[BollaFay]

I don’t know what I feel anymore and I feel like I can’t trust my own feelings and instincts when it comes to my relationship with my partner. I also feel like I can’t turn to anyone for support because those around me are sick of me talking about it.
I feel like there’s a part of me that absolutely adores my partner and the happy times and cannot let him go, but there’s also another part of me that resents him and loses patience with him frequently (either for my own shortcomings or how he treats me sometimes). We’ve been together for four years, we’re 22 and 21and our relationship is very hot and cold and unstable.
Until recently things were going good for a period, and he was completely loving, compassionate, affectionate. But we fought a little and now he’s working two hours away for a week at a time, and he’s came back cold, indifferent and distant. He’s down there again and is once again distant. Usually he says I love you and I miss you excessively, and before he left he made a point of how he needs me and will miss me so much, but now he is just cold.
When things are going well, when he is very affectionate, loving and understanding, I feel secure but get frustrated easily. I lose my patience often, and after one or two times of getting upset he becomes cold, distant and withdraws all affection from me. I feel like I get punished for getting upset, and he completely focuses his attention elsewhere.
However, I try so hard to not become upset when things are going well from his end, and then I feel horrible when it’s taken all away. But when things are okay, a few issues seem to always play on my mind.
(1) Our sex life, for me, is pretty bad. A majority of it is us waking up in the mornings and him begging for a blow job. He seems to have no motivation to make me feel good, and is always too tired because he works so hard. When we do have sex, he can never last long or has to continuously stop. At first I was patient and understanding but after years it’s frustrating the hell out of me. I’ve lost motivation to try and please him, because he seems to just not care.
(2) He’s self obsessed. He seems to lose interest over me and my life and the things I want to talk about. He never tries to delve deeper into my interests or my day and no matter what I say everything seems to come back to being about him or the conversation is pretty short. And when the conversation isn’t about him after a while you can tell he’s bored. I’ve talked to him about this many times, and he tries to start conversations about me but it never lasts. If he truly loved me as much as he said he did, wouldn’t he care more about my identity and who I am?
(3) He’s patient when we fight and when I’m upset but to a point. After fighting once or twice in a short period, or if he’s tired, then he just gets mean – all empathy and compassion is gone. Really mean, to the point of blaming me for everything, personally attacking me (e.g., saying I can’t handle life very well), and yelling at me to shut up and get over it or to leave when I’m at his house, or he threatens to leave when at mine. I feel like he doesnt understand me at all.
(4) I really dislike his family. I’ve tried so hard to do many things with them, love them, fit in, and ask about them. But, his brothers whom he is very close to only talk about themselves, talk themselves up all the time and they’re all extremely opinionated and arguable. I get talked over a lot too. When I try to talk to him about this, he usually blames me and says I need to include myself in the convo more. Also, he was raised by his single mother and she is a full blown narcissist, whom lies and argues and puts others down relentlessly to get her own way. I see these “I’m always right, I’m superior, I know best, I’m always most important, what I want always takes priority” traits in him and that bothers me that this woman (with no doubt a pathological personality disorder) is the sole role model for his upbringing.
Is there something I am not seeing here? Because at this point I feel like such an emotional rollercoaster, I don’t even know what to do.
After four years it feels like I should know whether I want to be with him or not, but I just don’t know. There always seems to be an issue. And his love seems to always be contingent on my not being upset and mostly things going his way. My feelings frequently become invalidated, I’m often told i’m overreacting, over emotional and even when things are going fine i’m often told that I do things wrong or should do them another way. I can also feel that I’m becoming a selfish person myself, having to focus on my needs and my wants and constantly trying to look out for myself. I hate this, I want to be a good person and I believe that loving a person is about wanting them to be happy and about giving, but I feel like I have to constantly fight for myself. I know I have my problems too but I’m aware and continuously trying to work on them and practice self acceptance. I feel so insecure, like I have no self esteem and I struggle to know who I am anymore and to feel good about myself. And i’m terrified, terrified to be alone. This man has been my best friend and only friends for four years.
I see a lot of advice on what to do when you leave a relationship, or when your partner becomes distant. And a majority of it is ‘rely on friends, go out with friends so he respects you more, focus on other relationships’, all of that. But what about the person that has none? I struggle with social anxiety and I don’t have any close friends because of it. Its so hard to admit. I’ve been working hard to fix it and have been making progress, even trying to contact old friends but have had not a lot of success so far. I don’t even have solid relationships with my family because they all struggle with mental health issues.
I’m sorry for the long read. I know how bad this may sound, but please, I’m trying to be as honest as I can and I really need help. Please, has anyone been in a similar situation before and has advice?

[CarolynCockburn]

I have been having a similar problem to yourself, my current partner behaving perfectly for a few days, then going cold, and then after me breaking up with him, another week of the perfect partner. He blames his going hot and cold on his relationship with the mother of his children that ended with total disaster. But, I kept reminding him that he cannot live in the past and he cannot just throw away the chance of happiness because he is scared it will all go wrong again.

[Ask April Masini]

The problem isn’t your partner or your relationship. It’s you. 🙁 That’s the good news and the bad news.

Your relationship and relationship problems are just symptoms of what’s gong on with you. That you have no close friends speaks to your inability to have relationship problems in whatever arena a relationship may exist. It makes complete sense that if you don’t have close friendships, you’re going to have trouble with any boyfriend. My advice is that you shift your focus onto making friends. If it means breaking up with your boyfriend because you need to take care of yourself first, then that’s fine — if you can keep the boyfriend while working on yourself, that’s fine too — but the boyfriend isn’t the focus of the work you have to do. 😉

Start out by making friends. Figure out where you’re uncomfortable in friendships, and ask yourself why? Address the question — and I’m here if you need help with this — and focus on creating friendships that are meaningful. Ironically, when you do this, your romantic relationship problems will clear up, one way or the other.

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