Throw-away, since I don’t want him to see my post.
So I’ll give you a bit of background to make it easier to give advice. My boyfriend and I have been best friends for 6 years prior to being in a relationship for 1 year and 8 months. He never really had a relationship before me, just a few casual dates, but he never got serious with anyone else other than me, so I think maybe some of the issues we are experiencing might be because of his lack of experience when it comes to relationships.
Another thing I should mention is that he is the eldest among 4 siblings. When his father died, he was automatically expected to be responsible for his younger siblings, so he never really had the opportunity to gain autonomy on what he really wants to be in life. His mom (who he has a good relationship with but is not close with) basically dictated everything for him, from his degree to everything he needs to do with his life. Dating and moving in with me was the first major decision he’s ever made.
We started dating in his last year of college. I was already working and had my own apartment in a different city. We did long distance initially and visited each other for a week every month whenever we were available then moved in together after a year of dating and have been living together for 8 months now.
He is an amazing and loving boyfriend, always makes time and efforts for me, and we never had any major fights; usually, we resolve our fights before the day ends. We never really like to sleep on it; however, I feel like whenever we fight, we never really conclude it and the issues are piling up. Maybe I am wrong, but let me explain.
You see, he is not someone whose love language is through communicating. He is more of a kind of person who prefers to do things instead of verbalizing it. One of the things that we had arguments about is whenever he does something wrong (be it household/relationship stuff) and I give him feedback about it, in case of addressing how I felt about what he did and sitting down and communicating about it, he would get up like auto-pilot and just do what I asked him to do. And when I ask him to sit down and talk to me about it first, he would ignore me.
The only time he would try to communicate is when he is done doing what he is supposed to do, which I then feel rejected because he feels like he only did it not to address how I feel but because he is expected to.
Whenever he does something that he cannot undo, though, he just sits in front of me and zones out as if processing the things I am saying. Then he just responds with an apology that he was wrong and that he will do better and proceeds to hug me and expects that we just make up then and there. No discussions, no conversation as to why he did what he did or how we can do better next time. In times like this, I constantly feel like I have to adjust and just forgive him to keep peace because one time I tried to tell him that I am not okay with just making up and acting like it didn’t happen, that I wanted to address the issue because I did not want to build resentment.
Now when we fight because of something I did, I would like to do the same as well, hear his side, and I want to know how I could treat him better next time. But we don’t have those conversations. He just resorts to saying that it’s okay and forgiving me as if to tolerate bad behavior. Now I don’t want that, and I told him that I want both of us to grow in this relationship. If I did something wrong, he shouldn’t automatically justify what I did.
He constantly displays this behavior where when he is wrong, he is wrong and when I am wrong, I am still right. And that makes me feel empty because I feel like our relationship is not progressing positively. I asked him about this previously, and he told me that when he lived with his mom, his mom constantly belittled him and told him he was wrong and he’ll never be right. So throughout life, he just stopped trying to be right. He just ended up complying and keeping to himself because that usually resolves everything. I told him that I would like him to use our relationship as an avenue to fix this because in this relationship, we are equals. That we should grow together; no one should constantly be right or wrong. We should both reach an arrangement where both of us are comfortable. Now, whenever I ask him about how we could improve the communication in our relationship, he constantly tells me to give him time to improve himself because changes and improvements and growth don’t happen overnight. Now I get that. I do, really. But I feel like we’re still in the same spot as we were before and I cannot proceed unless he decides he wants to proceed as well.
Now, let’s get to what happened this morning that led me to making this post. I work as a trainer for a call center, and I work from home unless there are new hires that need to be trained. I’ve had some severe migraines that have been bugging me for days now, and this morning I was not able to prepare his lunch for work. He decided to cook his own lunch, which consisted of fried eggs and rice. I am not sure how he did it, but the eggs he cooked were falling apart. I don’t know how to describe it, but imagine it being so overcooked that the yolk was falling off. I asked him if he wanted me to cook him something else so that he’ll have a proper meal for later or if he wanted me to cut the egg up and make it so that it’s at least presentable. I want him to not look bad eating his lunch because you know how some co-workers can be.
He then said it’s not necessary since no one cares at work if his meal was nice or not, that I don’t have to make it presentable as long as it’s edible, it doesn’t matter. I told him that maybe to him it doesn’t matter, but for me, it does because I want him to eat well. This proceeded into an argument about him saying that I don’t have to constantly pressure myself since I have tons of work that I have to do, and I am already getting sick because of it and that self-image is not important since he is there to work and his co-workers wouldn’t care if his eggs were overcooked or not and me saying that I wished he would just let me do this for him because it’s important to me.
Honestly, I felt bad about not getting up earlier and preparing his lunch. Now this went on until he had to leave for work, and I had to get ready for a meeting. Before he left, he hugged me and told me we’re fine, and told me “I’m sorry. No worries, we’re good. You’re right and you won that argument.” He constantly does that whenever we argue as if winning the argument was a goal, whereas I constantly tell him that I don’t need to be right or wrong. I need us to reach a middle ground where we both win.
A few hours later, after I got off my meeting, I noticed he left the lunch I fixed up for him. I think I did something wrong, but I would like to understand his perspective. At the same time, I am starting to feel exhausted with constantly having to ask for a conversation. It’s straining me, and I want to understand him, but I want to feel understood as well, and I feel like I am not. I feel so tired trying to prove my point, but at the same time, I want to consider that maybe I was wrong. I was considering cooking him his favorite meal for when he comes home later, but I am stuck between that and just taking a nap because I feel so drained not just with our relationship but with other things with work but I don’t want to worsen the situation by neglecting our relationship but at the same time I want to feel like he’d try to make up to me too, since honestly I also felt hurt.
I don’t want to break up with him, and I want to work it out. I love him and I know he loves me too. Other than this, everything is great, but I don’t have to constantly feel what I am feeling right now. I just don’t prefer opening this up to my family or friends since I don’t want the opinions to be biased, I want to be corrected if I am wrong and as you may have guessed I can’t do that with him since he always thinks I am right even when at times I am not. I don’t want us to resent each other. Does anyone have any advice on how I could open this up to him? Also, would it be a good idea for me to make the first move to make up to him by cooking him his favorite meal or should I wait and have a conversation first?
TL;DR: My boyfriend and I have communication issues stemming from his lack of relationship experience and his upbringing where compliance was valued over expression. He avoids discussing problems and tends to apologize without deeper conversation. I’m exhausted from constantly pushing for communication. After a recent argument, I’m unsure whether to make dinner as a gesture or wait to resolve our issues. I seek advice on how to approach him and the situation.
3 comments
If your example is typical of the kind of thing you’re talking about, then honestly I can’t imagine how or why you would need to continue talking about this. You’re talking about *an egg*. It truly does not matter even the tiniest little bit if he has an overcooked egg for lunch, he told you that, and he told you exactly why. You *know* his perspective already. But it sounds like you decided you know better than he does what is best for him and ignored his perspective to drag him into a whole thing about an egg, and you’ve talked about this much more than it ever needed to be discussed already. It makes perfect sense to me that he would decide to just smooth it over and move on, and absolutely no sense that you would try to bring this back up for yet more conversation and some sort of make-up effort.
So on this specific thing, you’re exhausted because you’re being exhausting, to both of you, in a totally unnecessary way. You could just take on board for yourself that it’s okay to believe your partner when he tells you what does and doesn’t matter to him, take a step back from trying to micromanage what his coworkers think of him, and move on.
But maybe this wasn’t really representative and it’s usually about more significant things where it truly is your business to get involved in whatever the topic is. And maybe he really doesn’t usually tell you his perspective, even though in this case he did. It definitely does sound like he has some emotional difficulties around this stuff related to his upbringing. If so, okay – then that’s something he should take to a counselor. That counselor should help him talk about it and advise him on how to practice better communication skills with you. You can’t, or at least shouldn’t, act as a therapist for him and teach him how to communicate. Girlfriend-slash-therapist is an unhealthy double role; don’t fall into it.
So let this specific egg thing go and just move on. Some other day, when you haven’t just had one of these weird arguments, and you’re not exhausted and ill, revisit the general topic. “I still think we are struggling in our conflict resolution and communication, I was thinking about what you told me about your childhood, and I’m wondering if you’d be open to individual and/or couples therapy to help us get better at this together.”
It sounds like he is telling you his perspective and gently encouraging you to let some things go. It also sounds like you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be perfect in the relationship when that is not necessary. It’s okay if you are lacking some days and he has to pick up the slack or the other way around and it doesn’t always need to be thoroughly discussed. Of course you should talk about big things like actual conflicts (respect, boundaries, responsibilities) but if you are expecting to talk in depth about every little nuance of day to day life that can become exhausting for both of you. He’s fine eating an overcooked egg at work for one day and you shouldn’t feel guilty about it.
I concur with the previous commenter. If this example is truly representative of these arguments you’re having, then I can understand why he just says “okay you’re right, I’m sorry.” And shrugs it off. It’s not worth it to have an argument over something so small.
My mom and dad are madly in love, and they have little arguments like this every day. My mom gets very upset about little things that don’t matter, and my dad is more ADHD and doesn’t care if he shows up to a nice event with holes and stains on his shirt. They fight like siblings but they truly are best best friends.
Anyway, my dad tends to do this “okay, you’re right. I’m sorry.” When a fight just isn’t worth having. Because why tf would anyone care about an egg? Do you really think his coworkers are going to care what he eats for lunch? Do you even remember what your coworker ate for lunch? To me, it sounds like you have some personal insecurities and you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop when there is in fact not a shoe. I do this too. I think my partner is hiding some big thing from me that they’ll spring on me. But when it comes to communication, it’s best to take your partners at face value unless the disagreement is having some sort of ongoing impact on you. (Abuse, lying, cheating). It’s your partner’s responsibility to advocate for himself. If he doesn’t do that, there’s no way you can get him to.
And to me, it sounds like he is. He didn’t take the lunch you made him. He didn’t want you to make the lunch in the first place and he didn’t take it. He said “ok I’m sorry” because he wanted to be done with a stupid argument but he didn’t just roll over and fulfill your demand to take a different lunch. Maybe trust that if he has a problem, he will work it out.