[msfuentez]

Hi,
I’m in dire need of help because I don’t know what to do. I’m having a tremendous amount of problems with my boyfriend. Many people have told me to leave him including some of his own friends and famiy, But I don’t want it to come to that. He does not believe in communication when there are problems so, I don’t know how to go about that because I believe strongly that communication is everything. Whenever we have an issue he just wants me to let it go otherwise it’s an argument and he gets mad at me for being mad (ridiculous I know), and he won’t do it himself so I tell him “practice what you preach.” Sometimes I feel like he treats me like a child because when we go to sleep (we live together) we always kiss goodnight and before he leaves to work in the morning, when we have a disagreement, he won’t kiss me I guess as a form of punishment. I just want to get him to understand me and I don’t know how, I feel like I’ve tried everything. I feel he doesn’t consider my feelings. He’s avoidant when it comes to conflict but of course he learned that from his parents. I’ve talked to him so much it seems like he assumes I’m just always nagging so he’ll block me out. So there is no reasoning with him durning this time. I’m trying to be as patient as I can with him.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Fill me in a little more! 😉 How old are you both? How long have you been living together? How long did you date before living together? Is this problem new, or has it been there all along?

I’ll answer your questions as soon as you give me a little more to go on!

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[msfuentez]

He’s 25 I’m 23, we dated for about a month. He wanted me to live with him after about three months. I don’t know if that would have been a major problem. I noticed he had baggage after a while because he had mention previously he had been cheated on so his insecurities came on to me and some arguments began there. He would lie a lot about many things. For example, I stopped talking to many male friends to somewhat make him feel at ease and I told him I expected the same from him, but then he would still talk to his female friends behind my back and every time I caught him it would be an argument. Now, It’s to the point where he says he doesn’t care but he doesn’t tell me to leave. So trying to get him to understand me started about three months in or so. He said his parents never communicated when they had conflicts so that’s what he knows, but mine didn’t either and yet I’m making the effort but I had to learn with classes. Would moving out be better? We’ve been living together for about a year now.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I’m a little confused because you said you dated for a month — but then you said that he wanted you to live with him after three months. ?? Then you say you’ve been living together for a year. Maybe you can help me straighten out the chronology a little. But from what I can tell, you’ve lived together for a year, and only dated either one or three months past that year. Hope I got it! 🙂

Here’s what I can tell you. It’s always a good idea to get to know someone before moving in with them — my advice is to spend the first three months dating someone deciding if you want to continue dating them. If you do, then spend the next three months deciding if this is someone you want to be monogamous with or not. The slower time frame helps you make smart decisions, and keeps you from taking yourself out of the dating pool prematurely. 😉 You may not have moved in with him if you’d gotten to know these things about him during the first six months of dating! 😉

But since you’re already living together….. 😕 and from what you’ve described, it doesn’t sound like you have a communication problem as much as you have a disagreement over whether to communicate or not. Communication problems are when one person says something and the other misconstrues it. He simply doesn’t want to communicate with you! He’s being very clear about his boundaries here.

I don’t think, from what you’ve written, that you are going to be okay with this type of relationship where there is no communication. In fact, I think this is a deal breaker for you. I do think that moving out and moving on would be a good idea for you — so that you can find someone who’s more compatible with what it is you’re looking for in a partner and a relationship. But I also think you should slow down. It’s a mistake in most cases, to move in with a guy after only one or three months of dating (whichever it is). So try and really get to know a guy well before taking a big step like that. In addition, it’s unfair for you or the guy to limit who you each speak to. 😕 By trying to control his behavior this way, you create an environment that isn’t natural. It’s a lot easier to find out how he really feels about you when he’s allowed to speak to other women — and still wants you first and foremost!

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions, and also let me know how this all works out for you. 😀

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[msfuentez]

Thank You. So to my understanding you see no way of this situation being resolved?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

I’m not sure what you mean by resolved….. the way things stand is that he doesn’t want to communicate, and you do. You can either agree to not communicate because he’s dug in, and live by the relationship model he grew up with, or you can keep going the way you are, and grumble about the status quo, or you can leave the relationship and try to find someone who wants the kind of communication in relationships that you do. You have choices. 😉

If by resolving things, you really mean to ask if you can change him, that’s probably not going to happen — and in adult relationships, it’s always easier to change yourself than it is to change someone else. The best you can do, which it sounds like you already did, is to show and tell him what you’d like, and explain why it’s important to you. That gives him the opportunity to decide, himself, if he wants to do this for himself, for you, for the relationship — or not. But you can’t make him change. He has to want to. You can, however, change yourself! 🙂

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions — and let me know how it goes with him.

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