This may be a long one going over a few weeks so please bear with me. And throwaway for throwaway reasons.
I’ve been with my partner for close to eight months now, and we started off as friends. Things have been mostly alright save a few rough patches here and there, but last month I went through a series of events that brought to light what I believe is a new side of him.
Last month I went through having to quit a job I had for four years due to my boss getting aggressive with me, explosive arguments with a family member over my job situation, having to cut off a friend for betraying me and shvsequently having them park outside my house for 4+ hours to try to force me to talk to them, and then as the finale experiencing an incredibly traumatizing, unexpected and gory death of a pet. Basically all in all an extremely traumatizing week that left me more or less nonverbal and in a state of shock. For the next day after the death I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone, and I had explained to my boyfriend what had happened and how awful I felt (understandably I think). I also explained to him how little energy I had for anything social and that I needed time to feel okay again. That I felt like I didn’t even have the energy to get out of bed. I was broken and in shock.
He was very supportive the first day, and I still messaged him a good morning, a text in the afternoon, and goodnight. In return he messaged me himself around 20+ times a day. It was overwhelming and I couldn’t bring myself to respond/I couldn’t really talk anyway without crying and I told him as much and he said he understood. This continued for the next day, and on the second day he began telling me how much he needed to spend time with me, that he was being selfish but he also was getting jealous of others (I wasn’t spending time with anyone directly, but I had gotten on to play an MMO for a few hours that day to get my mind off things and he was talking about our guild members. Again, I hadn’t even interacted with anyone). I said I understood because I felt horrible, but I still told him that it’s been barely two days and what he’s saying to me makes me feel guilty and upset when he had said he understood that I needed space. Nevertheless we spent time together that night for a few hours and it genuinely drained any energy that I had built up in the past two days out of me. I didn’t say anything to him because I didn’t want him to feel bad, and I continued. Another two days passed with the same thing, me messaging a few times a day and getting 20+ in a few hours alone back. That’s fine.
It was the cumulative 5th day that inspired this entire post. He was talking about how much he misses me again and I understood and missed him too, we were talking about possibly spending time together again and that morning I had opened up after having another breakdown and explained everything to him in great detail about how I felt and how affected I was by the events I mentioned at the beginning of the post. He told me he understood again and that he would never hold any of it against me – he said this unprompted. That night our plans hadn’t even been finalized, with no time set, when suddenly friends told me that it was another friend’s birthday that I had forgotten. In less than 5 minutes I was swept up for the birthday, and in the mess and stress of it all it took me 30 minutes to message my bf to let him know what had happened. I explained that it was her birthday and I’d forgotten with all the stress and that I wouldn’t be spending much longer before leaving and we could hang out. He said that he was going to go to bed, and I sensed that he was upset so I called him to at least say goodnight/see if I could make it better. On the call I explained what had happened again, and he was very irritable and it all blew over when he said “what happened to you being too sad to spend time with anyone?” That broke me all over again. He also went to say that I didnt know that it was her birthday when I went to hang out with them (he must have misunderstood?) and when I corrected him he continued to accuse me of lying. He was being very accusatory and angry and it drained the last bit out of me and I had to leave.
I reminded him the next day that he first threw his first fit about being jealous and wanting time with me two days after the traumatic event when I warned him that I needed time. And that it took only two more days for an another one over me spending 45 mins with friends for a birthday, except this one had accusations and him using what I had told him against me the very same day he told me he wouldn’t (unprompted). He apologized but the damage was done. I ended things with him at the urging of pretty much everyone in my life, but that’s not where this even ends. I got a job, I got better, and after a while we rekindled things because I thought I had overreacted. Now we are three weeks into this rekindling and…. It took a single day of me being too tired after working a 12 hour day/having another mandatory social event, and only being able to message him a good morning/a few messages in between/goodnight out of sheer exhaustion. One day. This time however he caught me about it in the morning while I was getting ready for work after sleeping in. He was messaging, I was running around like a headless chicken. He first told me that I can at least message him and say good night even if I didn’t have one. Okay, said as a joke, I also did tell him goodnight but whatever haha. A few minutes later he wished me a good day after a bunch of messages he sent and again, I was running around getting ready so I had full plans of responding once I got situated. His reaction to 10 minutes of silence? “This is where you wish me a good day back.” Dude. I told him again very calmly once I was actually at work and not late that I didn’t appreciate him talking to me like that (he does it soooo often if I take longer than five minutes to respond to a love you/goodnight/etc etc it’s exhausting) and that I would have replied in a few minutes when I was at work. He started acting like I was insane and it was just a joke, and honestly I just stopped replying.
I can’t tell if I overreacted or if my feelings were valid. First about the incident after the trauma, and then now when it took only two weeks and one busy day for him to start the same behavior again. I also know him enough to know that he wasn’t joking anyway, he’s a terrible liar. I’m doing everything in my power to spend time with him through exhaustion and trauma and I feel like the second he thinks I misstepped he gets ready to pounce. It’s an exhausting place to be in. And if I tell him how I feel about it he goes “should I just not message you at all then?”
If you did make it this far thank you, I know it was a lot.