Have I lost my boyfriend

I'm so going to disagree on this one (respectfully). This description is of a perfect relationship. No relationship is perfect. Perfectionism about relationships is really way too stressful. People are just so far from perfect lol

The thing is now this is suspicious to me. OP might think this has been a good relationship until now and that she has been treated well before but her continued uncertainty that goes as far as, how to get the book back (!), totally indicates that there's more to this. He has likely been treating her bad, probably in less direct ways so she didn't realise before, not until it finally got obvious enough.

Please stop thinking about him. All these questions are focused on HIM. Start thinking about yourself instead, on what you want, not on what he wants. I guarantee you it will feel a lot better.

That's fine. We can agree to disagree, respectfully. I don't think this describes the perfect relationship in an ideal way, though. It describes a healthy relationship. I don't want to derail the conversation from the OP, so let's keep things focused on the OP.

Today has been a really hard day. I must have drafted a few different messages I want to send him. It’s really heart wrenching to be blocked. I don’t deserve it. I know I hurt him too sometimes. But this pain I can’t get over. Despite anything going on with him, he’s been good to me a lot. I don’t want it to be over, although it likely is. The hours pass slowly. Every ding and chime on my phone I hear I hope is a message from him. It isn’t. My heart is so broken. I want to reach out to him. I want to say something to him. Then I tell myself to wait, he’ll unblock me when he’s ready. Then the worst pain takes over in knowing that he might not. It’s only been 2 days since he put a total block on. I’ve been shut out and I don’t know why. I’m hurting bad

There’s one thing I didn’t bring up and why he may have blocked me on Instagram. I don’t often use it. But the last week or so I’ve been on it a lot. I follow a lot of fashion designers whose new lines are out. My recent Instagram usage coincides with last week when he blocked me on Facebook and my phone. Could he think I was stalking him? I wasn’t. It has nothing to do with him. I don’t know if I said this, but the other day, that was a few hours before he blocked me on IG, I opened the chat to check a message from a friend. I saw he was active. When I did, I immediately closed chat. That night he blocked me on IG. I hope he didn’t think I was.

The thing is, how would he know how often I’m on Instagram unless he’s checking. That means if that’s why he blocked me, he’s doing the same thing.

I'm really sorry that you are hurting so much.

It is cruel of him to stonewall, to shut you out, to allow you to wonder so painfully.

I am sorry you are hurting.

Going by everything you said I think Unaluna was on to something. Is this strictly online relationship (although unclear how he obtained your book)? In that case you can’t fully know what’s going on with him or who he even is. How often have you seen him in real life? Do you know where he lives?

He’s local, not online. He lives 15 minutes from me. He was sleeping over every other night. Things have been good for us for a long time: I met him through friends of my parents. We met on Valentines Day last year. So this has been a relationship that’s been going on for awhile.

If you were spending every other night together then it shouldn’t be a problem to get your stuff or even talk to him? Well I’d probably not go to guy’s house if he blocked me but it’s doable if he has your stuff. I’d take someone with me. He sounds very unstable. Unless of course this relationship was going downhill for awhile and you just didn’t notice. Seems bizarre that he acts this out of control now

I don’t think it matters why he blocks you. We can’t really know people’s motives.

No, that’s very true. I feel it’s important for me to know, but I also know that the reason might not necessarily matter. I just feel confused and sad. I’m hurt that he’s entirely blocked me. I think he’s really overreacting to a situation that probably is’s really all that bad. To him it may seem major, but it doesn’t really seem like it in the big picture.

Was he always kind of quick to act? Unstable? It seems rather unusual to break up over one incident if relationship was as good as you thought it was.

What makes you unsure about how to ask to get your book back?

Who cares if he thinks your behaviour was "wrong"? Did he regularly criticise your behaviour, your decisions?

It's hard to believe he never criticised you in demeaning ways like when he blocked you, calling your messages "retarded" and "you are making things worse"

Well, that’s why I’m really confused about all this. It was good before this happened. We were going really well. He’s blocked me several times before when we had disagreements. He seems to do this sort of thing when conflict happens. I agree that it’s unusual and quite impulsive. I don’t even know if he broke up with me for sure. “I need time to think” often means that, but not always. I feel I need clarification on where things stand with us. Are we breaking up, are we together? I’m really confused and frustrated. I feel I want to contact him to ask. I feel I deserve to know that so I’m not being left hanging.

Because he has me blocked on everything. I have one of those texting apps. I could contact him on that. But would it be okay to do so? Usually if someone blocks you, they don’t want to hear from you, or they’re playing games and want to hear from you do you fall back into their patterns. Regardless, That’s why I’m so hesitant to contact him. I also want to ask where things stand because I feel I deserve to know that much.

He hasn’t so much. A few times when he’s been upset with me, or when he’s been drunk, but normally, no.

Sounds like the blocking really affects you a lot. I used to feel that way when I was being ignored (not blocked, just ignored for long times). Please try and figure out how to not get affected by it anymore because it's where you become open to his manipulative influence, it's like a sort of pressure that will take much effort to not give in to and if you resist giving in to the pressure, you will have to deal with a lot of strong emotions of yours which is exhausting, and if you give in to it, then it just gets worse as that means you are doing his bidding from that point on. And since you mention you've had him block you several times before, all this dynamic just gets worse.

Just my experience of how it is, anyway. I hope this helps some.

That doesn't sound good at all to me tbh (again see above). Him blocking you repeatedly, that's not a good relationship AT ALL! I really thought based on your earlier post that it was good and he was just doing out of character behaviour but then it became clear that this isn't the case. This isn't out of character for him. This is unfortunately who he is.

Also it's like, it's not just "when we had disagreements". This isn't a normal disagreement, this is when he gets upset over something that most people wouldn't have a problem with, or even if they have a problem with it, they have no problem communicating about it.

It's good you feel your rights, that you deserve good things, and please do not let yourself forget about your rights. His continued treatment of you like this could lead there in the long run, you forgetting your rights and completely giving in and letting everything happen on his terms, if you let it go on like this.

But, to me it sounded like you've already been influenced by his manipulative pressure before, like, when you were instantly apologising when he got upset in an unreasonable way. So that's damage resulting from the relationship, which is one reason why it's not a good idea to continue it, as it's going to take time and effort to reverse and heal the already existing damage too.

(Though with the book I get it that maybe you are just hoping that you could still be with him so maybe you are like, why ask for it back while you two could still be together?)

All in all, I would say, in this case, if he doesn't let you know if you two are together, while he is obviously aware that you'd like to know, that's a manipulation already. You got very affected by it already. And the one way you can set yourself free from this crazy pressure is if you simply go on with living your own life. Put all this on the backburner, maybe eventually you'll decide you don't want to be with him either.

The thing I am needing to know is whether or not we’re broken up. I need to know where things stand with us. Stonewalling and ghosting is never the right way to breakup with someone. Yeah, he’s blocked me before and this typical behavior for him. But you don’t do that sort of thing. I never would have blocked him over something like this. Mature people don’t do that. The problem is, it’s hard for me to let go of him. I have abandonment issues that make it so hard to do. I know it’s the right thing to do, I just feel I can’t do it. I feel I want to try and work things out. Perhaps if we actually do talk about things, I can bring up this blocking behavior. I also think breaking up with someone over something like this is a bit over the top. It doesn’t seem like a big enough issue to break up with someone over.

I see. I'm really sorry this is such a difficult situation for you. I agree it's over the top on his end.

Not sure if you saw my earlier edit but it fits here too: to me it sounded like you've already been influenced by his manipulative pressure before, like, when you were instantly apologising when he got upset in an unreasonable way. So that's damage resulting from the relationship, which is one reason why it's not a good idea to continue it, as it's going to take time and effort to reverse and heal the already existing damage too.

Maybe this will help consider breaking up with him.

Also you could look for support, so you don't feel totally alone when you break up with him. Friends, support groups, therapist, etc.

The best luck to you either way!!

If he blocked you several times then “things aren’t going very well”. Also him getting drunk is a major red flag. Getting drunk is not “social drinking” as you referred to it. His behavior is of an abusive person and likely a person with substance abuse issue. And why do you need him to tell you if you are broken up. Decide yourself if you want the kind of nonsense in your life

You keep saying mature people don’t act like him. That’s correct. That’s why you need to date mature people. He isn’t the one. You can’t change him to behave better.

Will he reach back out to me? I’m asking because if I decide to dump his immature ***, I want to be an adult and tell him. Or, if I decide I want to continue with things. I am hurting a lot that I’ve been blocked. It hurts more than the situation that happened. It hurts not being able to reach him, good to bad.

You are exactly correct. I know it’s best to break up with him, but I have a strong desire to wan t to work things out with him. I know breaking up is the right thing to do. Letting him go is not going to be easy because I have abandonment issues. I feel I’d rather be with him than be alone. My biggest fear about letting him go is that I’ll never meet anyone again. That’s why I’m hesitant to do that. There are plenty of people who never meet someone again. I’m terrified of that. I don’t need to be with someone, I want to be with someone because I want to settle down, get married again, and grow old with a person. That’s something I want for myself. It’s also very hard to meet single men in my town. Everything closes so early and the only things that stay open at night are the bars. The bar scene is not a place single women want to be at alone. Anyway, this is why it’s so hard for me to consider breaking it off with him.