She is beautiful, funny, considerate and caring. She is book smart and loves reading. We connected over our love of reading and music; we love to travel together and explore new places together. She pushes me out of my comfort zone and encourages me to try new things that I wouldn’t normally do. She does her best to notice when I am feeling overwhelmed and tries to help alleviate pressures in ways she can. She has done her best to treat me like a partner; and coming from a prior relationship where I felt like I did everything and my ex never pulled any weight…it was refreshing to actually have someone put efforts into the relationship (and day-to-day life things) along with me.
Nominee for understatement of the year? 
Thanks for the info.
In this situation, I’d suggest a pause. Not necessarily a breakup outright, but you two sound like you’d benefit from, say, a 3-6 month long hiatus from the relationship. It could lead to absence makes heart grow fonder and you could also think, in silence away from each other, what each of you is doing right or wrong.
What is her past relationship history like? Is she the kind of person who always threw her exes under the bus and spoke poorly of them? That could indicate someone who never admits fault.
I guess I have three questions:
- Do you know what you need to do?
- What do you need to do?
- When will you do it?
And actually I’m gonna take her side here a bit. Maybe you’re not literally cheating on her, but she’s told you that she’s uncomfortable with your talking with strangers on the internet about y’all’s relationship, and you’re doing it anyway, without telling her. That last part–without telling her–is the emotional equivalent of cheating. She doesn’t want her relationship being discussed online, she’s told you that, and you’re doing it anyway. She’s right to think that you’re emotionally betraying her.
All it takes to fix that aspect of the relationship is to tell her. Say, “I’ve got to be able to talk about my emotional life with people on the Internet, and I’m not going to stop, and I’m not going to hold aspects of my relationship back even if my partner asks me to.” Say that, and you’re morally in the clear. Now she can decide if she wants to be in a relationship with someone who does that. But as long as you’re doing it secretly, her unease is legit: you’re denying her the opportunity to make an informed decision about the relationship she’s in.
And yes, I totally get how frustrated she is with you. You’re pouring your heart out to us about the relationship, even though our opinions don’t matter worth a damn. But her opinion is literally the only other one (besides yours) that matters, and you won’t talk with her about how you’re feeling? If I could only talk with her, I’d tell her to break up with you. You’re disrespecting her something awful here.
It may feel like you’re not making a choice. But you are. Every day you keep your feelings about the relationship hidden, you’re choosing to do that. Every day you keep secret the fact that you’ve told all of us about your relationship, you’re choosing to do that. Every day you stay in this relationship is an active choice.
Is it the choice you should be making? Is it the choice you should make tomorrow? Is it the choice you should make this weekend?
At what point will doing the work to keep these secrets and to stay in this relationship stop being the right choice?
There is, of course, a third choice: you could choose to speak up about the relationship, not to perseverate on whether you’re sounding irrational. You could choose to be vulnerable in this way, and to be honest in this way, and to recognize that you might fuck up but that fucking up is better than not trying. I suspect she wants this more than anything. If you have the courage to make this third choice, definitely consider it.
Really? Considerate and caring?
She complains you don’t express your ‘feelings’, but is upset when you do?
Sounds like that has gone by the wayside some time ago?
She seems to have you in a triple bind.
Wants you to express feelings but dislikes it when you do.
And then there’s the ‘how will we survive if you leave’ card.
I think you are in thrall to a manipulative (near if not actual) psychopath.
As I’ve said, we can’t solve this for you.
If you were family, we would arrange an intervention, as we had to do (mentioned upthread) when my wife’s brother got stuck with a sticky exploitative girlfriend who wouldn’t leave.
Wow, I don’t think that’s fair at all. Sometimes emotions are upsetting, and that’s okay. It’s okay–necessary, even–to talk about things that are upsetting. Wanting someone to talk about feelings, and being upset about feelings, aren’t contradictory. And calling someone a psychopath for it? Holy crap, that’s completely off base.
Thank you very much for your comment, your candidness and the providing of a speculative outlook on how she may be feeling and what she’s going through because of my actions (and inactions). I agree that the lack of vulnerability and honesty on my end is a choice, and one that only I can change.
But at the end of the day, I agree with you that it is a massive betrayal and disrespect for me to NOT share things like this that affect both of us, and to thereby not give her the chance and opportunity to make a choice HERSELF, with all the facts available.
I appreciate your perspective.
I suggest that you stop thinking about who is to blame. You seem to be using that to beat up on ourself, and it might also be making you defensive when you try to talk. Don’t blame her, either.
This is a killer in many relationships - they can’t talk because as soon as one person says, “I don’t like this thing about our relationship” the other person gets their back up and says, “Hey, that’s not MY fault! You made me do that by,…” Then the other person says, “I only made you do that because YOU weren’t doing…” And off to the races you go.
A variant of that is when one spouse says, “I don’t like this part of our relationship” and the partner responds with, “I know! I’m a terrible person! ” At which point you then immediately forgive and do anything to stop the tears, and nothing gets settled again.
Instead, talk like you are discussing the relationship of two strangers, and set rules that there can be no blaming until you both air your issues.
Blaming and fighting and crying is often an adaptive way to avoid addressing uncomfortable truths. The participants might not even realize it - they’ve just adopted strategies that work, and they become second nature.
@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness is spot on with their last post.
ISTM there needs to be a “come to Jesus talk” between the two of you (sorry if that is indelicate on Good Friday).
Bottom line there are clearly profound problems with this relationship. Period. Full stop.
There have apparently been many heated arguments where you talk past each other or…something…but never come close to a resolution. More importantly, you two have been at this for a long time now and it never, ever, ever seems to get better.
Can you (OP) imagine continuing this for years? The rest of your life? I do not think that is good for either of you or the children.
I think there are two choices here. A very serious and difficult and profound work on building a better relationship or, separating and going your own ways. I honestly think the second option is the better one. You two have been at this for a long time with nothing improving and seemingly getting worse. And this is casting no blame on either party…I think you both are super bad at communicating.
It may be scary for you. And it is not easy. But the alternative seems worse to me.
Thanks, and likewise.
I’m honestly not sure you do. Saying it’s a betrayal, while choosing to continue the action, doesn’t seem like you appreciate what I’m saying.
Are you going to take the action you know you need to take?
I hope your next update is that you’ve done so.
With all due respect, I disagree with you here. He’s talking to anonymous strangers using an alias. We don’t know who he or his Partner is and there is no way to trace anything back to them so there really isn’t any invasion of privacy. There’s no “cheating” as he’s looking for outside perspective, not seeking a substitute for some emotional or physical aspect of the relationship.
It sounds more like a control issue on her part. She doesn’t want him talking to someone who is going to reinforce what she already knows. That their relationship is fundamentally broken.
I’m not a mental health professional, nor could I really make a diagnosis from a few message board postings. But what the OP describes does sound like the sort of controlling behavior I’ve witnessed in couples where one party (usually the woman) is suffering from emotional or mental health issues like depression or anxiety. Their anxiety does not come from something real (or at the very least it’s highly exagerated based on the circumstances), but it’s how they feel. So they project it onto the other party. Almost like “I don’t know why I don’t trust you, but I don’t so I need you to bend over backwards to prove to me that you’re trustworthy so I feel better.” Any attempt to counter with logic is seen as an attack and just makes things worse. Because it’s not based on anything real, there the other party can never do enough to make their partner feel better. Typically the partner will make them feel guilty and suffer for it.
The thing is, the OP is this miserable now PLANNING THE WEDDING. He sounds like someone saying he’s afraid to step off a set of railroad tracks with a freight train bearing down on him because it might hurt the locomotive’s feelings.
Indeed.
I suspect it is a fear of “what happens next” combined with “the break up will seriously suck and I don’t want to face that.”
I get it. I’ve been there and it keeps you pinned in place until things break and when you get there it is even worse.
No doubt a break-up will suck on many levels. I think it is still probably the least bad solution out of mostly bad solutions (I cannot see a good one that isn’t magic). As has been said, this relationship seems fundamentally broken.
I certainly respect your understanding of your own privacy. But it’s not your understanding that’s at issue; it’s hers. If she doesn’t want her laundry aired with strangers, that’s a boundary she can set. She should have the option to leave a relationship where that’s happening. By not telling her that that’s happening, when he knows she’s uncomfortable with it, the OP is denying her the ability to leave a relationship where she’s uncomfortable with what’s happening.
Myself? I’d be totally fine with it. But if I weren’t, I’d want to know if my partner were doing it.
I started reading this thread thinking that SHE was the one creating all the drama in their relationship, but the more I read, the more I think it’s mostly HIM. A few posts up, our OP gave us a list of what he likes about her, giving her a pretty glowing review. It sounds like he really does care about her. Too bad he doesn’t care enough to let her go, so she can find someone who will actually respect her feelings and be a decent partner.
The thing is, we really don’t know because we only have his side of the story. The OP describes himself as very conflict avoidant and too much of a “people pleaser” and describes his Partner as “anxious” and “depressed”. Any of these can be a relationship killer because it makes it hard to tell if either of them are communicating honestly and effectively. It also makes it hard to tell if their grievances are rational or reasonable. Anxious people tend to blow things out of proportion or get obsessed about certain things out of proportion to their actual importance. And conflict avoidant people tend to avoid conflict and travel the path of least resistance so things often never get properly resolved.
But one thing is clear - if they are having these difficulties now while planning the wedding, that’s a pretty good indicator that they aren’t compatible to actually get married.
They definitely should not get married. But I still think OP, just from his narrative, is definitely closed off with sharing his feelings with the one person he actually needs to share with.
I have noticed that he also hasn’t been heard from in this thread for a couple of days. Maybe he’s going to honor her request to stop talking about their relationship with internet strangers?
OP, I suggest you apply the “death test” as a quick way of checking to see how you feel about a relationship. It may be very tasteless, but it can be very effective.
Suppose that, tomorrow morning, your partner dropped dead of natural causes; i.e., a heart attack or stroke. Would you feel a sense of secret relief and release?
If yes, then you know how you feel about the future of your relationship.