groovymerchant's recent activity
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Comment on Relationship troubles in ~life
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Comment on Relationship troubles in ~life
groovymerchant Link ParentYes thank you. Indeed it is a small window and I don’t blame Internet strangers to have such a warped view of my relationship. It is after all my fault for not being to articulate everything....Yes thank you. Indeed it is a small window and I don’t blame Internet strangers to have such a warped view of my relationship. It is after all my fault for not being to articulate everything.
Thank you for your words. I’d like to think that I am someone who would know when the good time is to really stop. But I also am someone who wants to push things to the very end because I think with my personality currently, I would regret having not tried more. But who knows?
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Comment on Relationship troubles in ~life
groovymerchant Link ParentYeah. So we “broke up” yesterday. I will give it some time because he needs time to be alone to figure out what he really wants. I will not wait an indefinite amount of time to make his final...Yeah. So we “broke up” yesterday. I will give it some time because he needs time to be alone to figure out what he really wants.
I will not wait an indefinite amount of time to make his final final decision but I think the window I showed made him out to be some person who didn’t make any effort. And I admit that’s a limit of posting my story on the Internet.
He does make some effort but sometimes it misses the target. And I think, perhaps naively, that it can be made. But it’s not gonna be overnight indeed. Admittedly, I am a mess now so my opinions change by the hour. Who knows?
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Comment on Relationship troubles in ~life
groovymerchant Link ParentThank you for the speculation. Yours, at least, is as close as it can get to what his situation is. The thing is, I think it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is what happens in his mind,...Thank you for the speculation. Yours, at least, is as close as it can get to what his situation is.
In my experience my avoidant tendencies are a result of me not having faith that the other person will really listen to me or care about what I am saying, the argument will just go on until I either give in or walk away, so I choose to do one of those as soon as possible.
The thing is, I think it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is what happens in his mind, and it happened one time because I did not know how to end the argument or I had the feeling that he just wanted to "get it over with" and agree to everything I said.
From his perspective, it may seem that he has already tried compromising with you on this, allowing those moments of physical intimacy even if he is not particularly into it. So when you bring up that you still feel unsatisfied, to him it may feel like trying to accomodate you only resulted in you asking for more, which is why he avoids the conflict.
This is something that I feel is happening indeed.
For this issue with hugs, a possible compromise would be that you agree to not interrupt his netflix watching, and wait for the end of an episode to request a hug, but in return you expect him to be more attentive to you when that does happen.
Maybe we were just at the end of our ropes but we had a discussion about this but it didn't really bump up.
But then again, maybe its not anyones fault, and this is just a sign that your relationship has reached its natural sunset.
That's a very sad thought, it could be that. But stupid as I am, I might drag it on until I'm 99.99% sure it's that. Don't want to regret anything.
Thanks again for the kind words.
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Comment on Relationship troubles in ~life
groovymerchant Link ParentThank you for the kind reply. From the beginning, the signs were already there. I don't know why I thought it would get better. Classic mistake I guess. By signs, I mean he didn't want public...Thank you for the kind reply.
From the beginning, the signs were already there. I don't know why I thought it would get better. Classic mistake I guess. By signs, I mean he didn't want public displays of affection. And I attributed this to just him having newly come out. So I thought I could live with it.
You're right that it might be inertia and sunk-cost fallacy.
Although, he has always been willing to improve and be better and I believe him. Just that I guess he's bad at it.
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Comment on Relationship troubles in ~life
groovymerchant Link ParentYes, I'm finding solutions to move in with a friend temporarily. I am not in my home country and I have friends but not friends-friends if you know what I'm saying. So I feel a bit scared and...Yes, I'm finding solutions to move in with a friend temporarily. I am not in my home country and I have friends but not friends-friends if you know what I'm saying. So I feel a bit scared and timid to oblige them but yes I know it has to be done.
My partner is and has always been very particular about touch. Dunno if it's a personality thing but he hasn't been quite comfortable with public displays of affection. It's been like that for a long time. And he's fine with hugs but not as often as me.
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Relationship troubles
Hello, I am using a throwaway account since I don't want this account publicly associated with the rest of my Internet persona. Some identifying info will be fudged for the sake of keeping as...
Hello, I am using a throwaway account since I don't want this account publicly associated with the rest of my Internet persona. Some identifying info will be fudged for the sake of keeping as anonymous as possible.
Me and my partner of nine years have been constantly fighting about little things these days. The fights have started from shallow stuff. From my perspective, it usually starts out of silly things. One recurring thing is that sometimes, working from home, I want some hugs every now and then during the day. The problem is he's watching Netflix or whatever and doesn't want to be interrupted midmovie. He complains I asked for them too frequently, which is fair. But I think the cause is when he does accept my proposal to hug, I'm just the one hugging him and he's still watching the movie. Gives me a tap in the back of what objectively could be a hug but there is just no emotion.
Alright, getting annoyed is one thing and should be easy to fix. However, he does some variant of "escaping the conversation". Whether it's leaving the room suddenly or answering questions in what I think is bad faith. All of these, in his head, I know he has a rationalization. Leaving the room, according to him, is good for calming down. And he's read that somewhere. Can't refute that. But what I try to explain, and am probably not explaining well, is that he just can't leave me like that because it feels like he doesn't care about it. I find it very disrespectful, it makes me angry, and it just elevates what could have been a quick discussion to some big blown-up fight where no one is really sure anymore how it started or why it dials up to 11 very quickly.
I've recently started opening up to friends out of desperation. He "does not like" that our friends know about our business. Relationship troubles and all. I understand, and I tried to respect this wish for the nine years we've been together. But now I'm desperate, I did start talking about it with friends. They gave me a lot of insights that I didn't have before and they pinpointed that the biggest obstacle we have is proper communication.
In the beginning, I talk and let him talk. But his responses are one-liners like "yes" or "sure". Which is completely ambiguous if it is in agreement to what I just said or if it is just to signify that he's listening. This gave me the tendency to talk more. Because either the conversation finishes there, which according to him is already concluded because he agreed to what I wanted. The thing that is lacking is some sort of feeling of warmth or empathy. In principle, "yes" already does the "admin part" but "yes I understand what you mean and I will try to do better" takes care of the emotional side. This is something that I have tried explaining but unfortunately in vain. Maybe it's his blind side.
I don't think anything of what he's doing is malicious or intentionally done to make me angry. I think it's just how he is. I don't think he realizes it. And as someone who cares for him, I hope he does.
The status now is that we are "broken up". I'd like to mark that with an asterisk because our fights these past few weeks end up with someone saying they want to break up. It has since elevated to "we are breaking up". It's getting tiring. I know that this relationship is down in the gutter. However, I am still optimistic for that Disney ending where we all realize our problems and live happily ever after.
But yeah. I really don't know what I want in posting this. I think I just need to pass the time since we are both currently in the same apartment. It's big enough that we have our own rooms for these trying times. Advice and analyses and opinions are certainly welcome. Obviously, there's bias for me since I wrote it. So yeah. Open to anything. Thanks for reading in any case.
19 votes
Thank you for this alternate perspective I appreciate it and naively or not (time will tell) I would like to say I’m cautiously optimistic about the situation.
We are currently not talking right now at his request since he says he needs to figure out his life and why he doesn’t seem to be happy about anything these days.
But as soon as we start again, then I will weigh it out and see what to do next.