Why is he like this?
Find a Conversation
| Sun, 07-02-2006 - 6:09pm |
Hi everyone!
I'll try to make this long story short. I met my bf (now ex) at the beginning of the year. We had a wonderful relationship - I felt secure and comfortable in this relationship like I hadn't with anyone for years. We are both in our mid-thirties and never married. We have similar career and relationship paths. He has a job that is very time consuming and stressful, but that didn't get in the way of our relationship. He was attentive and affectionate and wanted to share his life with me. Everything was going great until he bought a house and then a boat. It seems that with those two added responsibilities, he couldn't balance his life anymore. He started to become critical and distant and less affectionate with me.
It finally erupted in May when I left him a terse voicemail message because he hadn't called when he said he would and I was in a bad mood. That resulted in text messages from him that we should just break up so that I wouldn't have to worry about him making me angyr anymore. Also that he was stressing a lot and just wanted to be alone. After a few days, he came back and apologized and said he didn't mean any of it. He just didn't care about anything when he did that. He said he needed to work on getting his life under control and feeling better about himself.
I told him that I understood the stress he was under and that if he wanted to try to work it out, I was willing. I know his intentions were good. He came up with ideas to try to spend time together and relax. Those things never happened though.
Finally, last weekend, we got into another fight. He left and said he just wanted to be alone and do his own thing and that I should do my own. I didn't hear from him all week. I finally talked to him today because I needed some closure. Here is his explanation:
He feels that nothing is going right for him. Everything he does seems to turn out bad. He doesn't want to be with anyone right now. He feels like he was going back and forth on what he wants (relationship with me or not) and that it wasn't fair to me. He said he never has time to go do his own thing or go out with his friends (not that I ever stopped him, he just never did it - if he had free time, he typically spent it with me) He knows that he is taking a risk that when he gets back on track I might not be there, but he feels like this is the right choice for him.
I, in no way, want to continue to have a relationship with him in the state he is in. I know it was not a good situation for either of us. I'm not really upset because I feel like I've been slowly losing him for a few months now and this was just the final step.
I guess my question is - why did he get like this? How can he let the best thing in his life go when everything else is going wrong?
Thanks for any insight.
Beth

Leave the questions of "why" he's like this up to his therapist, if he ever gets one and tries to figure it out. It's just going to drive you crazy to try, and most likely you'll never find the answer.
What you need to focus on is accepting that, regardless of "why", this is HOW HE IS. He either doesn't want to or isn't capable of being in a relationship when he's feeling like he's feeling and that's that.
We've all done the "why" thing, but I think most of us have realized it doesn't do any good. What does help is focusing on acceptance, so you can move on.
Sheri