Update on "When is it Okay to Say Sorry Doesn't Cut it?"

[SgtShorty]

I'm just updating on recent events which may or may not help, but we'll see:

 

Remember how I said that I ****ed up because I slept through the opening of a project that he had been volunteering on? Well, I felt bad. I bought him gifts. And, of all the bad timing, two days later was Valentine's Day. Before he leaves in the morning, I tell him "Happy Valentine's Day. He didn't even remember that it was the 14th. Okay, o well, so I send him off anyways with love. After that, before I have class in the morning, I go to him at the site he is volunteering and have strangers give him roses, saying just "Happy Valentine's Day." I come up with the last one. He said it was cute, and we talked normally. And then I left. (I had also left him another set of presents for when he came back home.)

 

I get home after him on V-Day. We talk. I asked him if he opened his present. He didn't even notice it on the kitchen table or comment on it when I came in the door. I tell him to look at it harder. He opens it. His comment was, "You wanna do Pilates?" (I got him a Pilates deck because he has said he wanted one to strengthen his back which is in pain a lot.) I thought, "Wow, that was a loving and grateful comment." He then asks me to come lie down with him. I was visibly upset. I cry a bit but he gets me to come to the bedroom, and he holds me. We then start getting intimate, but then I stop the whole thing and get even more upset. You see throughout all this, I recognized he didn't do a single thing for me on Valentine's Day. He didn't even make me a card, or say "I love you." And here I was, throwing myself at his mercy for forgiveness for a single event and going overboard with Valentine's Day. I say all this, and he gets angry and defensive. "I forgot it was even Valentine's Day, and you know how busy I've been!" I look at him, just incredulous that anyone who "calls" themselves my boyfriend could say such a heartless, selfish, callous thing. (What am I doing supporting this guy? A guy who has been over a year mistreating me, not reciprocating love, nitpicking on my flaws, blaming our relationship for his own problems, and now telling me he was too busy for Valentine's Day!!!!!) This will be the third month that I have paid our rent on my own. I paid for our cat's vet costs recently. He complained that there was no filtered water in the house, and it seemed "my fault" for not buying it. I was sick of it! I went into the next room and banged my head on the door. I knew it was psychotic act, but I was just in a rage and sick and empty. He came in and screamed "What's wrong with you! Are you pyschotic?" At this point I just look at him coldly. I don't know who this person is who MUST be in a self-delusion to think that there is something wrong with ME. From my perspective, I'm allowing myself to express the rage and hurt I feel, and I can't talk to him about it, because he just throws me even more hurtful statements, ergo going to another room and banging my head.

 

 

He takes me out to breakfast the next day. As always, after an emotional rage, I am spent and oddly, feel better. But it's just a break in the storm. The other night he comes home and doesn't say much to me. I have a girlfriend over and he doesn't (as per his habit) goes about the house and pretty much ignores us both, with the occasional interaction. I had bought dinner and we sit down to eat after she leaves. He has plated the food, and I comment that I had made brown rice. He had put white rice on my dish. (To imply that I made the rice specifically because I wanted it.) He said in a condescending tone, "I know you made the rice, but this was leftover. If you want it, it's over there." I wish I could replicate here the tone he used. It was withering and hateful. I asked "what's wrong." He drops his fork angrily and impatiently answers "Nothing!" I explode again. "If nothing was truly wrong than you wouldn't speak to me like this! If nothing was wrong you would come home happy to see me and smile and talk to me as if I were a human being!" O boy, I let him have it. I told him he needs to go (again, Yes, I have asked and begged for him to leave multiple times before) because he lives in never-never fantasyland where he emotionally abuses me, won't leave, won't talk about it, and won't change, and makes me pay for it by allowing me to pay for the rent. I told him I felt like I was in prison, and that he was making me pay for it, which hurt and made me feel like an idiot. I told him that he needs to find out what being responsible is, and not to blame his father, his past, and especially not blame me for the fact that he hasn't found direction nor held a job for longer than two months in the past four years. I told him that everyday he breaks my heart, and I raged at what kind of a person are you now who doesn't see the pain he inflicts by not being a loving person, mistreating me, and even blaming me - when I have been only been supportive in every way, and just trying to live my own life and do my career. (Which I do have. I DO have a job and am on a fantastic career track, and I do have my own life and friends and talents, and incidentally, I'm not unattractive.)

 

He looks at me and says, "Thank you for pouring your heart out to me. You are right. I do have a bad attitude towards you. I do mistreat you. You have never done anything wrong to deserve being mistreated. " And then we started talking about how, when he first met me, he was depressed. And now he is not depressed. (Rather I am.) He acknowledged that if I had been a mean or manipulative person, he might not have gotten out of depression. But he did say that "he is a different person with different needs." Okay, I know and understand that. The harsh thing about all this for me is that I'm still in love with him. I sometimes wish I could just hate him, it would be easier. But I do not know him anymore. He has shut himself off from me. And what was making me bitter is that he was lazy and he takes what he could get from without giving back. I am not bitter anymore, just tired. He had to leave early again this morning for that project that I started with at the beginning, and he was tender with me. But I have to admit that my own heart has become indifferent. I guess there is only so much battering a heart can take. It would have been one thing if had long ago told me that his feelings about himself and me were different, and left. But he stayed, and though we had some good times in between, he was staying out of sheer fear and comfort. And he let me take care of us without a word. If a man stays with you like that, you can think it's because a) he truly feels love and commitment to you, and wants to be with you through the good and bad times or b) he is using you, out of callousness or out of genuine confusion and fear.

 

Though he did not say he was leaving, he promised things would change a lot. Yes, I have heard this before. I will take more proactive actions if he does not make good on this latest promise, like asking the landlord to remove his name from the lease and then calling his parents to take him away from me. That is the last desperate straw I can think of.

 

 

 

 

When is it justified to say, "Sorry just doesn't cut it?" Post: 1 | Quote:

 

I feel terrible. My boyfriend of four years had this special event he was involved in, and I overslept through right through it! I felt awful when I awoke and the time was a half hour after the event started!

 

He came home, and was so angry. That's an understatement. He was furious at me. I cried. I said I was sorry. I said that spent the day preparing little things to offer him, to show how bad I felt, and how I understood how bad it must have felt. I begged for forgiveness. I said what I did was utterly stupid.

 

He was silent for a bit, and then said "Sorry just doesn't cut it." I don't react well to that. Or I didn't at first.

 

You see, in context, when I feel that he has done something, and I rage and scream, he doesn't respond very well. In fact, the last time we fought, he got tired, and went to bed saying that we would talk more later, and awoke and nothing was said. I let it drop and acted normally. Now what he "does" is an everyday thing. I feel that the dynamics of our relationship has changed and I felt it was verging on some emotional abuse. Less affection. Little to no concern for what's going on in my life - i.e. rarely asks how I am, and when I tell him, he reacts in silence, and when I call him on it, he says that what I said didn't merit any response from him but that he was listening. He then says, "we have different ways of communicating." and leaves it at that. He says that the frequency of our sex lives gets in the way of his focus. He has said that the relationship in general has gotten in the way of his focus. (He has had a string of jobs, on and off, for four years. He is not sure what career or pasttime he wants to pursue.) Meanwhile I pay for most of the bills, have been covering rent while he finds more meaningful work and "himself", and I don't pressure him into doing what he doesn't want.

 

I feel that I did screw up. Big time. I acted in an inconsiderate way - this one time. And I can't make up for it because it was a once in a lifetime thing. (Not his graduation or something. A project he had been involved in which opened.) I didn't mean it. I feel terrible and I want to show that to him. But I feel that he is acting like he has been waiting for this chance to be bitter at me. I honestly have not "done" anything to hurt him or be inconsiderate like this once ever in our relationship. I know that this event meant a lot to him, and I want to give him time to get out the anger, but I also feel that he doesn't see this in the larger context of how unfailingly supportive and conscientious I have been towards him every other day of our relationship - for four years. Why does he have to say to me that he is going to hold on to this anger? I have to muzzle mine every day he doesn't reciprocate the attention and support I give. God, I screwed up this ONCE!!!!! I know it's big, I mean HUGE to him, but I didn't cheat on him. I was not dishonest. I was not intentionally callous. I acted stupid and inconsiderate.

 

He even said that I was so inconsiderate that I was willing to pay the price of "feeling bad" later, and not show up. That signalled to me, that he was nurturing fantasies that were just plain wrong. I told him don't let bitterness eat you, but he seems to want to hold on to the right to be bitter.

 

Any suggestions for how I can respond?

[LucreziaBorgia]

Originally posted by SgtShorty

Though he did not say he was leaving, he promised things would change a lot. Yes, I have heard this before. I will take more proactive actions if he does not make good on this latest promise, like asking the landlord to remove his name from the lease and then calling his parents to take him away from me. That is the last desperate straw I can think of.

 

Stay strong. I expect he'll pull out the 'big pity guns' on you when you have to make those changes, but seriously - what would be better for him? Carrying him, or forcing him to learn to walk on his own? I hope things will work out for you both.