Over planning
My husband is very futuristic and loves to plan for the future. He's already made plans for our lives 5 years from now. I love this quality about him because it helps to keep us focussed on our goals but lately it's been overbearing. We're currently living on an island in the Caribbean but I'm very much a homebody and I miss Canada. The move and subsequent life here has been a source of a lot of my stress and anxiety. We're studying on this island for another 9 months and he's been planning the move off of this island since before we even got here. Every single day he brings up the topic of planning the move off the island and it causes me so much anxiety to the point where I've completely shut down. I can't focus on school, I can't focus on planning, I can barely even take care of myself. I've become so depressed and have expressed this to him. I've told him multiple times that I can't have this conversation anymore but it ultimately leads to a fight. He hates that he can't have these conversations with me and I hate that we can't talk about anything else. He knows how much of a bad place I am in mentally and every time (weekly) we have the serious talk about my mental wellbeing, he promises to do better and eases off the future talk for a few days but seems to forget and goes right back to it a few days later. He brings up the importance of planning this so we can go on to live the lives we've always wanted and that I need to do things now to prepare for our future which makes me feel guilty and further shuts me down. He has a sense of urgency and is frustrated by my lack thereof. I don't know what to do.
@LilLisa1 I can imagine how frustrating that can be. My ex was very similar (We broke up for another reason not this). When we were together he liked to talk about us moving in together, having kids, what our future would look like, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing but despite how long we were together, I wasn't on the same page. I didn't have existing doubts about the relationship but words like "marriage" or "kids" would spike my anxiety. I wasn't ready to plan that chapter of my life but he was. We also needed to have a lot of conversations because, like in your situation, I would tell him how it made me feel and he would oblige for a while and then seem to forget.
We found it helpful to plan "check in meetings". Maybe I couldn't handle conversations right now and I would ask him to wait x amount of time before he brought it up again. It made it easier for him to hold off the conversations when he knew that we would have these important conversations at some point. I wasn't asking him to NEVER bring it up. It was also helpful for me because the conversations wouldn't pop up unexpectantly. Knowing I had time before the next conversation would allow me to lower my guard in a sense. (I wasn't as anxious waiting for when the conversation would pop up, I wasn't afraid that we would have a fight over the conversation, I didn't feel like something was hanging over me). I don't know if you think this strategy would be helpful for you and your partner? Maybe something to consider.
Something that I WISH I did with my ex was attend counseling. Sometimes when we had those conversations, it was easy to get emotional. It was easy for me to ask too much of him or for him to ask too much for me. I think it would have been easier to have a mediator there to remind us to be reasonable in our requests in one another. Obviously, your partner is asking too much of you by making you have these conversations when you're not ready. You telling him that isn't enough. Maybe it would be good to have someone else in the room to support you so your voice can be heard over his. Maybe then he will realize what he is doing and you can both move on happier and stronger. Just another route to consider.
I hope this helps. This was something I was struggling with a lot with my last partner. So I am familiar with the frustration and the hopelessness. I am familiar with the anxiety and the depression. I wish you luck moving forward.