My boyfriend and I have different means of resolving problems. I prefer to sort things out right away, he prefers to take time and distance. I'm trying to do things his way as best I can. It's hard for me, because if I'm upset about something, it's difficult for me to sit and stew and fester in it instead of trying to address it, but I'm trying to do it anyway.The problem is, when he gets angry or overwhelmed, he becomes incapable of communicating in a clear and healthy way. We were talking about a subject I felt was important, and he was immediately agitated about it, saying things I felt were destructive and unhealthy, then telling me to stop talking, and to drop it. We'd talked about this previously, and I'd been clear that I would give him space if he asked for space, or said he needed a break from a discussion, but that's not what he did. He kept just telling me to stop talking, and making it clear that my feelings on the subject weren't welcome. This hurt me, and made me feel like if I just shut up, I wasn't being fair to myself or my own needs. I was hoping he'd acknowledge that he had a role to play in the breakdown of communication, but he keeps telling me over and over again that I hurt him by continuing the discussion, that I can't hurt him, and it doesn't matter how he communicates, I need to do what he says. I'm not a very confident person, so I don't know if he's being an asshole or if I'm just a monster for hurting him.
>>32327506Since someone will probably ask for context, he was miserable in his job and quit. Instead of encouraging him to find another miserable retail job, I asked if he ever had any other dreams. He mentioned wanting to be a programmer and I thought that was wonderful and encouraged him. He said he couldn't go back to college because of X problem and Y problem, and kept saying he was fucked and didn't have a future. I tried to be positive and supportive and tell him he could do anything he put his mind to, that I'd always be here for him and wanted him to be happy. I couldn't drop it when he demanded I drop it, because I felt like I was just enabling his depression and his negative thoughts if I just let him say he was fucked and didn't try to contest it. But he says I just hurt him and made him miserable.
Unfortunately a lot of boys - because no one who acts like this much of a little bitch, being a chronic complainer they can't do things they haven't even tried to - just refuse to communicate at all, it seems he wants to use you as part of his coping mechanism and not a part of the problem he has to deal with, this is a very twisted mindset people who are weak-minded fall into, I also do that a lot with girls when I am depressed but I try to put my shit together and be slightly functional. From the way you write and understand the situation I am inclined to believe you are far more mature than him, and this gives you responsibility to tell him once and for all to get his shit together and that if he doesn't you cannot enable him by being his coping mechanism. tl;dr refuse to hear him complain unless he has a well stablished plan of what he wants to do with his life
>>32327648He just tells me that I need to stop talking when he tells me to, and that if I can't do that then we can't be together because I can't hurt him.I love him, and I'm not prepared to call his bluff.
>>32327674How does someone love [you] yet they shut you down for talking what you feel? This is the polar opposite of a constructive relationship, people like that are insanely annoying and will make you feel like a monster or that you are in the wrong for telling them what you feel. You two aren't friends, these are ones you can just shut down and who cares, you can't build anything with a person who doesn't want to hear you talk. You have to hurt people and hate people you love, otherwise that affection you have towards them is meaningless, because it means you will be a yes man and spiral down with them in the shit storm. Slam your dick on the table and say "If you want to be left alone so much, I'll just fucking leave, I am not your bitch and won't tolerate childness" and if he loves you he will come back to you and say sorry.
>>32327721I know you're right, but I have such a hard time giving up on people. I'm loyal to a fault, I can't just give up on someone I love who's miserable, even if they lash out at me. If I leave, I'm forever going to question if I could have helped if I'd just tried a little harder, if I'd just tried a little longer, if I'd just been quiet when told to instead of clinging to my pride.
>>32327739I am just like you, I've had an insane amount of roller coaster rides at this point and through sheer pain I have learned the lesson: You will do not own loyalty to anyone, love is a very superficial thing, it is about wanting to stick it in someone else, values like loyalty and absolutely unimportant. That doesn't mean you should cheat, but it does mean it is absolutely fine to break up with a person you love and go to someone else, you still love that person no matter what anyway. My most toxic relationship was with a girl who did not give any care or attention at all and I madly seeked validation from, I still love her, I still think a lot about her, but she just truly did not love me back, not the way I needed her to, but sometimes it creeps into my head, the ‘what if you stayed?’, it would nit have changed anything but I get under the illusion it would. Just do it, do not make bets when it comes to human relationships, ever.
>>32327813Pride is something that is in fact important, prideless people are pushed around without fighting back, never let your pride be overshined by love.
>>32327815My 30th birthday is at the start of December. He's been promising to take me out to a nice dinner and give me a really good time for months. My best friend moved overseas, and if I break up with him, I'm just going to be alone and miserable to mark the start of my 30s and I don't think I can handle that.
>>32327975You are making excuses, you are probably already feeling lonely and miserable knowing what's to come inevitably, you just cannot garner the strength to end things asap.
>>32328021I am way younger than you, but I currently have no friends irl or people I talk to regularly outside my mom, I know how it is like to hold to partners for dear life otherwise you feel fully miserable
>>32328021I know I'm making excuses, but I'm still afraid, and I don't know where to get the strength from.
Are you really sure I'm not wrong? He keeps saying I'm hurting him, he keeps saying I'm causing him pain. I don't want to cause anyone pain. I keep crying because I don't want to be someone who causes him pain, and he told me a few hours ago to drop it for a while and I'm just trying to leave him alone.
>>32328134He is placing guilt of his own actions towards you because he thinks you are willing to take it, the world hurted him and because he has no strength to get up and do what he has to do, he directs his frustrations towards the real you because he created this insane image in his head that you must be an unconditional yes man to him. You are indeed hurting him, reality itself is hurting him and he can't bear it, not even to look you in the eye and say he lost all hope and just wants to rot. The matter is ENTIRELY his own emotions and perspective which you cannot change, he has to change by himself so you stop hurting him, is less what you are saying but the way he faces it. I really hope you can shut him down.
>>32328370I'm trying, and it just became a screaming match. He's being a raging asshole about it, keeps getting angry at me that I hurt him and I can't accept it.
>>32327506Hey OP. I was exactly like your boyfriend once upon a time. Positivity is not going to help him. What he needs is pain, it’s the only way he can learn. He needs to fall a great height and hit rock bottom. He needs to see that his learned helplessness will cost him everything. It will cost a job, a future, money, a girlfriend, home, everything.Right now he feels like his helpless misery will go on forever and nothing serious will happen. Life needs to prove to him that there are consequences for choosing misery and that things are going to get much, much worse. More than he thought possible. That’s how I broke out of learned helplessness and wallowing in victimhood. By reaping the consequences. Positivity never helped, it only compounded shame and internal expectations that I’d routinely sabotage anyway. The guy needs pain, anger, and fury. That’s why he automatically veers into it at the first chance. It’s bubbled up in him and he has nowhere to let it out. Painful situations are what will force it out. Once it’s out, he can finally be empty and try positivity. Maybe take him to a ‘break room’. You pay $$$ to rent a room full of breakable shit, and are given a baseball bat and 10 minutes. That might be a safe and contained way to help him channel negativity in a controlled space.Remember, you are dating a man. We don’t deal with harmony and positivity to soothe our inner issues. We need pain and anger to work through shit.
>>32329451Did you hit the rock bottom? Where are you now in your life?
>>32329461>Did you hit the rock bottom? Where are you now in your life?Yeah hit rock bottom 4 years ago, was reduced to a husk of a man. No job, alcoholic, drug addict, living by myself, isolated, among my own trash in an unfurnished apartment, lost connection with friends, family, lost my 6 year relationship. Developed temporary psychosis, PTSD, extreme anxiety and crystallised depression. All that was left was me, what was left of me. 4 years later I am now drug free, alcohol free, addiction free, have a lovely furnished place of my own, lovely pet dog, a beautiful wife, and a stable income of money and job prospects.I owe it all to the fall. I nearly died hitting rock bottom, but had I not done so, I’d not have figured my shit out. It forced me to reconcile a lifetime of trauma that I remembered I had been driven by my whole life, from my abusive family. I was forced to learn exactly how every single behaivoural pattern of mine was a repeat of dysfunctional history, and I was blinded to this fact most of my life. Hitting rock bottom was how I could finally see all of the bigger picture.Until OP’s BF sees that bigger picture, he won’t get better.
>>32328106You get the strength from yourself, because you respect yourself and want what is best for yourself. Take all that energy you use to push him, to support him, to uplift and help him, and turn that energy around on yourself. Be your own best friend.The one person you spend every single day of your life with until the moment you die, is yourself. You have to be your own advocate.
>>32329486Let’s all hope you’ll never go back to your old addictions, it looks like you went through all of them. Is your wife aware of your past? Is she scared you might become an addict again? Would you?
>>32329504>Is your wife aware of your past? Is she scared you might become an addict again? Would you?She’s aware, she is scared of me becoming an addict again, yeah. But for a good few years I routinely prove her fears wrong. I’ve never went back to drugs or alcohol, and no desire to either. I’m not even forcing myself to stay away either, no longer fear the stuff. I simply stopped caring about getting dopamine from substances. I get it from passion instead now, from being a husband and a creative man now. The only time I allow myself to go back to Hell, mentally speaking, is when I choose to empathise with men who were stuck in the same places I had been trapped, so I can help get them out of a few problems if possible.
>>32329527How can one enjoy being a husband? It’s a torture rather than dopamine source.
>>32329537Oh that’s easy, by teasing the ever-loving shit out of the wife. Not in a mean or abusive way, just by telling shit jokes or pretending to be dumb to make her all pouty. Cracks me up. She married a clown and she loves it.
>>32329545You remind me of my boyfriend and now I regret shouting back at him.
