A person who wants the best for you will listen to you when you share that with them, and will change their behavior accordingly. So, think about how much of this does or does not seem to fit. When Dad was having a pity party, I flat out told him that he had driven her away with his constant controlling and put downs. Having a life outside of your relationship is important for both parties. Thank you so much. Once we finally separated, my depression has not returned. I did not in fact give up he left me. A Redditor has been slammed online for trying to dictate to their sister's boyfriend how they should eat their dinner. However, if it helps you have the conversation, invoke your therapist. And I have never regretted that decision even once. Its like, I am going to have a short break from the environment that is making me so unhappy. In the former case, dump him and run. If you havent dug into relationship issues all that much in therapy, here is a script for bringing that up with your counseling pro: I feel like we do a lot of work in my sessions on building confidence and motivation, but when I get home my boyfriend harps on me to do better and be better, for example (give examples). But my partner punishes me emotionally when I eat unhealthy food and dont exercise just sounds really bad out of context. Being badgered about food choices and exercise choices isnt going to help the LW build good habits. Your boyfriend may have felt secure with you because, in his head, you had low self exsteem and would not look for someone better than him. If you decide that its not, then break up with him and move on. So few people seem to get this. Ill offer help if asked, but otherwise, I try to stay out of itunless an (in)action is directly affecting me, as it was in this case. 18 Sure Signs He Will Marry You Someday: Cues to Decode His Intention, What Makes a Man Want to Marry You: These 7 Things. Sorry for the mix-up! I feel you. He sounds like a couple dudes Ive known in that he likes to be a fixer, which is not inherently a horrible quality in a person. In my experience, that kind of mindset is tough to crack. What were his biggest complaints about you during this time period where he stopped trying so hard anymore? But I know we never get the whole story with these letters. Surely being comfortable would be one of the definitions of success??? Because this literally never means My partner likes to get all the information about a problem before trying to solve it, or S/he really likes to do her/his research about an issue. Just. Its always so much easier to see things from an objective perspective when one is looking in from the outside. My husband is very *actually* logical and reasonable. Try Meetup.com, a class, finding an exercise buddy who is at your level and who likes to do the same stuff you like, volunteering. Hlepy is a word I learned over at Making Light. They hope wise Internet people will have a magic solution to restore their relationship to what they hoped it would be in the beginning. Thank you for getting me out of the house!. But it will definitely *not* help if Im already in a funk, other than possibly giving me an excuse to go outside and do something vaguely useful-feeling. Walking is brilliant (assuming you have the spoons and physical ability to do it) its gentler on your joints than a lot of other cardio, you dont need special clothing, and its free. It sounds terrible. We love each other and were helping each other feel better. Except now the LW is in therapy, things are getting better, the LW has a handle on it allbut Boyfriend still hasnt internalized this. OTOH, healthy eating and exercise are also always promoted as the big pop-cultural panaceas for depression and are indeed helpful tools for some people, sometimes, but unfortunately mesh far too well with the cultural meme that people are only sick (or fat) because theyre lazy, greedy or just Not Trying Hard Enough. That makes me so angry on your behalf. He dropped out of college to focus on being a sound cloud rapper. Even if he genuinely wants you to be well and capable and happy, instead of just better conformed to the you he wants, hes being hlepy. Emotional detachment. In hindsight a lot of stuff was terrible and controlling but because I was invested beilived what he said until there was no trust left at all and I had utterly tried everything to get him to listen. Pick one night per week that you alternate making dinner. A person who is invested in their role as the Helper and in your role as Lumpy Clay Who Must Be Sculpted is going to try to convince you that setting boundaries here is not in your best interest. If you are depressed, and your partner likes and loves you, and observes you engaging in self-harming behaviors, and is unable to support you or help you cease those behaviors, theres a real risk they will end the relationship. In some cases, he may have been enjoying chasing you more than having caught you. But when you the helper decide on your own that (1) theres a problem and/or (2) you have to be the one to fix it, youre wading into dangerous waters. Taking emotions out of decision making is actually a highly irrational approach. When he complains that youre not cleaning, is it because youve actually made a mess? Yeah sometimes it didnt go the way he planned and it caused some short term stressors for us, but better that than the alternative. Oh wow. This means that if you purchase a product through the link, we get a small commission at no cost to you. Is it because youve neglected a task you said youd do? First, lets consider the signs youll notice when your boyfriend stops making an effort. As the Captain and some of the Army have said, sometimes people need a bit of time to reset themselves mentally from caretaker, and weird things can stand in for anxiety about another person. Oddly enough, moving from a high-stress environment full of people trying to manipulate and fix me, and having a constant build up of pressure from JerkBrain on a loop of You promised you wouldnt, you cant let them down theyll be angry to a place where I was told Im aad that people bullied and shamed you, you have complete control of your own body and mind, and there is nothing to be ashamed of pretty much stopped it overnight. You should always have an independent life that doesnt revolve around anyone else. Am I the only one who says nope the fuck out of there yesterday? Having a jerkbrain say them is hard enough. I dont know your boyfriend or all of the details. At first, these negative aspects of our relationship were very minor. For example, depression is very tiring in itself. How To Get a Man to Commit: 4 Dos & 4 Donts, How To Make A Guy Want You? Is exercise great for depression? Whether it was a lot or a little, it will carry you to tomorrow. That said, Ive gotten him to doctors, fed him, and made sure he took his meds at his worst; Ive helped to monitor his moods and symptoms and brought changes up for his consideration when I notice changes. Basically, when my brain is yelling at me, but what if he gets worse?!? I suppose you could try announcing that youre going to change him into someone who doesnt do things he has specifically and repeatedly been told to stop doing, in his intimate relationships, even if you have to drag him kicking and screaming into The Land Of Getting Hip, but honestly, that comment above is an infinitely bigger red flag than any number of questions about your broccoli intake. I am going to assume that dude loves you and just wants to help you get better because he knows you want to get better.. didnt care to be badgered about things and it needed to stop. What Im getting at is its shitty when my father does this crap to me, its extra double wow shitty if your partner does that to you. And theyre not omnipotent (well, actually, maybe they are?! I grew up with people who were allergic to being encouraging. I have many fond memories of him. Yes. As a friend once wisely told me, theres a difference between helping each other grow and one person pointing out your flaws in detail after knowing you so intimately with the excuse that its supposed to help. Nows a good time to reflect on what each one has done throughout their entire relationship. He has ridiculously good boundaries, because its always clear to him who owns what. +1 absolutely, always. I certainly noticed the drop in my fitness when I moved cities to a place where I could no longer walk to work every day. The thing to watch for is a change in how they behave. So hes trying to use your own recovery to manipulate you youre not just exercising because you want to, youre exercising because HE wants you to in the way he wants. Even if you end up staying, youll be on much better footing if you know youre not bound there by circumstance. No-one can pressure him into anything nor does he pressure anyone else. I feel so much better and so much stronger. He has literally never done this. I dont know, maybe your boyfriend got out of a bad slump by getting really into exercise and tidying up his home, and hes being obnoxious about it because hes become the Helper. Again, fine line. Hell yes! Especially when someone you love isnt ready or isnt currently up to taking steps for their own well-being. Towards the end of our relationship, he became toxic, rude, and lazy. I have to agree with this. Point out to your boyfriend that he's not her savior and doesn't need to ride to her rescue. You may not actually want to be friends with her, but civility doesn't hurt. My ex was low-level abusive, (gaslighting, fake apologising then doing the thing again, blowing up at me when I asked why the thing I has asked not to be done had been done agan). Try and find the root cause of why your partner is taking it 2. I liked the suggestion made upthread to use the BF for practicing your new boundary-setting skills on. you can do it! the whole time. You are more important than he is. The way I look at it, there is a big difference between someone who has decided they need to push you to be your Best Self (which is often their idea of your Best Self), whether or not you want/need/that kind of help is healthy for you, and someone whose support and encouragement lets you push yourself towards being what your own idea of your Best Self is. I have been in a relationship for 2 years with a wonderful person who has low moods too. It sounds as though its not simply a case of dump him, because that can be hard, especially when youre trying to sustain a healing process. This boyfriend sounds a little like my mother, and finances have forced me to live with the rents for a bit, so I appreciate the tips and scripts Ive read here. 3) when I said, I walked for twenty minutes today! I 100 million percent second this. Dumping him when it became clear hed rather boss me around than support me! Exactly. You will lose your boyfriend if you clutch him too tightly. And it shouldnt sound like shes opening the floor to discussion on that one. Your current partner sounds amazing based on that one tiny story you shared. And I bet if you looked at that guys life youd find plenty of ways in which he prioritizes his own comfort over a nebulous idea of personal growth, because he sees himself as Just Fine already. And whats wrong with your alphabet, here, let me prioritize those letters for you. Worst case scenario, it can lead to more blatant abuse (sounds like he already has manifested abusive tendencies with the name calling and the silent treatment). Value to him also includes your offering of feminine energy and responsiveness, your surrender to connection moment by moment (which helps deepen your connection and renew his deep attachment to you). So in order to save your relationship, you need to find out what is going on and take corrective action if necessary. I also just wanted to emphasize that what your boyfriend is doing is SUPER NOT OKAY. If you were kind of hiding from them because you were depressed and have shame about how long its been, let it go. Like theyd be SO PERFECT IF THEY DID A B AND C. Unfortunately, the reality is that they are not there. As I was reading the original letter, I was thinking that the question ought to be how to break up with him. And if he wont respect boundaries, keeps behaving like this? Its not that men suddenly become secretive when they lose interest in their relationship, its that men are not by nature sharers of information in the same way females are. It can be hard to wait through the change. Your Mileage May Vary. If your boyfriend has trouble talking about his feelings, try asking him if there's anything he'd like to talk about (within your relationship or just in general). What he meant to communicate was like Lets try this thing together! or Im trying this thing and Im loving it! but it came out as How about you do this thing? He was reluctant to agree to stop giving advice, because it was painful and frustrating for him to watch me go through depressive periods and be unable to help. Do with that information what you will. 3. And when he realized that I wasnt counting walking as exercising but really enjoyed it, he encouraged me to think of walking as exercise, brainstormed ways WITH ME to fit it into my day more, offered to walk with me, and asked me if I wanted a pedometer (note: he did not just buy me one), 4) when I felt like I couldnt do anything but lay on the couch and rewatch TV shows Id already seen, he sat next to me and read, or watched his own shows with headphones in and just quietly let me know he was there WITHOUT JUDGEMENT. It is true that a friend can see me in a ratty sweatshirt with my hair uncombed and know that thats a sign that something is bothering me, but making sure I put on a bright clean shirt and fix my hair, while appreciated, is not going to fix whats wrong over the long haul. He agreed it might help, and I immediately went out and got them and it did help. Getty Images The Redditor wrote: "So I stopped him saying I'd appreciate. Even if he were good at this coaching thing (spoiler: hes not), he shouldnt be your coach. . That can be so helpful. We sat side by side on the couch, and he told my therapist how much he loved me, how much he wanted to help me, and how much it hurt him to see me suffering. Oh, this reminds me so much of one or two friends Ive had. Controlling me became an end in its own right, because it flattered his ego. this bit has me almost crying. 10 He Doesn't Ask You Questions. I wish I could say I dumped him, but in fact what happened is we got through the sucky date, and he later told me our relationship had gotten stale, citing that fight as an example. Id still be loved (and unhassled!!) You also have the feeling that something must be wrong between you two because it feels like there are more bad days than good ones lately. I wish you the best of luck and hope that you bear in mind that love alone is not enough to sustain a relationship you can still love someone deeply and make the choice that the relationship isnt healthy for either of you. Not immediately or perfectly, but noticeably and more over time. Your boyfriends Exercise more! A lot of men dont know what constitutes looking good, sure, but most at least know a clean shirt and something other than cotton or jersey material is the way to go. After it was removed, it was discovered ability to experience emotions was also gone due to damage from the tumor and the surgery. Annnnnd, suddenly I understand why my husband is forever puttering about in the garden. He didnt like the way I went to the gym when we went together. Like the Capn says, you are healing, so getting to a comfortable place is exactly where you should be. Whatever you could do today is enough. He might not even be aware that his behavior is making an impact on your life or how much it bothers you, so he may need to be brought up to speed. These are some questions many women ask themselves when they find themselves in this situation. Being supportive is hard. He used to love to know everything about you from the way you think and what you like your time to how it went. He seems to need to control LW to feel in control of himself, and 2. LW, I struggle with the things you struggle with. He doesnt want you to be as well as possible (AWAP), he wants your illness to be gone. Obviously YMMV, but Ive added that to my ever expanding list of red flags, right after people who proudly announce that they have no filter!! Maybe Im coming off as too harsh, and if I am I apologize. And I think thats something a lot of people have trouble with, especially when they have an idea of how the right way to be is (Ive noticed that people who tend to be rational often have trouble with this that other people make decisions that they would not make and other people have reasons for those decisions that are just as real as their reasons for doing something different). You will never be trying hard enough/doing enough, because it is not about you. I hope Im wrong, but LW, I think your boyfriend would do the exact same thing. Good luck LW, positive thoughts your way! Without the receptive, captive audience, it isnt nearly as much fun for him. There are other ways to address issues without him going cold on you. (Why cant the government just ask married or not married? LW: I feel you so much in this. Then, repeat what you want him to do and make the boundary plain: First, I starred (*) the script about diet and exercise above, because I think you should just stop reporting any of this to him and should in fact treat it as highly weird that he wants to know. (snort) Sounds like Mr/Ms Relationships Take Work! had filtered that phrase through the English-to-Jerklanguage translator and was interpreting it along the lines of Relationships take work, so I can totally expect Commander Banana to work on not minding about the money zie owes me never being paid back, and am hence absolved of having to do any of the work of becoming the sort of person who actually pays loans back., I wrote in to CA a little under a year ago (letter #568) and was floored when I read your letter this morning, because there was a lot of the same The Helper and the One Who Needs Help dynamic in me and my fiancs relationship at the time when it came to dealing with my anxiety and driving-related PTSD (FWIW, things are a LOT better now, although it took a few tough conversations to get him to see how messed up some of the stuff he was doing was.). Does he want you not to be depressed because it would be a good thing for your mental health and stability or does he want A Girlfriend Who Doesnt Act Depressed All The Time because that would be more comfortable for him? Too many arguments lead up to less making an effort. One of the most aggravating things for me is that I dont naturally have positive regard for my body outside of what it can do I think I so completely absorbed the idea that I was physically unattractive as a young person that some kind of athleticism seemed like the only remaining possibility for my body to have any kind of worth. I just want to say something about this part of the Captains advice: However, if it helps you have the conversation, invoke your therapist. When he was in a show that had evening rehearsals nearly every night of the week, I ordered personal Mahi Mahis like every single night. Get him to chase you instead." That is good friendly advice but there's a little more to it than that. I am an overly logical person. I feel like you are in some way owning your low moods and that makes me glad. What do I do? We dont need to split up so I wanted to highlight that things dont need to be The Worst for you to decide a particular behavior needs to stop. And if you have depression??? For the rest of us, it reinforces the jerkbrains message. Which did he pick, if you dont mind the question? Maybe Im projecting too much from my own experiences because your boyfriend sounds like my jerkbrain incarnate (btw, my jerkbrain is interested in my eating and exercise mostly because it thinks I should lose weight, hmmm), but this letter bummed me out because it sounds like you are making some great personal progress and your boyfriend is sandbagging you instead of giving you high fives and wtf is that about? I think it was the good Captain herself who referred to an ex as an interactive 3D display of how badly I was feeling about myself at the time. It sounds like the bf has two other specific things he needs to work on for this to be a healthy relationship: 1. And sometimes the answer is I cant. He wasnt quite as patronizing, but he did have a tendency to give me the same advice over and over. Do you ever get the feeling that your relationship would be completely over if you stop initiating texts or hang outs? Its a bit like regaining your sense of smell after a bad cold: not the sign that youre fully healed, but you are going to be ok. It could simply be as simple as the fact that neither one of you feels attracted towards each other any longer. When you don't tell him why he might just brush you off. My partner and I love the ideas of self improvement, but as with most folks, we often talk more about it than do it. Someone who doesnt follow your clear requests on how to help you might not be good at helping you, or motivated to help you. Emotion or relationship conversations have to start with establishing a logical framework of the situation that makes sense to him; if hes confused, he clams up in great distress. Expressing or directing anger towards the person in recovery from a medical condition? If your guy used to care and suddenly cant be bothered, thats a red flag. Only the writer can ascertain the true lay of the land, and Im very pleased shes seeing a good therapist; she seems to be on the road to recovery. Even though I cant even do hosting as much as Id like and my home is a bit of a mess. That you are so incredibly lucky and your boyfriend is a saint for dating you and youre an idiot it you let him go. and it helped him maintain his desired weight/made him feel good and he thought it was delish so it meant that I should. There are certainly some grave warning signs here the passive aggression being one of them; its so easy to let someone know how little you mean to them by ignoring them in the day to day, withdrawing affection and communication. Feelings of shame and guilt. Somebody who sees the good in you that already is there and currently exists. craniest, let me take this opportunity to say yay you for doing X! Ive had a major depressive disorder for most of my life, I *know* how damn hard it can be to just do X, and Im so sorry that the person in your life is being an unhelpful, unsupportive jerkass. I believe that my boyfriend (of almost 2.5 years) wants to help me succeed, be better, and do what we both know Im capable of. Friend, I miss you and Id love to see your face. This has gotten him in trouble a few times. I have friends who spell it shud because they think its a four-letter word. What your boyfriend is doing -whether he means to or not is *exactly* the issue that you are going to therapy to deal with. It sounds like hes making you miserable and hurting your recovery. Is he making home-cooked, healthy meals? So I dont get to do this as well as I used to when husband is away. It also meant i felt comfortable telling him things as they came up, instead of hiding them or lying because I knew I could trust his reaction. Encouragement. And how can we fix it? No give me your logical reasons why this is a thing that is hurtful, no I dont think youre actually hurt about this, I think its this other thing. I think Captains advice makes sense because, while getting rid of LWs boyfriend would be (according to many, I read) the logical consequence to his behavior, it is also true that you owe it to yourself to state your boundaries within this relationship, should it only last for one more day.
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