I just want to move on

I am busy getting myself into a really miserable place and I feel stuck in limbo. There's so much to tell, I don't know how to separate what's important from what not. I am seeing a counsellor who has been really good in helping me sift through everything.

I come on here to see how people judge the "evil ones" who "break their promises" or decide that "forever has an expiry date". I know that if I leave, I'll be the bad person, but I'm mostly okay with it.

Looking past all of his faults and the things which annoy me about him every day, I love him and I don't want him to suffer, I just want him to be happy and fulfilled. I just cannot be the person who causes that for him.

We just seem to be so bad for each other. I've always been the "emotionally distant" one and the unaffectionate one. I never understood why until I started seeing a counsellor earlier this year and I am working through things.

One of the things I asked of my partner was to just give me some space - I need to work this out and sometimes I just need to have a little bit of time alone. (I am talking 30 minutes a day, not weeks at a time!!). Equally with the affection thing, I have explained to him that it makes me feel uncomfortable, but I will try.

It started off mostly respectful (apart from once where he told me that he expected me to be working through things in my alone time - it's just a morning walk and it's my time which I don't want him to control). He then spoke to his therapist who told him something which just changed things. He's constantly just trying to get affection, grabbing me, pulling me and it makes me feel suffocated! I'll give him probably 10 to 20 seconds at a time, but he will end up just forcing me to be there. I hate this - it not only makes me feel suffocated, but then when I pull away or have to be rude to him, it kills me even more as I know that he believes he needs this affection.

This is almost a metaphor for the rest of our relationship also. Earlier this year he was looking at buying a bigger house and I was making all kinds of excuses to get out of it, because we don't need anything bigger and I don't want a bigger mortgage. He continued to persist, to the point where he forced me to go and look at show houses with him and continued to tell me how much I loved the houses. I just went along with it in the end until we put our house on the market and I realised the grave mistake I was making.

With help from my counsellor, I realised it was the avoidant in me and I had a long heart-to-heart conversation with my partner to explain exactly why I didn't want the bigger house. He agreed and it got put on ice - mostly because of the pandemic.

This week he started with the whole house thing again. The more I am saying I don't want to buy anything bigger, the more he is persisting. He'll say things like "don't be stupid, of course you want this". I know, I do not want this. Fundamentally it goes against everything in me, I want to live a modest life and live within my means, he wants a show-off life of material things.

I am not without fault here - I push him away, our physical relationship is virtually non-existent all because of me; I can't remember if or when I have complimented him or just made him feel good about himself (I haven't changed - this is just who I've always been in this relationship). This would make anyone feel insecure.

As I've been doing coaching and therapy, I'm on the path of self-care. I have become so aware of just how much I have been used over the years. Where I thought things were really just my duty (because I've been told), I didn't realise that we should be in this together. I have been told in no uncertain terms that I am the cook, but equally that he won't clean up after me. So for 20 years, I have been the one to cook all of the meals, but then also most of the time having to clean the kitchen afterwards! (And both of us have similar full-time jobs!) - and then also have to take all of the criticism, like why I didn't colour-code his vegetables, or it's too crunchy or too soft or why I haven't cleaned the kitchen yet or how could I make him the same meat as he had for lunch.

I want to move on. I want to have some time for myself, I want to look after just myself for once. I have never experienced this before as I have always had to look after him. The more I am trying to just have time for myself, the more he needs affection.

I think we are just not good for each other. My desire to be independent and just look after myself causes me to push him away and show no interest, this causes him to want to hold on tighter and force me to be there with him, which really just suffocates me more.

I just want to cut loose from all of this, but I know it will shatter his world. He believes that he needs me. I cannot cause this much pain to someone else, but equally, this is making me so unhappy. I need to just have some time to myself - I need space to think, space to see who I am and not have my thoughts and feelings controlled by someone else.

Hi Mulder00, I feel I can really sympathise with your need for space, and what it's like for that need to be disreguarded. Also, in my marriage I felt starved of affection (my ex wasn't honest about his own need for space, but would use tactics to keep me nearby, but at arms length)...I knew he had issues with being affectionate, but I didn't expect him to just make the effort for me...we all have our own issues to work through, right. Well, we've been separated four years now.

I wrote some resolutions today that came up from my therapy session...
I have in the past, but no longer:
Do things out of spite
Accept being robbed of material things, or of volition
Give up

It's important to remember that letting go is not the same as giving up. You deserve to have your own reasons for doing everything you do. I'm sure there's always some dissatisfaction, conflict and compromise in relationships, but it's only your relationship if you can be you. I want my relationships to build me up and I've distanced myself from people that steal my thunder, undermine my endeavours, or salt my wounds. I've had to be a bit lonely sometimes, but it's better than FOG (fear, obligation, guilt).

I'd like to think that if I'd had better boundaries with my ex then we could have been friends or even had a good relationship, but there's no way of knowing, and at the end he gave me the choice of bending to his will or having nothing more to do with him or his son. Considering the way he'd acted towards me when I was grieving my mother who'd died only months before, I had to choose to stay away. I wasn't even safe anymore.

You really deserve to be yourself, and I know it can be hard to act for your own reasons and in your own interest, especially during tough times, and if someone else seems so sure of what they want. Sending love, and wishing all the power to you, to get you out of the limbo you're in into a better place K

Seriously if you are as miserable as you share you should end the relationship.

It sounds like he’s clinging on and/or trying to trap you into staying, to me - him making moves to get a larger house/mortgage against your own desires is a big concern here, regardless of his attitude to materialism. Ditto the physically forcing you to be affectionate towards him, when you’ve already told him you’re trying to work on it. He can’t dictate the speed you make progress.
I get you don’t want to hurt him, that’s understandable. But, does he care that his actions are hurting you?

Thank you for all the responses, they are all so helpful in helping with perspective.

Currently working through things - I should probably leave much of this for my journal, rather than a public forum.

I think you should concentrate on your healing. It sounds to me that you are not happy with YOU and that is a big problem. You sound deprssed.

I feel that you have a person that loves you, lucky you as that is more than a lot of people have, so please give a space of compassion for the guy as it seems like you may not be completely forthcoming with your own issues. Be kind to you and work on yourself.

I was not comfortable being affectionate either, but I knew how much it meant and I wanted him to be happy. However, it wasn’t enough. I wish you all the best in your relationship. I hope that you all can find a happy medium to his needs and your space. It doesn’t happen overnight but good for you for working on yourself. I can say for me, I do appreciate and see the joys of being more affectionate. Hope you can one day experience those joys as well.

Hello Mulder. I just joined and saw your past post, which resonates with me. I was the one not giving affection and she has not separated from me because of it. The affection she seeks is important to her and was a deal breaker in the end. My heart is broken and I am a mess, but it maybe the best for both in the long run. It's so hard to see that now as I sit and cry every day and wish I could change things, but hopeful I will someday. I hope you are doing better since your original post

Dear Mulder00,

I can understand where you're coming from. I'm the one who left after years of debating it, mostly because we have kids together. I withheld affection and it wasn't always that way for me. It wasn't until I realized I resented him for not being the love of my life and not being able to accept that he was enough. Towards the end he did some similar things to what you mentioned - I'd always said I wanted to move to FL when he retires from his job and all of a sudden he was forcing me to look at houses with him in FL. In my opinion it was a last ditch effort and I felt it came too late. I was convinced for years of him telling me I was asexual because we had sex maybe 1-2 times/month and didn't offer affection when his idea of affection was to smack my butt as hard as he could or guilt me in to sex because "he couldn't take it anymore". In the end, I was the one who couldn't take it anymore. I'm disappointed to say it was an affair that opened my eyes to reality. Even in the midst of the affair, I asked him to see a marriage therapist with me. After a terrible night of screaming at each other his idea was that we needed a family vacation - and that's what we did instead of therapy. Now, less than 2 months after I moved out (divorce is filed) I know in my heart things will get better. We're still in each others' lives because we have two little people that we care about more than the rest of the world. I suffer anxiety and depression and lately I've had more down days than up, but I'm trying to remind myself I'm doing the best I can. My advice to you is if the only reason you're staying is because you don't want to hurt him, then perhaps you already know the answer and you're just working out the details in your head. Feel free to private message me if you want to continue the conversation.

I felt the need to come here and update how things have changed!!

I wrote my original post in August 2020. I remember in my therapy, this was a month before my own "deadline" of having to leave. I never did and kept making excuses.

In the end, we bought a bigger house together and it brought up even more resentment and unhappiness. Despite not wanting to move, he forced the issue and we moved. He kept complaining about the smallest of things - everything was annoying him (this is also how he forced the situation for us to move, because he started complaining about how terrible our old house was and their neighbours and so on).

We moved in around May or June 2021 and following a business trip where I was alone for a week in November 2021, I realise just how unhappy I was to return home. I will never forget the feeling of complete crisis, sitting at LAX airport, just trying to talk to anyone who would be awake at the time. I didn't want to go "home".

The next day, I broke up with him and went on another business trip for a week. This was a moment of my life where my whole future was uncertain, it was the first time ever that I faced this and it felt overwhelming, but I kept reminding myself to just stay in the moment to get through it.

Within a few days, I found my own place to live and I moved out, arranged for the house to be sold and get on with my life. December 2021 was probably the best time of my life and I just finally felt free and happy.

I was sure that I wanted to stay single for quite some time to just spent time with myself. And of course, when you say that, someone arrives and I am already back in a new relationship. Everything feels so different.

Ending the relationship seemed so easy for an outsider to say, but it was honestly the most difficult thing I have ever had to do in my life. (I even went to past life regression to figure out just why I couldn't get myself to move on).

It turns out, this guy was a narcissistic abuser. Being with someone like this for over 20 years, means I didn't know or see any other way. I just assumed this is how love worked and you have to live your life for someone else and to please them. I still recognise these traits and it's turned me into a co-dependent in my current relationship.

Despite being separated for over 8 months, his words still haunt me all the time. All my insecurities, all my anxiety; it all comes from the way in which our relationship developed. Turns out, I'm not unaffectionate at all, it's just who I was in that relationship - maybe I didn't want the affection because of the resentment from all the hurtful things he would say.

After the initial separation, I kept feeling happier and happier, I felt happiness in my life that I never felt before. I felt alive again!

Of course, as things have settled down and we are still sorting out the divorce, my demons come back to haunt me from time to time. There are great days and then there are days where I feel down. I even had to hide my new relationship for two or three months, because I still felt I owed that to my ex.

TLDR summary: if you find yourself in a situation like I was in and you have that gut feel that you need to get out, just do it. It took me a long time to get to that point - from Feb 2020 until Nov 2021, but it was worth everything in the end. I don't know what my future holds, but I know that whatever happens, I can make things work and I can shape it myself, without constantly being coerced into things I just don't want to do by someone else.

Dear Mulder00
Thank you for the post and the last update.
Im In severe stress and anxiety right now writing this text.
My problems with my wife started six years ago (2016) when I noticed that I am loosing my personal thoughts and myself. We have 2 lovely boys 10 & 6.
We argue all the time on silly things, but I think that the source lies in the fundamental perspective between us. We tried a couple therapy for 3 months 5 years ago, didn't work, she recommended that I should take a personal therapy, which I did for 10 months. After another 3 years of struggling (2019), I told my wife that we need to separate, I went out from home, rented a house and my anxiety broke me when I was alone, from loosing her, and the new reality with 2 kids. I came back home to the family. 2 years later (late 2021) I started a second personal therapy, alomst 8 months now trying to figure out what is keeping me with my wife, I am so so confused, Last week I told her that I can't handle it anymore, I want to get a divorce. From that time I am in terrable Anxiety, I don't want to hurt her or the kids with my desecion, she is very upset, angry, not speaking to me off course.. and the current therapy is not helping at all.
I hope you could shed light on anything 🥹.

Thanks

Wow this is a lot like my story except it’s with my wife. I know leaving would be the best for both me and her I’m just worried it will kill her. Yet I suffer everyday and I treat her like **** everyday.I’m so sick of being a coward and not being able to do the right thing. Therapy has taught me that I am not responsible for her actions but I just can’t get past how much I would hurt her. She deserves better and so do I. I hope you are able to leave someday for both your sake. You are both dying a slow death of pain in a dysfunctional relationship. I’m sure he’s not an idiot. He feels it too but he’s not strong enough either. Hope you find the strength. I’m rooting for you.

@Mulder00, thanks for the update. When I read your initial post I honestly felt you were in a relationship with a controlling narcissist. Glad you finally realized that and finally recognize how you were brainwashed to feel guilt if he was not happy.

Please keep moving forward and pay attention to your guilt because you do not want him pulling you back into an unhealthy mindset again. Narcissistic individuals are all about control and needing their ego serviced. They can really consume their partners in its an “all about me” relationship.

Wow...... there's so much in these posts from everyone that I can identify with so much. I've been feeling like I should
have left my girlfriend/wife for the last over 40 years. I knew we weren't right for each other but opposites attract
very strongly. This has led to a roller coaster ride over my whole life. The reasons I didn't want to leave are numerous.
We both have made terrible mistakes over the years. Sometimes you just stay out of guilt. You feel you owe your
partner something. I made the tough decision once , and all I wound up doing was crawl back. The basic problems
are still there. Most people do not want to admit their faults. In the end we're all looking for that " perfect "partner.
No such animal exists.

I came back to dig up a really old post and give another update.

@Open Eyes - I never really thanked you for the clear "if you're so miserable, then leave" comment. It felt insulting at the time, but it was helpful. And you are 100%, he was a controlling narcissist.

I've been suffering lately with flashbacks to the mental abuse. I would expect my partner to come down on my like a ton of bricks if I did something stupid (or at least that my ex would think is stupid), I would expect to be belittled, berated and shouted at. I haven't had this in two years and it's been bliss really.

I have been thinking about this messed up relationship recently, because I have finally found love and I almost didn't even recognise it. My conclusion is that my ex and I both grew up, never experiencing love from our parents. We were just two messed up individuals who tried to live together and call it love. I hated any form of affection with my ex, because I deep-down hated him. I didn't have a voice, he coerced me into everything, including the relationship (the start of our relationship was a trauma in itself for me really). Now that I have hindsight, I can see we were just two people who were hating on each other for 20 years. It feels so strange to have accepted his aggression and hurtful behaviour as love (he used to tell me that we hurt the people closest to us) - it was just an excuse to keep hurting me.

Anyway, I finally dealt with that trauma and accepted that what happened happened and that I cannot keep seeing myself as a victim of that relationship (there was a lot of good which also came from it, I was so focused on my studies and career for a long time, I achieved a lot of success outside of the house and truthfully, I didn't completely hate my life all the time. I just feel sad for my old self to have accepted what was going on - it wasn't right and I should have got myself out sooner. I actually told him right from the start I wasn't interested in him, but somehow ended up in a relationship with him. How did this even happen? Was I this weak?

No!!! He just cannot take no for an answer!!!

I left the UK at the start of the year to have a new start in Europe with my new partner. I'm even learning a new language. My life is so different to what I ever thought it could be when I wrote that initial post. I felt so stuck and that my only way out would be when my ex died. Our divorce went through when I was still in the UK and I was quite protective over giving him my details. A month after we broke up, I went to Tenerife and he tracked me down on a dating app and called me to ask me what I was doing on a dating app and if all I wanted was to have casual sex. I promptly told him it's no longer any of his business and asked that he left me alone. Two days later he told me he was going to block me on all social media for his own mental health. Ok. We only kept Whatsapp open to deal with the sale of the house and the divorce. Two months later, he sends me a photo of the building I was living in and told me that it's really nice and he's considering moving there after the house was sold. (This was his worst nightmare of a neighbourhood, part of the reason I moved there is that I knew it was highly unlikely to ever bump into him there.

The last time I saw him was when he insisted on signing the house papers in person. We met up in a public space, because I was genuinely fearful of being alone with him. He asked me if I was seeing someone else and I admitted to it (I was doing my best to keep my new relationship off social media for fear of upsetting him!!). He proceeded to insult my new relationship and told me that I lied and said I broke up because I wanted freedom. And the truth is, I found true freedom in this relationship.

Life went on, the divorce went through and my partner and I decided to move to Europe for a new start, away from everything in our past. It's been 8 months and I found my safe space, my space away from the hurt from the past. Two days ago, a mutual friend of me and my ex sent me a screenshot of him checking in at a famous landmark in my new city. The photo was taken in the same spot as when this friend visited earlier this year and tagged us in on Facebook to say she visited our new home (e.g. he definitely knows I'm in this city - even though I removed all of his allies from Facebook, we still have a bunch of mutual friends). This city isn't great for getting away for Christmas (it's a summer destination, not a winter one) and he has been here before and didn't really like it much. He hated "repeating" cities when we were together. He checked into a landmark 450 metres away from where I live.

Who does that!!! There's an entire planet to explore - I even left the country to minimise the risk of ever bumping into him again. I would NEVER EVER EVER go and visit a city where there's ANY risk of bumping into him. He knows I live here now, he doesn't like this city, it's not a winter destination.

I know he isn't over me and I don't think he will ever be. He went back to our home country last year and met up with my friends from school - they were my friends, he didn't even like them when we were together and had so much to say behind their backs, but he decided to go and visit them. He got very drunk and started telling everyone how much he missed me and realise how he much he wrong me (this was a year after we had broken up).

My original post's heading "I just want to move on" still stands. Even after I managed to escape him, he does stuff like this. He could never take no for an answer and here we go again. I've made it so incredibly clear that I am just not interested in him and now he came into my safe space. On the one hand I just want to get on and live my life. If he's here, stalking me, then all I want him to see is someone who is happily getting on with life. Someone who has moved on from the past and who is living in the present and building for the future.

I never loved him. I have empathy for him as another human being, but he needs some serious help. His obsession with me isn't good for me either, it's reminds me of the way he used to manipulate me - I would feel sorry for him and agree to anything to just make him stop begging (this was the story of our lives).

I just want him to leave me in peace so that I can get on with my life. Go find ANY OTHER city to explore than the one you know I live in. Why, when you are not over someone would you even go through the risk of seeing them with someone else?

Whatever game he is playing to get into my head, I cannot let him win. He means nothing to me and his actions should mean nothing to me. I'm off to go and enjoy Christmas Day and I will go walk around my city without fear. I cannot let him scare me anymore, I lived in fear for what he would do for 20 years and thought it was finally over.

(My building is fairly safe and it would be difficult for someone to come to my front door without me knowing...but I still don't want that doorbell to ring today!!)

Thank God you never had children with this control freak. Every time he pulls his crap is a reminder that you made the right choice in leaving him.