My partner (m30) said he wanted to be honest about his fears and doubts
He often says he wants to be with me forever (f39) but tonight he confessed that he’s scared he settled down too quickly (we met when he was 25) he wanted to be a famous musician but dropped that in many ways after we started dating (he didn’t seem motivated to pursue the fame aspect as much then stopped playing as often)
He brought up our age gap and how he’s not sure if he should be with someone closer to his age. He also said he’s not sure if his doubts about me are because we fight often (he’s in recovery for addiction which has caused conflict & chaos in our lives, again he really has been working so hard at recovering but there’s still a lot of conflict between us) he struggles with knowing and expressing how he’s really feeling and trusting his own thoughts and motives (part of the addiction recovery)
He said he both feels like I’m the one and he wants to commit fully and forever to me, and also feels doubts like maybe he should be alone and experience more of life on his own.
I could use some help processing all this info…I’m worried I might not be seeing the situation clearly. Again, he’s been working really hard on himself…but these deeper mindsets and doubts scare me, as I’ve invested myself completely in the relationship.
How could he be so sure he wants to be with me and also unsure…even writing that makes me feel confused. Does he need reassurance? Is this part of his recovery? He’s working through his low self esteem and compares himself to others a lot.
On one hand I know I deserve someone 100 percent sure about me, on the other I know he really loves me and is working through tough issues…. Does he just need time to work through all this?
I told him it might be best to talk through these thoughts with a therapist which he agreed to do, but now the cats out the bag and I’m really overwhelmed by it all.
Thanks deeply in advance for any honest thoughts, experiences ,advice, etc.
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> wants to be a famous musician (30 m)
> his recovery
OP, it sounds like your boyfriend has some issues and needs a therapist. And that’s not an insult. It’s ok to seek therapy, it’s ok to work through things. I don’t know if your boyfriend recognizes he may have issues he needs professional help with, but you cannot fix him. You are not his therapist.
Best of luck to you both, however this ends up. (Make sure he’s using a condom every time though, last thing you need is to get pregnant with an unstable father, I assume.)
Sorry, I don’t have much to contribute, but my experience with the age gap is worse for the older person. If you are OK with this, I don’t see this being a problem for him.
You said partner…are you actually married or just in a long-term relationship?
I’d also encourage you/him to drop the idea of “the one” because it becomes an easy excuse to not put work in relationships when your feelings change. He either picks you, commits to you, and spends his life honoring his commitment or he needs to go his own way.
You should try to understand if it’s his shame talking too. When you’re actually facing and owning the destruction your addiction has caused, it’s easy to believe that you don’t “deserve” the good things you have or the grace and mercy others–especially significant others–give you.
I’d stick with him for a while to see how his recovery journey goes because it still sounds like he’s early on into it. I’d recommend you get a therapist too (if you don’t have one) to help support you during this time since you have to carry his emotional burden on top of your own.
He’s already mentioned your age gap. It won’t be better when you’re pushing 50 and he still thinks he’s youthful at 40. I would take the decision out of his hands and walk away – you’ll be doing you both a favour.
If you are the one trying to help him be sure of things, that’s a sign that it’s not going to work out. He has to put the effort in.
When it comes to the recovery and the age gap, those are excuses. There are tons of people in recovery that can contribute and further their relationships.
I think you should give him time and space to figure out what he wants. He seems confused and your presence will only add to this confusion
He’s blaming your relationship for his disappointment and/or insecurities about his life.
He wants to be a famous musician but isn’t actually doing anything to make that happen? He needs to be alone to experience more of the world.? What are you doing that’s preventing him from pursuing becoming a musician or experiencing the world? Nothing I assume.
He’s watching his youth start to drift, realizing his dreams are just that, and wants to sleep with more women (I don’t mean to be rude, but this is likely the subtext of what he’s saying about “experiencing the world alone”).
He either needs to make his peace with what committing to you and your relationship means or you need to send him out into the world so he can own his life without having anyone else to blame for how it turned out.
So a few options…
1) He may be convinced in his head, but not his heart. Or vice versa.
2) There might also be some projection of things that didn’t work out in his life the way he hoped they would onto the relationship.
3) There may also be some self-esteem issues of not feeling worthy of you too and the excuses are just lip service to take the heat off himself.
It is good for him to be discussing this with a therapist who can help him dig into it all.
I met my wife at 24. I’ve never for one moment regretted locking it down. So, I don’t fully understand the desire to not settle down because it somehow means life is going to suck now. My life is better because I’ve experienced my last 14 years with my wife. Shared experience is better than solo experience, in my opinion.
I have had a lot of these same issues in my relationships. I found the most helpful lens was to look at it in terms of what’s called a fearful avoidant attachment style. He should 100% see a therapist.
For an example of what his inner experience *might* be like if he’s at all similar to me: I had this like inner model of what a relationship was, which was basically a thing that consumed me and demanded more than I could give, it came with certain constrained and subordinate roles that I had to play, and that it was in opposition to me being myself or fully alive somehow. I would frequently oscillate between the part of me that wanted to get close and commit, and the part of me that wanted to get away and go off and finally be myself. Both were the “real me,” and moving out of it was not about picking one or the other but really learning to feel safe with vulnerability and learn how to articulate my needs and get them met in relationships. Intimacy is being fully and honestly yourself with another person. That’s an easy enough thing to understand intellectually but there are a lot of layers towards really taking it in emotionally and living it out.
The important thing about this is that it only kicked in when the relationship felt very serious, so in a way it was actually a sign of my own level of investment. It would be really frightening and confusing because I would go from hot to cold and not know why, which made me feel insane and like I couldn’t trust my own judgement, couldn’t trust the good feelings in my relationship. This was 100% trauma based for me and improved when I got the right help, but it took years.
I would encourage you to also know your own limits, what you will and won’t accept from a partner, and how to take care of yourself dealing with this. This is especially true when the relationship is with someone with an addiction. But also I guess to reject people’s pop culture ideas of “if he wanted to he would” or “well I met my wife and I never had any doubts” etc. because these are oversimplified and come from people who already have healthy attachment and don’t understand the complexity that can happen when you don’t.
EDIT: one more thing. This only worked out for me because I was enthusiastically making the change and working on myself. You can’t make this happen for someone else or convince them to. It sounds like he is committed to recovery and healing and stuff so that’s a good sign, but don’t let yourself be in the proverbial position of trying to lead a horse to water and make him drink.