[Anonymous]

Hi April,

Me and my boyfriend of over a year have found ourselves in a dysfunctional problematic cycle… i feel he is distant and unresponsive to me and unwilling to communicate, he feels that i always have a problem with him and yet doesn’t address my concerns… This leaves us both feeling unloved and uncared for although we are aware that we do love each other.

I’ve been trying to break this cycle by trying to be less emotional and more fun but i feel a lack of self-respect if i don’t address issues….and this makes me try to address them with him again…and again i am invalidated and he leaves and is even more distant…and i feel bad for having even brought them up…so i push them away again until the same issues arise (distancing himself, acting strangely etc) and i feel pressed to resolve them but he doesn’t and get’s annoyed at me again and the cycle continues. I feel that if he addresses the problems with me then we can get past it.

Is it manipulative of me to want my boyfriend to clearly express his feelings and validate the issues i’m feeling in the relationship? Is there something i need to address with myself? I would very much like to break this cycle.

[Ask April Masini]

If he thinks you always have a problem with him and are critical of him — of course he’s going to be unresponsive and distant. 😳 If you want to break this cycle, stop making him feel criticized. Make him feel like the man he wants to be. 😎 Men are attracted to women who make them feel good about themselves. If he doesn’t get this from you he’s going to find a woman who does make him feel this way.

Whatever these concerns that you have are, you’re not getting what you want from him, so stop beating a dead horse. You’re going to drive him away. Look at the concerns and decide if they are worth the price of the relationship. If they are, then you’re with the wrong guy. If this guy and this relationship are more important than the concerns you have, then find a different way to resolve them. YOU have to change YOUR behavior to break this cycle.

In answer to your questions, it isn’t [i]manipulative[/i] of you to try to get him to express his feelings — [b]it’s dumb[/b]. If you set him up for failure, you’re going to get failure. Accept who he is and take him or leave him, but don’t try to bend a guy into someone he isn’t.

I hope that helps. Let me know how things go.

And join me on Facebook — you can get more info there at AskApril.com on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 🙂

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