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Constantly walking on eggshells
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Hi. Need some advise.
I've been with my partner for nearly 1.5 year and I think I live with him. Somethings are good, however, there's a lot of disagreements and ongoing issues that don't seem to get resolved from his end.
Some behaviours are:
• being accused of cheating a lot
• being shut down - moodiness and "please don't speak to me"
• no emotional support - tells me to grow up and/ or leave
• minimal physical connection/activity
• no interest in planning things
• no interesting or refuses to show that he wants to know me more or meet my friends/family
• is always sleeping
• isn't motivated to do anything
• seems to be down and depressed all the time
• can be quite emotionally distant
• says really strange things and mumbles
• doesn't listen to what I have to say
• when I try to address issues (some of the above) he can never answer with a yes or no
• he usually deflected any feedback I give him onto me
• will check my phone and is very suspicious
• when I try to talk about improving on our relationship and discussing what I need from him (as some of my needs are not being met), he will usually put up a wall, become moody and tell me that we are "not working out, we can't keep going on like this, we need to grow as separate people etc etc etc.
• so rather than resolving the issue, sometimes, he feels like we need to cut things off because he isn't willing to listen to me.
I constantly feel like I'm waling on eggshells as one day he may be over the moon in love with me and the next, wants to get rid of me for someone else who he feels could be more committed.
Has anyone been in a similar situation and if so, what ideas can you give me?
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Hi Jsua
Reading through your dot points, I can see why you are concerned. At 1.5 years, you guys are still in the honeymoon phase of the relationship; it should not be that way. This is the sort of thing you see when the relationship is coming to an end.
The only solution that I can come up with is counselling; but I'm sure you have already been down that road. A lot of the dot points would suggest that he is suffering from some form of depression; he is obviously struggling with some internal demon.
I wish I could be more helpful.
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Jsua
hanks for your honesty and for reaching out. I had some of those points in a previous relationship but my partner was not depressed but addicted to alcohol.
. Would you be able to write a list of things you like about him and the relationship.
I read a book once that had a title like Too good to leave too bad to stay. It had many questions to answer. One exercise was to write out on a page ruled down the middle, the things you like about the partner and relationship and the things you don't. As long as the good things out weighed the bad I stayed .
That was for me and maybe if you looked at the good things about him and your relationship it may surprise you.
It is hard to help someone who does not think they have a problem and like my former partner think you are the problem. He said to me once I brought out the worst in him and maybe I did. Why stay with someone brings out the worst in you?
One thing I learnt is you cant change others so you need to look after yourself. if you want to stay you need to make sure you don't get hurt and you find ways to cope with the situation. It is up to you I can just share my experience but you know your relationship and what you want out of it,
I was wondering has all the points been there from the start of relationship or only an issue in last few months.
Let me know what you think and we can continue the discussion,
Quirky