I (24F) have growing issues (see post history) with my BF (30M) of 2.5 years that I live with. There are issues with his family, I don’t feel he validates my feelings, we have different morals, and I don’t feel he makes decisions with our relationship or me as a priority so I’ve made the most sacrifices and compromises. He’s also obsessive about weight and calories and what we eat and made hurtful comments about my weight a lot early on. I would be okay compromising more to support him, but he doesn’t acknowledge it and says the only reason I feel like I made a sacrifice is because I don’t like where we live now (I moved for his career). I wasn’t the best partner in the first 6 months as I was recovering emotionally from a physically abusive relationship, but I put work in to grow and fix my poor coping mechanisms through years of therapy and I feel very emotionally healthy and I communicate well.

another issue is that most people in my life don’t like him and think I’m holding myself back. Ive heard many people say “why are you with him” or “he gaslights you” even once or twice. I know it’s not always good to listen to your friends, but many of my friends and family members have pointed out to me that he treats me like a child/not like his equal and is condescending which I have felt and seen in his family members too. I listen to their concerns because they stem from what they witness firsthand, not solely from me venting.

We talked for hours and it was emotional, I poured my heart out about my feelings, and he was just arguing them “but I do compromise, you just don’t see it.” Or “you don’t see how much I love you or all the things I do for you.” He’s the one who said he doesn’t want to break up, but he started packing and saying he can’t be here (which is fair). But I was saying I don’t want to either but what can we do? I was pleading with him if there’s anything more we can do to resolve our issues. He kept saying “I don’t know” and he said “you’re not giving me a reason to stay” which confused me. He even told me to shut up (apologized immediately) and that he doesn’t want to hear it when I told him he deserves to not have to compromise his believes to be with someone (he’s more conservative, I’m liberal.) He knows how my friends feel from reading my texts, and when I brought up the concerns I have that I have from how other people witness our interactions, he started attacking my friends and saying how could I listen to them when they don’t even have good relationships themselves, they aren’t good friends, etc. As he was packing and taking stuff out to his car, he said he doesn’t have time for this so I gave up. As he was leaving he said I love you and I said it back and he said “yeah, okay” and the last thing he said to me was “all I needed was a reason to stay” when I had begged him and cried to him to not leave and we can keep trying to talk this out, which probably wasn’t the best on my part, but like I said this was not a black and white decision because I’m still in love with him. I’m just so confused because I was the one that broke up with him, and he said he didn’t want that, but wouldn’t offer any other resolution and left so easily. I still love him so much and don’t want this but feel like it’s the only option. we ended up talking last night on the phone as he was driving away and he refused to talk about anything so it was basically him talking about normal stuff and me just crying trying not to let him notice. Now we are “it’s complicated” instead of broken up. I go back to therapy tomorrow, but I’m just struggling so much with wrapping my head around us actually breaking up so I’m having a hard time sticking to my decision.

TD;LR: initiated a breakup with my BF, but am struggling to stick to the decision because of how much I love him.

4 comments
  1. Commit to the breakup, what you’re seeing is what it looks like when someone didn’t really care much for you and didn’t have a significant investment in the relationship. As he’s walking out the door he’s demonstrating all those qualities that lead to the break up – the lack of care for your feelings, the unwillingness to communicate or compromise. He would probably have been fine to coast through the whole relationship because you were never really asking anything of him and now tha tyou have and that you’ve made it serious, he’s decided to bail.

  2. He sounds toxic and you don’t sound ready for a relationship. You need more self reflection and self esteem. Try working on yourself. There’s other people that are nicer than the man you’re hung up on.

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