Me (29F) and my boyfriend (28M) have been dating a little over a year. For the last six months we’ve been struggling on and off with things. Recently I’ve expressed some feelings to him and he simply said “oh yea?” And walked out of the room leaving me crying and upset.
Tomorrow is our first couples session and I’m worried because he might shut down, invalidate my feelings more, and cause further rifts in our relationship. I constantly feel invalidated and don’t feel respected enough to be in this with him. When I don’t share my feelings everything seems to be complacent and we go back to just living in the moment. There’s no conversation regarding our future, commitment, or even goals. I feel it’s mostly based off of instant gratification.
I’ve spent a lot of time going to therapy, helping myself help myself but it feels like this relationship is tearing me down slowly, exhausting my potential for a healthy relationship and hurting my self-esteem. I feel worthless and helpless at the same time. It doesn’t feel as if he’s giving 100% and it feels like I’m in overdrive as I try to not cause rifts or express how I feel. I love him deeply, and he’s a great person. His maturity level and ability to work together to validate and help each other is hurting me, breaking my heart and breaking me down slowly. I don’t know how to feel or what to do, or if I’m even right for feeling insignificant to him. I need help to rationalize and understand if I’m in the wrong for thinking this way.
TL;DR
When I express my feelings to my partner he often shuts down, walks away and invalidates my feelings leading to a fight about how I’m feeling invalidated and wrong for expressing how I feel. What should I do?