Almost break up... then an I love you?

[Kaitygrace2018]

I have been officially dating my boyfriend for around 2 months (together for 4). From the beginning we had a difficult start, he deals with relationship anxiety and I have extreme anxiety disorder that I am currently seeking treatment for. The first week we were dating he came to a family reunion of mine and he pulled me aside to say that he couldn’t wait to fall in love and have a future with me and how special I was to him. In this moment I knew he was beginning to feel love feelings so I began as well.

 

We came back to college and things got harder. I get frustrated with him for not prioritizing me over his friends always, I have severe anxiety attacks around him almost any time we come home from a night out and results in me picking every little thing he did apart, and the “anxiety me” has come out more than the true me he was falling for. Two nights ago during one of these panic attacks I admitted to him that I was falling for him and I did not always feel like he was back. For the four weeks we have been at school, I could feel him loving me and see it in the way he looked at me (as could other people), but He never said it or that he was falling. When I stated this he did say he wasn’t there yet and admitted to me that at the reunion he was, but since we came back, he has not felt that constantly as he feels he should and he is also fearful of planning some type of future right now bc he is only 20 and I am 21.

 

This turned into an all day fight where we both cried and eventually he told me he has this doubt that he will ever get the feeling back for me. When i asked if it was About my anxiety and me not being happy ever due to it , he said it was Part of it but he said the other part was from him. So I thus asked him if we should continue dating and he continuously said I don’t know And saying he hated himself for hurting me in any way or ruining our relationship (besides my anxiety putting a strain on us, we have a very strong and best friend relationship). He said he wanted to continue things as they were while I am getting treatment at the moment and see if I start to feel better, but was scared if 6 months down the line those feelings never come.

 

At this point I expressed my confusion and disbelief due to how he had treated me during the good times. I do love him but he can be very immature and fearful of expressing how he truly feels-when we started dating he took about a week of questioning whether he was ready for a relationship or not, then ended up beginning the relationship saying it was The best thing he had ever done. So I expressed to him that i feel like he is basing this feeling off of the anxiety me, and that he is holding something back and not admitting the full truth but that if he wanted to break up he would have to make that choice. He could not bring himself to do it saying he didn’t want to lose me and couldn’t not have me in his life....he couldn’t bring himself to leave even though he was in the uncomfortable situation bc he knew he couldn’t close the door on me (he said). This we decided to work it out And I am not projecting my anxiety on to the relationship and he has to be more open to me and not hold in anything.

 

When making up, I said please don’t do this to me again, please just tell me what’s on your mind instead of making a large deal of it. He began to bawl saying he “ruined” us. In order to cheer him up I did something to make him laugh, he hugged and kissed me and told me he was love with me....confused I asked if he came to that feeling on his own, if he was truly feeling it or if he feels that I convinced him or begged him for that in any way?? He said no not at all that he felt it and realized that he was holding back saying it out of fear, and realizing that everyone around him could see it too but he was afraid of saying it. He said he realized that he couldn’t leave no matter what and that I was his best friend. I expressed my fear of it being a lie to fix the fight or just keep me happy and he said he would never say those words if he didn’t mean them.... I still feel very fearful bc I now have a hard time trusting those words due to almost breaking up.

 

Thoughts?

Edited September 15, 2018 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Edited for paragraphs ~ V

[Kaitygrace2018]

I might also add that after saying it he said wow that really wasn’t as hard to say as I thought it was.... imagine how proposing to you will go (as a joke)

[Garcon1986]

My previous relationship died in large part due to this sort of thing. I think that you are building a relationship in which neither of you can trust the other to be the emotional mountain or rock to reach to when things get rough. When you come to the really hard decisions like making babies, building a life together, having a car, having mortgage payments... do you really want to have someone that you can't rely on to lose their temper, and in turn feed your anxiety?

 

If you want to have the young, fiery passionate love, and put up with this, that's your adult decision, and I can't stop you.

 

However, you can't put out a fire by throwing more kerosene on it. You are both doing it to each other. You can leave, you can give each other chances to be more stable, or you can put up with each others never knowing when the other person is going to explode. The exhaustion that comes from not knowing when your significant other is going to blow up is not something you want to experience for any length of time. It leads to such a profound fatigue that it's the cause of thousands and thousands of bad relationships and breakups.

 

You do need to work on your anxiety, and also, you need someone in your life that is a soothing presence, and knows how to calm you down. Trust me as an old man you don't want a quick fix guy for the rest of your life who is just as anxious as you.

[Kaitygrace2018]

I can see that but I should say that we don’t have fights or yell at eachother, there is no temper involved. This was a discussion. Basically the issue was that I was over sharing so much and he always wanted to keep me happy from being upset so he was afraid to hurt me in any way and never expressed how he was feeling out of fear. I do realize he has some issues bc he can not fully share with me yet. He has told me in the past I’m the first person in his life he feels he can truly talk to and I help him and truly listen. But even with his family he is used to holding everything in. What my worry is is that he is saying he is in love because he wanted to still make me happy...

[Kaitygrace2018]

He said he wants to be the person to help with my anxiety and he is always there for me, but that my anxiety is so extreme he feels like nothing he does helps or brings me out of the depressive state. To which my mother and best friend have told me the same that it is something I need to fix myself and I now am.

[Garcon1986]

The emotional highs and lows seem to be affecting both of your lives though. Is there any way you or his family can encourage him to be more expressive? It seems like part of his anxiety is related to holding back due to not knowing how his feelings will be received.

[smackie9]

I'm an old fart too and I know no one here is going to convince you to find someone more suitable for you. Yes I'm going to say it, you two are not right for each other. You don't want to see it, and that is your choice.

 

 

 

But you are young, and this will give you the opportunity to get experience and learn to work through it. From my experience and others, this won't be your last relationship. More will follow as you work on yourself, you will learn more about yourself and how relationships actually work with the good and the bad. Just carry on Kaity with what you are doing....

[stillafool]

He is only 20 and the burden of not being able to relax for fear of upsetting your anxiety disorder is really too much for him. You have basically asked him to never hurt you. That is a lot to ask from a young person who really hasn't started his life yet. More than likely this is a college romance and you both will at some point move on to other people because that is how life works at your age. I feel that you need to really get control of your anxiety before you even enter a relationship or you will continually have this sort of problem in future relationships. At some point this bf is going to break up with you because this is too much for him at this age.

[Kaitygrace2018]

How are we not right for eachother? I’m not following that. To me we just have a communication issue that needs to be worked on and I need to work on myself as well. We are best friends and completely comfortable around eachother and feel as though what we have is special...

[Kaitygrace2018]

He told me he is going to work on being more expressive and I might see if he would be willing to come to my therapist with me

[smackie9]

Wow only two months as BF/GF and you are wanting to invite him to couples counseling...what wrong with this picture?

[ExpatInItaly]

The dynamic you two have is very unhealthy and not conducive to a long-term relationship. This not just a communication problem.

 

He cares about you, but he cannot meet your expectations and he knows that. He obviously doesn't want to hurt you; unfortunately, you have put him in the uncomfortable and unreasonable position of promising he won't ever hurt you again. He can't realistically promise you that, OP, especially someone who is just 20 years old and has dated you for just 2 months. Asking him to come with you to therapy is just way too much at this point. It isn't his responsibility to draw you out of your depressive state or soothe your anxiety and it's not fair to have ever expected him to.

 

You need to get to an emotionally healthy place on your own. Then consider dating. I don't say that to be unkind or insensitive, but you won't have a successful and happy relationship until you are happy with yourself and have appropriate tools to manage your anxiety. This relationship is more than likely going to come to an end soon, and that's okay. You will have gained some experience, but you need to better take care of yourself so you have healthier relationships in the future.

Edited September 15, 2018 by ExpatInItaly

[Kaitygrace2018]

I never expected him not to hurt me again, just to not make an all day discussion about issues that should have been communicated by him earlier on. I know I put too much on him and my other relationships with friends and family and I have put a stop to that. I don’t see a point in ending something with someone I love when we are working through it. All I was initially worried about was that he was purely saying I love you to make me happy not whether we had a good relationship. We have both agreed that by working together on our issues and myself receiving the medication and help I need we otherwise have a near perfect relationship. It’s not that I wanted him to come to couples counseling more so that he can hear things to do to be supportive of me bc he is confused how to do that. My mother has done this with me before. I realized that I was expecting too much perfection from him and we have a plan now for me not to do that anymore. I know you are not being insensitive and our dynamic is off because of my mental health and him feeling incompetent but I do believe that is something a couple can work through.

[Kaitygrace2018]

I realize I had unfair expectations but that is something I am working on fixing and not putting on him any longer. This fixes the dynamic and we are growing together

[Kaitygrace2018]

I say this because we have worked through his anxiety in the past and come out stronger and grown from it. He still sometimes has struggles but we work through it as a team. I don’t believe this is a relationship that will not last long term because we have been able to work through the hard stuff..... like any relationship. We had a rough start in that we were together for a while and I went back to my ex then we began back up after that ended. We have come through a lot and this is the closest I’ve ever been to a significant other and he feels the same.

[Garcon1986]

Then realize that this is one of the most long and painful emotional things that someone can go through. You are choosing to try and fix your man and he is choosing to be a bit stubborn, and being a bit afraid of when the next time is, that he is going to make you upset about something. Nobody on here can make you break up. However, if you choose to take this painful road, you are welcome to prove us wrong. Know that the miscommunications and widely misjudged expectations will continue. Maybe try something like periodically committing to have both of you speak to an outside highly trusted friend to keep you both emotionally stable. When you both are in fiery passionate young love, it's hard for you both to think practically.

 

Many people have taken this way of pain and failed. I'm in the Bible Belt and so many young people here have tried to do what you are doing, and now are regretting making babies and then divorcing.

[kendahke]

How are we not right for eachother? I’m not following that.

 

From the beginning we had a difficult start

 

I get frustrated with him for not prioritizing me over his friends always,

 

almost any time we come home from a night out and results in me picking every little thing he did apart, and the “anxiety me” has come out more

 

This turned into an all day fight

 

he told me he has this doubt that he will ever get the feelingnback for me.

 

my anxiety and me not being happy ever due to it

 

I asked him if we should continue dating and he continuously said I don’t know

 

I now have a hard time trusting those words.

You were quite clear in your post on how you two are not right for each other.

 

You are overwhelming him with your anxiety--and he's not a therapist. He's not trained to be able to walk you through your minefields because he's navigating his own. You are asking him to be responsible for soothing you when you and your therapist need to be on the journey of you learning to self-soothe, emotionally. He can't be all things to you all the time--no one can be that for another person.

 

To me we just have a communication issue that needs to be worked on and I need to work on myself as well.

 

 

To the former: all the things I quoted from above are actions and not words. To the latter, it would be a really good idea to make that your priority (and him working on himself, too) and let the relationship come in second--because if you're fragmented, nothing you touch is going to work.

 

 

We are best friends and completely comfortable around eachother and feel as though what we have is special...

You might do better as friends and not as romantic partners because if you can't go out with him without you coming home and picking him apart for not meeting some unexpressed expectation you had of him, then you are going to peck this to death and nothing and no one will be able to save it due to the damage caused. Edited September 15, 2018 by kendahke