Hi New Here
Hi,
Im new here but not exactly sure where to start. I am in my mid 20s been with this guy going on 4 years next week and I feel like ive wasted the past 4 years of my life just to be with him.
Him and I met online, he drove 4 hours to meet me and we did long distance for the first 6 months of our relationship. He drove 4 hours every weekend to see me, and he now has been living with me in my parents home. We have talked about moving out and getting a place of our own but then he does things that I cant stand and I change my mind about moving out. I have severe anxiety, genarlized and social so the minute something drastic happens I shut down.
We are at seperate places in our lives right now where I feel like we are just roomates instead of a couple and when I express how I feel or things that need to change he doesnt respect how i feel and does nothing to change the problems at hand. His job has always been more important to him then our relationship ever has.
Theres just so much
How long has this been going on? Do you think he could change or do you really see no hope?
@sinkinganddisappearing
The last 2 years. He works 12-14 hour shifts and I dont hear from him at all. Ive told him I need communication to make it work and he just gives me excuses over and over again why he doesnt contact me.
I want to say I believe he could change but on the other hand if he wanted to he would of already
Do you think he is lying about where he is at?
i struggle with this too, and struggles with it a lot. Sometimes we are too attached to our history, it takes a lot of work to move on
@newlyfeventing00
We have location services turned on for each other, for safety reasons. When he leaves for work I dont hear from him for 12-14 hours so I do occasionally check to see if he is at work. He doesnt attempt to make contact with me from the minute he leaves home to the minute he returns
I think you know in your heart he's not going to change and he's not doing the minimum to make you feel supported in the areas of your life you need it. I think you answered your own question on what you do next, you just have to do it when you feel the time is right for you and you are ready ....
@Raerae9
Your time has not been wasted, you met someone who you really wanted to explore a relationship with and that's exactly what you did. Viewing those decisions through the prism of hindsight is selling yourself short.
Remember this one thing for all your future relationships: if he doesn't listen to your needs, tries to compromise, meet you halfway, talk out the issue, then you should find someone who will. What he is basically telling you is that you are not worth making any adjustments for.
Yes, it will hurt, you will be sad, but time WILL heal you. You will learn to move on and in those 4 "wasted" years you have learned more about what you desire from your partner.
Good luck RaeRae, I wish you the best
@funnyVillage1676
Thats the thing I still want this with him, I dont want to start over. I have told him I will walk away and he says he will make changes and those changes never happen. I have told him numerous times that I am going to start prioritizing myself and I shouldnt feel guilty because he has had plenty of warning and time to change.
He’s taking it all for granted. After many years together this tends to happen to couples in relationships. He’s not going to change anything because he doesn’t sincerely believe you will leave. But that’s a problematic attitude in itself. If he cared enough he would initiate the changes within himself to make you happy, rather than you having to pressure him to make adjustments and him only grudgingly adapting to accommodate you and only when it suits him.
Usually when the relationship starts to fizzle like this, and the quality time diminishes, you only see him very briefly and all you seem to do with that time is argue with each other - that’s when your relationship is most vulnerable. Maybe he is not invested in the relationship any more. His work sounds like just a pretext to avoid his relationship as much as possible. The lack of contact is definitely a huge indicator that he feels less connected to you and does not perceive you as a priority. Maybe he does not want to surrender the relationship right now because it is inconvenient for him to have to move out and find his own place. At the same time he is vaguely disinterested / reluctant to escalating the relationship to where you want it to be.
In any case I think you need some time apart to put everything in perspective. You’re both repeating the same patterns, the same arguments, moving in circles to the same unhelpful cycles and it’s producing no solutions. If anything, it reaffirms that he does not need to change a single thing and he will still keep you in his life, it gives him more reason to simply take you for granted even if he knows you’re unhappy. MAYBE this ends up as a break up instead of a break. And maybe you’re afraid of that also. But the thing is, if he’s only fighting with you instead of fighting FOR you, then this whole relationship is already finished in his heart and maybe you both need to be honest about whether you both still want the same things and want to end up in the same place. Maybe one of you wants that more than the other.
When one thing doesn’t work, you’re not supposed to keep repeating the same failed experiment.. You’re supposed to try something else. I think a change of direction might be healthy for you, even if it’s just to give you a release from this rut that you’re both trapped in right now.
CatsInTheCradle
@Raerae9 hi, I'm new here as well! It seems like you're not able to find a way to communicate your feelings to him, and the relationship is dragging on and doing nothing for you.
@baddiesattva
Our relationship has dragged on two years too long, weve fought the same fight over and over again with no resolution. Its good for a week then its back to not good. I told him again this morning that communication needs to get better or we will not work through any of the issues. He wont make an attempt to communicate with me when hes at work because he doesnt want to fail them; even though we do not see each other for more than an hour a day and Ive told him that his fear of failing the job is failing our relationship. Fingers crossed he gets this new job he interviewed for.
@Raerae9,
Hi,
It is a tough situation indeed. Have you had the chance to communicate with him openly about this?
I’m sorry for him and it heartbreaking to know
life isn’t the same for everyone sometimes it seems difficult to bear but what seems bad holds many good things in it, i think you need to judge things in a positive manner, give him some time have a peaceful talk, ask him for his stress.
maybe he would be struggling with his finances to make both ends meet, or else he might be in struggling with mental health
your relationship was long better to give a try first rather than ending it up.
wishing you best