I’ve been living in mental hell for the past three-four months. My partner and I started dating when I was 17 and he was 21, this year it will be six years together. I’ve never been with anyone else before him, and I have no idea what adulthood/life is like on my own. He was my everything. To give you guys a better understanding we come from really strict families and went through so much shit, like literal HELL to stay together (I still struggle with PTSD and resentment because of his family, mother specifically, you don’t even want to know). After all the struggle, we did get engaged a year and a half ago.
I’ve had my doubts and concerns over the years but I could never get myself to let go because it felt like I’d die without this person, and the more the family tried to separate us the more we wanted to stay together, as if of stubbornness?
Now after all this time our families are on board and we’ve spent 10s of thousand of dollars on the wedding down payments and my dress. As I’ve mentioned i definitely had doubts but just tried to ignore them. However, recently I started getting this deadly feeling in my gut like something isn’t right. I couldn’t sleep, eat, move, and it all related back to the idea of us getting married . Whenever anyone mentions anything related to me getting married, I don’t get happy and excited, instead i want to dig a hole and hide in it forever. What makes all of this 100x worse is that my partner is overall a great person, loving, caring, generous, and for the most part understanding. He is 100% committed to the idea of us getting married. He doesn’t deserve this, but do I deserve to live with these teelings?
I feel like I have out grown him and he doesn’t understand that. To me it feels like we have barely anything in common, I love to workout (I’m a gym rat) and he is the complete opposite and yes i voiced this issue to him a million times but he never even tried to get into it. I love going out, and being active, going on walks, exploring the city (we’re from new york), and he makes all of these things feel like a chore. I swear sometimes I feel like he’s 60 and not 27. We have differences about when we want to have kids and the lifestyle we want to live, he’s much more traditional and well.. I’m not. We argue a lot, and every time we do he right away pulls the let’s break up card and then tells me he was just mad) and tells me that is a rational and mature reaction to an argument??? I dont know if he’s living in an illusion and l’m doing us a favor by ending this, but at the end of the day to him, my family and his I will be the bad guy that ended things.
I voiced my fears of marrying to him a couple of months ago and his reaction was… not the best. I had two options return the ring or never speak of it again. He’s content by us just being comfortable together, says he’s completely in love with me and he doesn’t want to break up at all, once again making it soul-crushing for me to do this. I couldn’t let go, l agreed to swallow the feeling. Things seemed to be okay, I was glad I didn’t have to deal with the heartbreak. Then again I got hit with an insane wave of the same worry and doubting a month ago (full on depression), and since then we’ve been living in hell.
Family got involved ( because he complained to his mom that gave me trauma in the past), my mom, aunts, grandma are telling me not to do this, (they are old fashioned btw) that everything will resolve after the wedding, and that I can’t unlove someone I’ve been with for so long and fought so hard to be with. It kills me that my imagination started to wonder, that I get wandering eyes, that I’m always thinking of what ifs and this damn gut feeling.
Neither of us cheated or have done something horrible, which makes it nearly impossible to break things off.
What do I do??? I think in my gut i know this is the right decision but I can’t help but think what if this is the wrong decision to leave him, what is if its a terrible mistake.
What if not being with him will be worse than having this feeling. What if i never find someone i feel as comfortable with. And how do i live with myself, ending things with a person i built so many memories and hopes for the future with? The pressure from him and my family makes life unbearable. Please help me make a rational decision.
4 comments
His response to arguments is not mature, no matter what he says. Having memories, being with someone for 5ish years, and family pressure isn’t enough to stay in a relationship you’re clearly uncomfortable with and unhappy in. You’re old enough now to know what you want but still young enough to move on and be happy. You shouldn’t feel dread when getting married if it’s right. It seems like you two are at different points in your life with different goals, and that’s ok. It’ll be even worse later if you go thru with the marriage. The way you described him is a little concerning too. He seems very dismissive of your feelings with is a reg flag.
The family drama won’t have helped. You were pushed together and felt bonded over that traumatic experience which in turn probably masked many of the incompatibilities you had. And there are some significant incompatibilities that you list. They arent things easily over come with a quiet chat. It sounds like you are definitely fighting your own feelings and putting them aside so you don’t hurt him.
You need to sit down with him and tell him that you have serious concerns about your compatibility and despite trying to convince yourself that they are small things, you can’t convince yourself that getting married is the best thing to do right now.
At three months you likely still have an opportunity to cancel or postpone the wedding with little financial penalty. And even of you do lose significant money, it is far less than the cost of a divorce. So the sooner you do this, the better.
Something to think about – you two are at very different stages of life. Many 22yos are thinking about travelling, looking for a new location to start a job and careeer, meeting new people and going places, and dating often. At 27yo you’re often in a serious relationship, thinking about marriage and children and about settling down and working on your established career.
I really am not sure what to write here. You are very conflicted and there are really some serious issues that are causing the conflicting emotions.
With all the issues you have mentioned, you ought to sit down and write out a list of these issues. His inability to communicate with you, neglecting and devaluing your feelings, his threats to break up with you when you argue…..Write them all out and then ask yourself “Do I want to spend the rest of my life with this man who behaves like this?”
Compare that with a similar list of what you like with him. And ask yourself that question. Because you will spend the rest of your life with him.
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