I am typically quite good at introspection but regardless I’m trying to figure out whether my relationship is essentially doomed or whether I am myself in the wrong and I have serious issues, related to commitment, communication or in any other shape in form and I fixed those the relationship would be wonderful. I’m looking for external perspectives to clear out my confusion.
Me (31m) have been with my girlfriend (27f) for almost 7 years. I will give some examples of issues that are very important for me that have not been adressed despite me trying to communicate on them.

\- She was taking the pill at the beginning the relationship, up until year 5, when she suddently informed me that she would stop taking it as it has nasty side effects. I was informed but not involved in the decision. This basically destroyed our sexual life I dislike condoms and can barely cum in them. She didn’t seem to mind or try to compensate or find a solution to the issue and simply took the decision uniteraly. I would have expected that at least we work out a way forward before she pulls out the plug. Discussing the topic isn’t productive as it comes down to me being selfish – I agree with the health aspects, but it’s a complete stalemate and your sexual life has been bad since (or barely existent in the past months).

\- I do not feel cared about and regularly feel that her needs are more important than mine. Arguments are usually started with about how she’s unhappy about x,y,z and me in general not doing enough while she doesn’t seem to care about how I feel. During one incident I voiced that I had anxiety because of covid and a very bad period of my life and she was simply angry with me that I would not take a walk or do anything with her. At some point I was feeling sick and didn’t want to go to an event, she got angry, and simply walked out on me and went to the event without me.

\- She considers that it takes her effort to give me alone time, e.g. time when I’m not spending with her, and everything has a cost. Her doing something else instead of doing things with me requires effort and is in a sense billed to me while from my perspective she’s not doing anything. I feel wrong for this and also I can never enjoy my time alone because you can’t bloody relax when you know someone is expecting attention and or things from you.

\- In the same way, I do feel her being quite needy. Before living together we talked daily for at least 30 minutes, and she does want to interact with me completely non stop. She does not have a social life outside of me – she barely sees her friends and hasn’t many (one good friend and one rather toxic group of friends), nor does she have a particularly interesting life – I feel I’m expect to entretain her instead of enjoying my time alone. I need a balance. I like spending some time with her and also some time without her but time without her without the constant tension of you’re supposed to meet my needs, where the heck are you ? The issue is tied to the fact that I don’t reciprocate as much, but of course it’s a self-defeating cycle.

\- Communication has a certain limit. She can complain about her feelings and issues whenever and however she needs, while when I try to approach her a discuss things she always breaks off the discussions before a solution is found. But having those arguments is very taxing for me, especially since the don’t have any good outcomes, so I simply stopped doing them and started avoiding her as much as possible while living with her (bad, I know).

\- She doesn’t honor her comitments. I understand, some days you don’t want to do the dishes, and that’s okay. We got a cat with the agreement that she would take care of it. The cat destroyed the wall, some of the chairs, the couch, and she didn’t do anything about it. She had a cat before at her parents but the cat’s poo smelled too strong and she was going to vomit so she just outsourced the task to me. As I was always homeworking and had to smell the cat’s poo I started doing it and she didn’t care it was more work for me. We agreed she would do some of my dishes as a compensation – she just doesn’t care. In the same way, we split the tasks in the appartement equally (in terms of time and effort, and I have more), and while I always do mine – cooking – she simply doesn’t do her, such as cleaning and when reminded she simply gets aggressive over it. I feel like I have to drag her to even do basic shores because she doesn’t like them, which makes me feel like I’m living with a child. I don’t like doing dishes neither but I do it regardless. I discussed this for months and her behaviour has never ever changed on that point despite her promises.

\- She tends to act as a princess. Doesn’t want to do something ? Her foot hurts, her heads hurts, or she needs to nap on the couch. She herself admitted it’s a blatant lie sometimes.

\- When I tried to truly open up and commucate who I was and felt truly vulnerable I did feel rejected on some instances during the early stages of the relationship and have not been able to open up on those since. I feel like anything that doesn’t meet her needs is simply not registered and I don’t feel important. While I want to really be heard and seen which doesn’t really happen. The fact that I know this naturally disconnect and the fact that she’s extremely invested and blindly in love is quite confusing for me. She told me she didn’t like my humor, she doesn’t like the same things that I like sexually, and whenever I tend to express my personality I get some harsh:not this, not like that, don’t do this, don’t do that.

Paradoxically despite all this I feel very loved and I am extremely attached to this relationship. When I imagine breaking up it would tremendously hurt her, but I sometimes feel loved not for myself but for how much I meet her needs.

The problem is also that I always wanted to stay with her in part of the fear of being alone and always told her what she wanted to hear even if it wasn’t really truthful as I was very scared of rejection and abandonment (Yeah it’s bad, I know). So I am completely lost about how I feel. I do feel like love like this is very precious and I wouldn’t want to loose this relationship if I cannot fix those issues, but I’m not happy sexually nor enjoying the time we’re spending together.

Also on paper this looks like a very good relationship – she’s quite good looking, same social class, I like her family (not friends as she has almost none) but in the day to day I have to say I’m quite miserable and I have avoided talking about those issues for several months now.

I also noticed I tend to get more exotic locations to go on holiday on because I tend to get bored with her otherwise, and while I enjoy the holidays themselves I enjoy mostly the location and not the time I’m spending with her.
Any ideas are highly appreciated.

TL;DR!: Many different issues such as not honoring commitments from her side, while I’m loosing interest and avoiding discussions as they do not lead to solutions and my needs are dismissed.

5 comments
  1. You aren’t compatible and will grow to resent this situation if you don’t break up, or at least attempt to change things by doing couples therapy. I will also add that her deciding to go off hormonal bc is absolutely her decision and she didn’t need to involve you literally one bit- now that she is, there are other solutions that you could both talk through if you were able to communicate, but clearly you can’t

  2. Honestly, 2,6 and 7 are a good description of my wife. I’ve come to resent those things. I am still trying to open up more and be more demanding. It took me looking for a divorce to demand more, as I’d have nothing extra to lose.

    Feeling needed could be codependency on your part. Check on it.

    Regarding 5, I think it could have some clarification. I’ve realized people sometimes just want to vent and have someone on their side. If this is nothing critical, I’d say talk to her about what she expects or experiment yourself – it could be that she just wants to vent, she doesn’t need you to “solve” it for her.

    Think about what you want to accomplish with her. After 15 years, I had some times I needed support and the lack of tending to my needs just blew up. It isn’t as easy with kids and a long marriage.

  3. > Also on paper this looks like a very good relationship

    I hate to break it to you but – laid out on paper here – no it does not. The birth control matter aside (it’s her body man, that IS a decision she gets to make unilaterally), you sound deeply unhappy.

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of your relationship is about catering to her needs – and that when you think about breaking up, your first thought is about how much it’s going to hurt her. You sound like you barely have anything in common, in spite of being together for 7 years (and in spite of your GF exclusively spending time with you).

    It sounds exhausting, and you sound exhausted. This relationship has gone on way too long and you haven’t broken up because you’ve been trained to put her needs over yours. It’s over man, call it – don’t waste any more of your life here – there’s a whole WORLD of people out there man.

    Wouldn’t it be nice to be with someone who… did a chore on their own? Who wasn’t making you their parent, their BF, and their entire social circle all at once?

  4. From the information you have given, I don’t think you like her. And this relationship is dead.
    You should call quits before you start to hate her.
    I think that when you two basicly stopped having Sex the relationship was doomed

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