Is this when the love dies?

[Miss Yu]

guys, i'm confused. need some insight.

i have been together with my boyfriend for almost 2.5 years. or we met 2 and a half years to be exact, but didn't start dating until after almost 9 months. anyways, we had our ups and downs as most couples. we have been officially living together (splitting rent since april 2007). now we decided to move to a new place and get a lease in both our names. here comes the problem.

i always suspected that he is extremely selfish. it's always about him. he's an extremely self-absorbed person. i work, i go to night school, i go to the gym, attend toastmasters meetings, clean the apartment and then at the end of the day he expects me to feed him. and to be honest, i'm fine with that. i do like cooking for him and taking care of him. but it hurts me because he never has any energy to do anything for me.

my birthday was a month ago and i never got a present. there is so much stuff that comes before me: himself, his work, his computers and computer parts, computer games. i'm not a clingy type, i have my work and things to do. i am very self-sufficient yet i'm wondering why. he makes me feel that way, like a clingy naive girlie. he readily shares my things, but not his. he doesn't contribute to running the household - would never take out the garbage if i don't remind him; would never wash the dishes just for the sake of helping me; he uses toothpaste and shampoo, yet he never ever bought a bottle. i really am not cheap, but this i don't give a damn kind of attitude gets to me. all those actions just show how little he cares or how good a husband he'll be in the future.

now, every time we fight, he gets madly angry, calls me a nagger and overly controlling. and that's how i actually feel now. i can never ask him anything. he kept me out of dealing with the real estate agent when we were looking for a place. he just wanted my signature for the lease. this morning we had a huge fight and i re-assigned my rights and responsibilities to him for our new place and he gave me the cheque for a deposit.
and guess what, i come to work and get an email from him to tear up the cheque and come live with him. i have a feeling that it's gonna be fighting all over again.

i don't know if i am ready to break up with him yet. but it's toxic, oh man it's toxic. i have grown professionally with him. but personally i'm toxic. i have gained a lot of weight because i decreased my gym routine, i am more angry as a person. i feel like i'm burdening him and asking too much. yes, i am allowed to ask him for help just as much as he is. we are together to make it easier for each other. i don't ask him to wash my clothes, to wash my dishes. i don't ask anything from him because every time i do, he rolls his like as if saying oh, there she goes again. he always tells me how much he loves me. those are words. those words are not backed-up by his actions. words, words, empty promises is all i get. my dreams are crashed and my hopes too.

i mean i understand that it's time to let it all go. we have been so much through back and forth that it will be embarrassing to explain to my family why we are not moving in together on the 1st. i'm not sure i can endure any longer.

any advice? i'm lost...

[Erki]

You said that you always suspected that he is extremely selfish, so I guess he was like this already when you met? Or? If he hasn't changed in these 2.5 years, I don't think he's gonna change anytime soon. Or more like, maybe he will change, but only if he wants to, and from what I read from your post, it doesn't seem so...

GO!
Lots of luck and good love to you!

[tylerlloyd]

You sound like an amazing person that really deserves better. I can also see that his aloof attitude, while being toxic, has its own way of making you want to stay around and see if things won't get any better.

Anyway, that is the impression I got from what you wrote.

I say, you need to jump that ship before it takes you down with it. It sounds to me like he wants a person to replace his mom, not a partner.

From what you wrote I gather you are financially independent of him - the hardest part would probably be the emotions of breaking up - but once that's over, you are free to find someone who deserves you.

But, that's just my outsider perspective. Consider with caution.

[Miss Yu]

You are absolutely right. I am hoping and hoping and hoping. I feel like an idiot swallowing those promises that things will get better. I'm financially independent of him, but somehow he makes me feel bad when I spend my own money. I mean he would take me out once every 2 months and then reproach me for that, that he's spending too much money on me. You know, it is funny how now everything is coming together. He would always tell me that he brags about me to his friends and co-workers, that I do for him this and that. Yet, I have nothing to say to mine. In fact, my friends dislike him a lot. He tells me what his mom does for his dad and how she shows interest in his father's interests, but he doesn't say what his father does for his mom. i don't mean to count everything, but he got me to this point. He doesn't cherish the gifts I give him - his material stuff is more important that anything I have ever given him. He had a dream the other night that I was with my ex boyfriend. And he started suspecting that something was wrong. I'm a very faithful person and do go cheating around just because he is not making me happy. But he'd blame anyone but himself that we are distant now. The longer we stay together, the more I realize that he has everything I don't want in a man as a potential husband. i have a wonderful example of my parents and the love they have for each other after being together for 25 years. i mean my dad brings my mom flowers with no particular reason a couple of times a month, he helps her around the house and she doesn't have to ask him a million times.

i feel like i turned into a miserable and nasty person to be around. i don't like myself right now.

[Miss Yu]

and i don't know if he's always been selfish, i suppose so because i have never been selfish and i haven't become since we have been together. i mean even in bed, when he is done, he is done. he would never ask me if i liked it or what can he do do make it feel better for me. i used to enjoy our sex life, but now i went off birth control just to find an excuse not to have any intimacy with him. i can't because i feel emotionally resentful and he thinks that i just have issues in my head and that i am a psycho. every time i think about how i and we got this way, it makes me cry because my parents didn't raise their little girl to be suffering and i know it upsets them to see me so stressed out. it almost became my normal state - being stressed and miserable.

[Miss Yu]

this, this is what i get after we fight....he doesn't understand the word no...or rather i am probably not clear enough. here's his email from the morning

"Hey angry girl, I love you. Tear up that stupid check and let's go to our
nice new place.

Let's go out to Ikea this week-end and pick out everything we want, I'll
buy you some stuff for your birthday. We can just get it delivered later.

See ya soon and remember we belong together!"

It's like a curse on me. The more I try to get out, the more I get sucked in...like swamp...

[NotesMaeve]

(((Miss Yu)))

My ex fell victim to depression and became very selfish like this, with no interest in recovering or working past it. And that's why we're exes. It's hard moving on and thinking about all the work I put in: The trying to make healthy meals, making sure I looked attractive to him, the attempts to get him to do things with me, but he just wanted to lie around, yell at me/avoid me.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a person is stop enabling them and leave. PM me if you need anything.

[Miss Yu]

You're right....I can't even say that I love this man anymore. I know that he wants to hear that from me. And I can't. I feel like it will be lying, lying to myself in the first place. In no way I make love material and I'm not scared of occasional disagreements, but I always have to know that he loves me and feel that. I see no proof. I hear words and see no action. Have I become selfish to measure love by what he does for me? I don't feel this way, because I love doing things for him. I love making him feel good and appreciated. His parents divorced when he was 12 and I think with me he got his real family back. I'm Russian and Russian women know how to take care of men.
But I'm a woman and I want to feel appreciated. I'm strong and independent and I'm demanding. In no way i'm perfect, but I spend more time being upset than happy. I think I just answered my own post.



Feel stupid that I wasted so much time and energy looking for a place for us. He did too, but he'll be the one staying there because I can't afford that place on my own.

[tylerlloyd]

It's good to see someone who understands what she wants out of life - and is willing to let go of what doesn't appreciate her.

A lot of people try to hang on to nothing - the empty words of what once was a lover. But it seems you already know that actions speak louder than words.

Good luck to you.

[opinestle]

Hi,Miss Yu!!~

Holy crap,girlie......GET OUT!!!!!I am speaking from experience.I was in an abusive relationship for almost 7 years,and so much of what you have just said sounds eerily familiar.

GET OUT!!!!!It is only a matter of time before his emotional abuse turns to physical abuse.


GET OUT!!!!!Men like this know how to push your buttons(the buttons that make you want to stay)


GET OUT!!!!!For the sake of your future.For men like this,there is a term I like to use.....and that would be an energy sucker.They like to suck the life force out of you,so you will become more subservient to their will,and when the abuse goes from emotional to physical,you may just sit there and take it.


IMO....GET OUT!!!!!


Take care of yourself,sweetie
opinestle

[Angela]

Dtmfa!!!!!!!

[Miss Yu]

You'd be surprised that he actually calls me that. That's all my nagging is a waste of time, why he wastes his energy away on me. He doesn't care if it hurts me and makes me cry. He says that those moods of mine come out of nowhere. Really, they don't. Maybe I am too strong to call it abuse or maybe just too stupid. Now he leaves me another message saying that he got us insurance for the rental saying how much it will be each. I want to break away from all this. Really need to. (((((((((((((((((((

[Miss Yu]

Angela, what does this mean Dtmfa!!!!!!!???

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Urban Dictionary

btw - I agree.

[Erki]

Angela speaks sense - again!

[Miss Yu]

hehe, it's funny. i didn't know what it meant.

deep inside i know that he's wrong for me....especially if my every decision to break up with him meets so much resistance from him. he needs me and he feeds off of me. i made up my mind and i think this whole moving thing is actually to my benefit. he can go and i will stay where i am now until i find a better place (my current apartment is in the basement; i'm so natural-light deprived). i feel so much better now.

on another note, really, when does one know it's over?

i hate to think in materialistic terms, but really when is it? when love stops to satisfy me emotionally? when it drains me rather than gives me wings to fly? when it hurts does it mean it's real love or it's just your ego getting hurt?

how does one know?

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

It's over when you decide it's over. Your relationship cannot satisfy you emotionally or drain you or hurt you...unless you let it. When you find out how to satisfy yourself emotionally and give yourself wings to fly it will be much easier to decide to be in a relationship or not because it won't need to do anything for you rather than be an added bonus to your already fabulous life, a vehicle through which to share yourself with someone else.

In this case, you're verging on contempt for your partner which I think is a good indicator that things aren't right. I don't think it's likely to get better as long as your opinion of him is so low. The best choices from my point of view are 1) get out (would seem to be the consensus) or 2) change your attitude and see how it affects things.

[Miss Yu]

Hmm, interesting you mention that. I wouldn't say that my opinion of him as low, but it got lowered down a lot. We started out as talking. And I really mean talking - we'd spend hours on the phone (8-12 hours if you can believe that). Our relationship started slow and I got to know him better before I jumped in. He is an extremely intelligent guy, but not emotionally intelligent. His love for his ex lasted 10 years and she was abusive to him in a way that she neglected and led him on for so long.

I used to adore this person. His way of thinking is quite radical, he's very intelligent and bright. He's extremely well-spoken and talented at what he does. Intelligence is my main turn-on....it makes my mind soar. Yet, after I got to know him closer, I realized that he is also selfish and negligent of me. I thought I wanted too much. But I don't think I do. I compare him with my dad a lot. My dad is clean and very neat and my boyfriend is sloppy and he never irons his clothes. He can just pick up off the floor and go to work like this. At first I tried to show him how to hang his pants properly so you don't need to iron them every morning. I ironed his clothes. I took very good care of him as I believe that he reflects on me and vice versa. I put a lot of effort into looking good, especially good for him. We have been living together for the past 6 months and before he was always at my place. Not once, this man offered to buy a tube of toothpaste or wash the towels that he is using. He'd go do laundry, his socks or whatever and that's it. He'd put his dishes in the sink and never touch them. It'd drive me crazy because I was brought up in a squeaky clean house. Then I thought it was ME. I thought I was nagging him and annoying him by asking him to clean up after himself. I never asked him to wash my clothes or to do my dishes. Like he would anyways. That's how my opinion got so low. When it's my birthday and he never even gives me a flower. He says he didn't have time to plan for it. He had hours to play his computer game and not to spend 10 mins to pick up a flower on the way from work???

That's what counts. Not those touchy-feely I love yous and then where's dinner type thing. I love taking care of my man and I love it when I am being taken care of. It's either I'm messed up in my head and I expect unreasonable or he's not the one for me. I expect a lot from myself and I deliver a lot. I think I deserve a man who will cherish me and make me happy and actually show that to me. I'm not an overly demanding high maintenance ♥♥♥♥♥, I deserve to be happy and it will be his big loss to lose me just because he's so selfish.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

From that I took that he is generally not a very neat or thoughtful person. If you must have those things in a partner then it is best you look elsewhere. He is who he is. The same way you feel hurt by him calling you a nag is probably how he feels when you tell him he's too messy (or tell him how to hang his pants).

I am not saying you should not look for someone else, but simply that you are you and he is him. You are basing what he 'should do' on the way you do things. That approach is destined to fail, or at the very least to create unhappy people.

My boyfriend does some of the same things, but I've decided to look at them in a different light. You may decide you'd prefer to look for someone who fits your standards as is, which is a great idea. As an example, my boyfriend will not wash dishes, but on the other hand he cooks. Also, it makes no difference to him if there are dishes in the sink, that's my pet peeve. If I were to expect him to see it the same as me, I would be sorely disappointed in him for not getting the kitchen back to clean after every meal. I would nag, we would fight, it would suck. As it happens, I just do the dishes. It takes me hardly any time at all, we don't fight and something that's very important to me gets done.

Now, I am not saying this guy is some gem that you should stay with, but just giving another perspective based on my own experience. You are comparing him to your dad and to yourself, but he is neither. It's not that your expectations are unreasonable, just that he has different ones. Like, he doesn't care if he goes out of the house in a wrinkled shirt, while you think people should look their best as they reflect on each other. I doubt he goes out in his wrinkled shirt thinking it has anything to do with you in the least.

ETA: I do think the birthday thing stinks.

Also, I am wondering if you set out any expectations when you moved in together about who does what chores or buys what household items?

[lizthefair]

Only you and he know what your relationship is really like, but from the outside it seems to me that you can't get out fast enough.

You may feel silly or disloyal or what-ever to be saying things about him that aren't exactly nice, or feel like you are over-reacting--but in a lot of ways you may have been programed to feel that way.

If he gets all (or even most) of the benefits of the relationship, and you do all (or most) of the work-- housework, emotional work, etc. then you are probably getting the shaft.

If you choose to leave, do be careful. Obviously I don't know this guy but it's not unheard of for emotionally abusive, or borderline abusive people to become violent when crossed.

[bluskygirl]

Reading your post is like reading my own journal from a year ago. I was also with a man like that. The world revolved around him. It wasn't what he could do for you, it was what you and the world could do for him. If I raised an issue, he would remind me how ungrateful and selfish I was because I didn't appreciate that he paid for dinner two nighs ago or some random thing he would come up with. He seemed to think that I should consider myself the luckiest person on EARTH just to be with him, and that he didn't have to respect me, reciprocate in anyway, or be present in the relationship.

I suppose it was a lack of self-esteem (I had just gone through a divorce) that kept me with him, but looking back on it now I realize how truly spirit-squashing it is to be with someone like that. Free yourself from it... even if it hurts at first, you'll thank yourself later. I have been happily single now for a year and a half and it was the best damn thing I could have ever done!

Don't ever sell yourself short! Don't settle for anyone or anything. The perfect person is out there just for you; the longer you stay with a person you know to be not "right" the more opportunities that are missed for you to find the one. Best of Luck!!!

[Ree]

Reading your posts I am thinking that you already know what to do. Deep down inside, you know what kind of future you would have with him. To predict someone's future behavior you look at his past behavior. I wish for you the strength to make the right decision and to never look back!

[MarkA]

Agree with Angela. Move on....

[Miss Yu]

i came back from school and couldn't feel more encouraged. i have to admit that it hurts like hell. we used to have great time together, but it's over now. i might have come across and obsessed on washing the dishes...i'm not..really. when i started feeling like i was taken advantage of, i offered him to split the chores. i do dishes and floors (sweep and wash) and he takes out the garbage and washes the bathroom. well, aside from me reminding him that the garbage/recycling is done every thursday night, usually i come home and he's sleeping (he's got quite unstable habits...sleeps when he wants and then stays up all night). i'm not going to wait until i start drowning in my own filth and dirt, so i wash the bathroom and i take out the garbage. you thing he ever offered to switch so he could do the dishes?? nope...

aside from that, we buy separate groceries and eat our own things. he never cared about buying any household supplies like scrubs and liquids and toothpaste. never. it's above him.

you're right, i made up my mind because this will never change...i got myself a biy, a selfish boy, who puts his needs first. my this and my this and i do what i want and i do whenever i want. he's always late for work and has zero respect for my or other people's time.

ha, really, i just answered my own question. if only it was really that easy. well, i'm occupying myself beyond possible so i have less temptation to give in.

thanks a lot girlies. i appreciate your insight.

[Peter S C]

Wow you sound like a great catch. I think you deserve better. Good luck.

[Likes 2 Read]

Originally Posted by Miss Yu

every time i think about how i and we got this way, it makes me cry because my parents didn't raise their little girl to be suffering and i know it upsets them to see me so stressed out. it almost became my normal state - being stressed and miserable.

In that case, it won't need to be embarrassing to tell them you're not moving in together -- they'll probably be relieved to get the real, non-stressed you back.

It's unlikely he'll do anything differently if there's no benefit to him. If he's getting everything HE wants from the relationship, and it sounds like he is, he has no motivation to change. So I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope that he'll suddenly wise up and start acting with consideration and caring.

It sounds like it's time to let him fend for himself. I wish you the best in finding someone who actually understands that BOTH parties in the relationship matter.

[Miss Yu]

it's all good. i'm very happy with my decision and i'm happy to make changes. you're right, if he's 31 and doesn't get that, the chances are that he was brought up this way and will never change. well, i serve my sentence there and i made him happy for a while. occasionally i get a bit angry, but really, mostly sad. sad he can't be happy, sad that he doesn't know the joy of giving others pleasure, joy of actually be giving. it's sad to see people who think the world is revolving around them and they are the only thing that matters. well, he blew a good chance. an excellent chance of having me as his life partner. i'm smart, determined, funny, well-read, well-spoken (4 languages i speak), very well-traveled, very well educated....and i deserve better. i deserve to be happy...i'm hoping he'll find his happiness one way or another.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Well, reading on it looks like he is pretty much just a leech. I didn't realize he was 31!

Anyway I hope I didn't offend with my posts. I tend to play devil's advocate sometimes, but it doesn't look like there's much more to this story. I know you will find someone who compliments you better. And this may be what he needs to spark a change...or not. Good luck.

[Miss Yu]

no, you didn't offend me. i don't know what really defines a leech in terms of love. we are such separate entities in terms of everything. i pay all my expenses 100%, we split everything. i guess you could call him a leech in terms of not contributing to the household. he thinks that life happens somewhere else and taking about it's a waste of time. i think that my love and willingness to help just turned into pity. i pity that he can't enjoy his life. i really did try to help. at the end of it all, he got better and i got worse. long gone are my joy and happiness. i think that deep inside i felt like i was saving him. he had a very miserable relationship with his ex who would run away on him and leading him on. i felt bad that someone could do such a terrible thing to a human-being. i need to be strong and not to let all my anger to turn in to degrading him as a human. i don't want to be saying you're this and you're that. i feel bad for him, but i don't want to tell him that he's a horrible person or at least he's been bad to me. i truly wish him all the best, but i'm scared that he'll do something bad or completely will lose his will to live.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

I don't think you need to give him a list of everything he's done, just let him know you need to do this for yourself.

And I know (really) how it feels to worry about someone and be afraid of what they might do without you there to help them, but he has to take care of himself. Even with everything you've done, he has to be the one to make a change. You can't do it for him as much as you might like to. In fact, this may be the wake up call he needs in his life. We can offer help to other people when they need it, but ultimately their salvation is up to them. It seems like you've done what you could, but he's not really asking for help. Also, you're sinking in the process.