this relationship other than stress and resentment?
I married that guy. Don’t waste the 25 years I did thinking it would ever change. It doesn’t.
Why are you A) tolerating this and B) trying to excuse his behavior?
You could try to fix the problems with him being like a child, and it might or might not cause some improvement, but you two would still be sexually incompatible. So, why are you still in this relationship?
I wasted 7 years doing this exact thing. You’re so young you don’t need to deal with that
[removed]
End the relationship.
i would want to live apart from a person who can’t cohabitate/take care of themselves. Life is already hard enough without taking care of a big man baby.
Did he move from his moms house into your house? Sounds like he needs to learn to take care of his own self. I aint saying to dump him, but dang – no sex and you basically wipe his butt? That aint right.
Just a minor terminology correction, he isn’t codependent, you are. What he is, is dependent.
It almost certainly won’t get better. You deserve better. You have already seen that if you try to convince him to do anything, he turns it around and makes it your responsibility to tell him what to do. It’s exhausting.
You need to do two things. You need to leave him. And you need to talk to a therapist about why you stayed with him for as long as you have. You can do those in either order, but you should do them both. There’s no rush, you don’t have to do it tonight, but you don’t need to waste any more of your life.
Only one solution to this problem and you know it. Why you’ve put up with him for so long is beyond my understanding.