There’s being stubborn and then there is being in scared of accepting that you failed. Take it from someone who went far too long in a similar situation, you will eventually leave because things will only get worse. And when you do, the only regret you will have is that you didn’t leave sooner and you will look back angrily at the loss of years of your life which you could have spent being happy instead of miserable. You will realize at the time that that was your true failure. This goes for whether he is abusive or just not right for you by the way. There is no reason to be unhappy all the time. No matter what the cause.
There is nothing wrong with starting over. Start your new life now instead of later. I promise you wont regret it.
Leave. Pack your things and go away from this man. Call the police and get a civil standby if he doesn’t leave long enough for you to pack and get out.
If you do leave him, be aware that that could set him off in ways you didn’t think he was capable of - I second just leaving and making a clean break of it. Controlling people don’t like losing control. He’s not a healthy man, and you don’t have a healthy relationship. You’re not a failure; think of it this way - as unhealthy as he is, you’d have to be unhealthy too to succeed in staying with him. Your own desire for better is what is making you not accept this situation. That’s a good thing.
I don’t post much around here, but I was in a situation almost exactly like yours, about eight years ago.
I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast to be with someone that I had been, I thought, in a fairly serious online relationship with. My home life was pretty miserable, which is was spurred the move.
I had been a Performing Arts major, but dropped out of college due to illness in my final year. I was working dead-endish jobs in a crappy area, and thought the move would be good.
Boyfriend pretty much ignored me when I got there, and wouldn’t work. Wanted to smoke pot all day. We stayed with his mother, who was a drug addict and had a gun. I went to school at night, looked for a job during the day, cooked, and cleaned.
Things got very bad between January and April. April is when I was dragged along on drug deals and had a gun in my face. April is when I bailed.
Don’t let it get to April. Seriously. You’re going to leave your job at some point anyway, and you can’t dictate your life’s decisions on a job. They’ll deal.
Do what’s best for you. Even if you feel like you failed, you’ll realize getting out of there was a good decision, after the fact.
I’m not saying pack your bags and leave tomorrow. Tell work you’re leaving. Arrange things. Save as much as you can. Make your preparations, and stick to it.
No offense to anybody who lives there and is happy, but there must be a bad vibe in Tuscon.
Not only with recent news reports, but from almost everyone I know.
I knew a Gay guy in West Hollywood - fell in love with another guy who came from Tuscon and he convinced my friend to move back there with him.
He was there about a month and later told me it was the saddest place he had ever lived in his entire life. He likened it to living on the moon, only with less excitement.
My brother and niece live in Arizona (Scottsdale and Glendale) and they mention how much they hate going to Tuscon, even if it is just for a day.
I was only there for a day, when I was 16, so I certainly am no expert on the area - but can’t say as I have met many people who say, “Wow, let’s go to Tuscon!”
None, as a matter of fact.
(I am sure there are lots of people who could say that about living in Vegas as well…)
Still…one thing I have learned in my old age is that you can always pack up and leave…(check out my locations)…and I think it is time you got your luggage out of the closet.
Stubbornly trying to make things work is only hurting yourself. You know now that staying will not change him for the better, only worse. Get out now before he gets more controlling and you lose your will. You owe him nothing, and you owe yourself happiness. When you leave, you will feel as if a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders.
If he finds out you are posting here, I’m afraid for your safety. Leave, go back home, let work find someone else. There will be another job. Regroup from your family’s home after you’ve had a chance to decompress.
You know, it sounds like you never really mourned the loss of the previous relationship. I don’t know what happened there, of course, but seven years is a long time to put your heart into something and have it fall apart. Then you jumped into this Arizona relationship.
Even if you want to stay in Tucson for the moment, there’s no reason why you should stay stuck with the guy (although putting some distance between you is smart.)
Maybe you should spend sometime on your own for a while, to think about your choices and what’s driving them?
Oh and the retail work that just can’t get by without you? Ever employer says that. Every employer would can you in a minute if had to. Don’t give your loyalty where it’s not reciprocated.
Thank you so much everyone for listening and responding. You guys are always really supportive.
I’m about to go to work for who-knows-how-long, and then hopefully work out the Boyfriend Situation to a point where we’re at least talking to each other. I just keep thinking like Dory from Finding Nemo: Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…
Don’t keep swimming, it’s time to jump out of the pool. I spent almost 6 months trying to get a friend to see that her boyfriend was gradually escalating his crazy stalker abuse and let me tell you it’s a horrifying process for those on the sidelines. The frog in the pot metaphor is correct - it’s all so gradual that you justify it to yourself and convince yourself that the moments of doubt are you being crazy.
Those moments aren’t you being crazy, it’s the gaps in the control when you can see clearly for a short time.
I suspect you’re not talking to your family and friends about this but you should. Particularly if there is one person whose opinion you trust more than others. Tell them what’s going on and what you’re feeling. Not confiding in those you love because they “wouldn’t understand” is one of those isolation steps that keep you in this situation.
In case the end result of this wasn’t clear - get out. The next time he’s away from the apartment pack what you can’t live without and start driving. Call from the road to quit your job. Don’t make a dramatic scene before you go and don’t hang around once you’re out. There’s a chance that you could have a reasonable conversation and then leave but there is also a chance that it would go poorly. Don’t take the risk if you don’t need to.
The trouble with waiting until it gets bad enough that you really have to leave, is that by then you may be too depressed to act on the knowledge. This situation will continue to tear you down, and the wound will only get deeper. You know enough about his character to realize that he is wrong for you. Get out.
And let me just add this - the part where you said you have to look down when guys pass? That’s not normal. That’s not even “deep-seated insecurity.” That’s “scary level of trying to control you.”
Your “Keep swimming” mantra should be aimed at getting away from him, at making concrete plans and carrying them out. If you manage to make life with him more bearable along the way, that’s fine, but you deserve better than this. “Bearable” isn’t enough.
Seconded. This thread is so alarming to read, like reading a person saying that they are finding it really quite uncomfortable and painful at times in a house that’s on fire but that they think they’re coping quite well, considering all the smoke and flames. But you’re just going to get weaker and weaker until one day you’ll find you no longer can get out. You are in horrible trouble here, Meggroll. Please, please do exactly what Moonlitherial suggests - no scene, no explaining to boyfriend that you’re going, just GO.
I’ll be thinking of you and will look for updates to see how you’re getting on.
A relationship that doesn’t work out is not a failure, as long as you take away some lesson, gain some knowledge, about yourself, about what you really want, etc.
It is a failure, if you can see the writing on the wall and ignore it, using some misplaced pride in being ‘stubborn’. (Here’s a clue, stop defining yourself that way!) It is enormously insulting to your own intelligence. The very first thing you need to do, if you find yourself in a hole - is stop digging.
You say you are prone to seasonal change, but the sunny days aren’t helping. Sounds like you are still balanced enough to recognize you are standing on the edge of a precipice. Toughing it out, being stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge what you can clearly feel in your heart, and know in your brain, is stepping off that precipice and free falling into possible depression and much worse. I would put it to you that few people are afforded the opportunity of recognizing a threshold choice. Please don’t override your own intellect out of some misguided sense of stubbornness.
If you believe the choice to leave will get easier to make, you’re wrong. If you’re afraid of facing the folks back home, who may well have cautioned you about making the choice to move to be with this man, then you need to recognize that you’re not being stubborn so much as prideful.
That pride could end up costing you your mental health, choose very carefully, what you do next.
I agree with what everyone else has said- this does not sound like a relationship it is worth spending more time trying to fix. It’s broken, and it’s not your fault.
You only get a limited number of years on this planet- how many of them are you willing to waste trying to keep a lifestyle you don’t want?
I’ve been in a dead-end relationship too (with a guy not so controlling, just depressed and needy) and I deeply regret staying as long as I did trying to fix something I couldn’t.
It’s stronger to make the decision for yourself to leave, that’s why it’s more difficult. You could spend a lifetime trying to fix this relationship, and it’d still be broken. You can’t change a guy that doesn’t want to change, you can just waste your time, energy and mental health trying. You can do better, but the longer you leave it, the harder it will be to convince yourself of that.
Your work will cope; yeah, sure they’ll find it tough for a bit, but employees leave jobs like that all the time, and if you came to visit in a years time, odds are half the people there would be new.
I hope you get out before this does get worse, and find a better life.
Meg. Please listen. You are not in a Disney movie. There is nothing to work out with this man. You need to leave. I don’t even know you, and I fear for you.
I hope you can hear what Filbert and other posters are saying. I’ve dated that scary, controlling guy, too, and it does not get better. The lists of things you have to remember to do or not do are constantly changing. There are more and different “eggshells” to walk on all the time. The need to read the moods of someone unpredictable and reactive is exhausting and scary, and the fear you feel when you may have done something wrong (but what? You think you remembered to look down when that guy passed, and you haven’t questioned him, and you didn’t raise your voice and no one was looking at you…so what could you have done wrong? Still, it must be something…and so it goes) will suck the very life out of you.
Get out, Meggroll. You didn’t break him, you cannot fix him.
Meg, I wish I lived close to you so we could meet for coffee and talk. I have been in a similar relationship, although it was a marriage. My ex had a good job, but he was in trouble in quite a few ways I didn’t even realize until our marriage ended. I had a bad feeling about what was going on, including how controlling he was, and I made the decision to get out. It wasn’t easy, but I did it, and the feeling of freedom I felt once I was out–indescribable.
There is absolutely no reason for you to stay in this situation. You gave it a shot, and it didn’t work. Don’t stay because you are too proud to go back home or because you love your job or this man. Your family will welcome you back. We all make mistakes. Acknowledge that this was a mistake and start over.
Think of it this way: would your work keep you on if they couldn’t afford to keep you on financially? They wouldn’t, and since you can’t emotionally afford to stay there, you need to leave. Don’t think of it as letting them down. Think of it as doing what you need to do to keep yourself safe.
