TLDR: We’ve been arguing more frequent lately and he always says “if ‘issue’ bothers you, you can just move out”. I also looked through his phone without his knowledge and found a text from about a month ago reading “I’m just stuck in a relationship that I can get out of, just looking for a way out yk” to an ex of his. I haven’t confronted him or told him I know.
Throw away acc just because he knows I use Reddit to read subs and such.
So for some more in-depth background, when I met my boyfriend things started moving very quickly. We had healthy communication and a few days after meeting each other we made the decision to start dating. I made it clear that I recently am diagnosed with epilepsy because I am still getting it under control and can die at any moment. Not long after we started dating we had a talk about living situations and he offered for me to move in with him and we had many conversations on what it would look like because with my seizure disorder I cannot safely work atm. Which obviously means I can’t contribute to rent. Also with my condition I need to be checked on regularly. About a month in we decided we have me move in with him and set up a system to had me checked on when he was at work.
Anyways, we’ve had a few arguments since we started dating but they quickly got resolved and agreed on better ways to go about what caused it to avoid the issue repeating. However, our most recent argument, about a week ago, sparked from me wanting to have a night out with my best friend Jane(22F) that I’ve known since I was 7yrs old. A rule we have when going to hangout with anyone is to check the other is comfortable with who we’re with and what the general plan is. Mainly out of respect and safety as well as if the other isn’t feeling well and doesn’t want to be alone. When I asked if he’d be ok with it I mentioned that Jane’s situationship may join us later on and he said he doesn’t want me around him because he doesn’t like him. When I pressed further and explained I don’t have an issue coming home if the guy does come out but that I just wanted to understand his perspective. He snapped at me saying that he didn’t like him and that alone should be enough. Not long after he said that I just went to grab my makeup and he said that if I didn’t like it I could just move back home or move in with Jane. This caught me off guard completely and upset me and I told him he can’t just resort to saying that when he gets frustrated. Then later I tried to address it asking why he resorted to that and if he didn’t want me living with him and he just responded with “it doesn’t matter it’s your decision” or redirecting the conversation to him making sacrifices to have me live there. That admittedly set me off because I sacrificed a lot to move in with him and paid 1,400$ in rent in the past two months from my savings because his new job hadn’t started him in time to pay it. After saying that he basically just responded by trauma dumping on me to get me to stop talking. This argument still hasn’t been resolved but things kind of just fell back to normal.
The past few days I’ve been having a gut feeling something just isn’t right with how he’s been acting. He’s been way more affectionate but also hiding his phone screen unless he’s on tiktok or playing games. Last night he was especially over affectionate to me and doing the same with his phone but I tried to just brush it off. I woke up this morning a few hours after falling asleep(this is normal for me, I wake up a lot thru the night) and something in my gut just told me to check his messages. I couldn’t ignore it and checked but there wasn’t much so I checked his Instagram and found recent messages with his ex. Most of it being pretty innocent and just average conversation but when I went further back to a little over a month ago I found a text saying “I’m just stuck in a relationship that I can get out of, just looking for a way out yk” but at the time when it was sent everything between felt normal and healthy with our relationship so it caught me off guard.
I haven’t been able to go back to sleep since and no I didn’t wake him to ask about it. He’s still asleep atm. I know it needs to be addressed but I’m unsure of how to go about it because I don’t want to set off a big argument but I do want to find out if he doesn’t want me living with him or doesn’t want to be with me in general. I would rather know than continue wondering. While I do love him, I’d rather be single than in a relationship where I’m unwanted. I also don’t want to really tell him I went through his phone just on the basis him and his ex haven’t spoke since that day and that there isn’t anything else on there.
How should I address this? I don’t want to cause more of an issue by how I try to bring it up to him if he doesn’t want to live together or be with me. I’m not the best at bringing up issues and can sometimes entirely fumble what I mean with my wording. I have never been in a situation like this before because it isn’t cheating but with everything it definitely needs a conversation. I just am at a complete loss because he has been seeming mostly normal and outside of the argument it does feel like he wants to be with me but now I’m just questioning everything.
1 comment
It sounds to me like you’re in a relationship that you should want to get out of. It sounds like a trainwreck – you both jumped the gun on moving in together at a time in your relationship when you really should have just been fleshing out how your values align, setting boundaries, learning to communicate with each other, etc. Not to mention how young you both are, and the impact this has on maturity in communication and fusing your developing, independent lives together as a household. This is the consequence of not doing so.
Out of interest, who were you living with before? Is it not feasible for you to live with your parents? The arrangement you have living with your partner does not sound sustainable and seems to me like a breeding ground for resentment. Your priority should be your health, and you’ve mentioned that as a result you cannot work and contribute financially, but have had to dip into your savings to pay rent. Why are you living together if there is no guaranteed, immediate income stream? The unplanned money you are spending on rent and your current inability to work make you financially vulnerable. Being so reliant on your partner so young and so early on in your relationship sounds like a recipe for disaster, and his behaviour suggests this is something he will likely hold against you or is a factor for him hiding the fact he doesn’t want to be with you any more.
You can’t agree on boundaries. You can’t resolve arguments. Your communication is so bad you felt the need to snoop through his phone, and now feel bad confronting him as a result. Your partner’s communication is so bad that instead of having the balls to break up with you or bring up his issues, he is falling into the arms of an ex for comfort. The behaviour he is hiding and how he acts in arguments is the behaviour you should be focused on, not the facade he is putting up. Think about other living arrangements, and cut your losses. Don’t waste the savings that constitute your current financial independence on this lost cause.