A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:My boyfriend and I (together for 2 and half years) are going through a really bad phase of our relationship and it doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. Our relationship has hit rock bottom and I'm driving my self mad trying to figure out what the hell happened! When I ask people for advice they all tell me I should leave him, and the funny thing is that I know I should, but I keep convincing myself not to.I'm pretty naive when it comes to relationships, and pretty much blind. I haven't exactly had the best relationships with ex-boyfriends, where one boyfriend treated me so poorly I got depression and serious anxiety problems - but that's another problem for another time. My boyfriend does not bother with me at all anymore. When we first got together, as you can imagine, everything was great and brilliant and I honestly thought he was the one etc., then we slowly started drifting apart; seeing each other less, talking to each other less and so on. In the beginning we were inseparable and now, before all this started happening, we were seeing each other once a week for a couple of hours. Obviously not seeing him as much as I would of liked didn't sit very well with me and I brought it up a couple times. But he would always say, 'I'm working, you're in college, we're making the best of the time we have free' and what not. And that was reasonable, so I couldn't really argue. When I found out he lost his job I was really happy because I thought about all the time we could now spend together like we used to when we were younger. But that feeling didn't really last too long as he didn't bother with me, or ask me to go over his or if we wanted to do something. If I had asked to do something, he'd always say that he'd already made plans... even though he'd spent every other day of that week doing nothing but play his computer games non-stop. Pretty convenient.Then he got a new job, the hours were a little better and he even had a day off in the week. So I was, as you would expect, really excited that things could work out on both ends. But again... That didn't last too long either.Nothing really changed. He pulled the same excuse, and when confronted about his day off, he would get tetchy and say 'I need a day to myself' blah blah blah. Then he lost his job again and found the wonder of job seekers allowance.So that's where we've been for the past couple of months. He has no job, doing nothing constructive all day and there's me, also doing nothing, looking for a job while pretending to be a housewife everyday. The one day I asked him to come over, you'd think that he wouldn't have that many objections... 'I've made plans, I don't feel well, I'm waiting for a delivery'... Or if he is free he'll always have made plans with someone the same day we're together. I tell him not to make plans with anyone on so-and-so-day because I want to spend the day with him. But he goes and does it anyway.It's like he has an invisible rule book and only he's allowed to break those rules. It's as if he's become a complete and total dunce all of a sudden. It's honestly as if he thinks the world will drop it's plans just for him. It got so bad that I even told him what I wanted from him... and he still couldn't manage it. I wanted him to apologise for being a complete jerk to me one time and he did, but then he did the same thing again, and again, and then once more. After the fourth time I told him that just saying the word 'Sorry' to me wasn't enough to convince me that he wasn't going to do it again and told him that he'd have to come up with something better like a better apology or do something really romantic.......... He knew that I was seriously upset and the only thing he had to say was 'All I can do is say sorry'. If it was role reversal, I would have dug pretty deep, bought some flowers and told him how sorry I was with a real heart-felt apology. I even told him that.... to which his reply was... 'So sorry isn't enough then?' How am I supposed to reason with someone who does this?Now things have gotten so bad. I can't even remember the last time I saw him, late September maybe? Trying to have a conversation with him is really awkward. Even if I did start one, he'd either be half-arsed about it or wouldn't even bother to reply. It hurts me so much. I've confronted him about how I feel and he always manages to worm out of it one way or another. I've asked him if he still wants to be with me, and he says yes. But he doesn't try or even show me that he does. I want to make this relationship work but at the same time I don't know why I should bother. He's so pedantic and really immature, I don't feel loved by him at all anymore yet I honestly can't imagine myself leaving him. How am I supposed to leave someone who I've shared pretty much everything with, my deepest and darkest secrets, my hopes my dreams... But then how am I supposed to stay with him when he acts so rudely to me and treats me like I am nothing? I know I should leave him but I'm extremely scared of my emotions and the after-math. I'm not the best girlfriend in the entire world, I could have cheated on him, used him for money or treated him like absolute rubbish but I've never been cruel to him, so it hurts a hell of a lot when he treats me like I have done those things.I want to save this relationship, if possible, or at least try to figure out what went wrong and how we got like this. But it feels like I'm in this relationship by myself and I hate this feeling of being trapped. I don't really have a specific question and I can pretty much guess exactly what most of you are going to say. Fortunately I can remember the way he used to make me feel before he started acting like this, and I can't help but hope that I can get that part of my boyfriend back.I guess in the end, I'm mostly looking for opinions and maybe people who can understand the not-so-normal emotional state that I'm in and can guide me for better.Thanks for reading :)
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, Dorothy Dix  +, writes (28 October 2012):
Hi there. It sounds like you are the only one who is making any effort towards trying to make your relationship work.
Well, you are certainly making a lot more effort than he seems to be, don't you think?
You are the giver and he is the receiver.
It doesn't seem to be very well balanced.
For any relationship to work well, it does need a balance between give and take - at least half and half - equal, in other words.
Yours does not seem to be equally give and take between you, does it?
And why I say this, is because you make some arrangements to see each other and do something, and he half heartedly agrees, or else just makes some feeble excuse why he can't be with you.
Or really, it's more that he makes excuses all the time.
So you are continually disappointed by him, aren't you?
From what you have said here, it seems like you want a relationship with him, more than he wants one with you.
Or at least it comes across that way. And there is certainly a fair bit of pressure by you, for him to take you out somewhere and do stuff together.
And it seems very clear, that he feels that pressure rather acutely.
Even though he says when you ask him directly - "do you still want to be with me?" - and he says - "Yes" - but he doesn't want to make the decision to end it, he seems to be leaving that up to you.
So that's why he says "Yes" all the time, whenever you ask him that.
Can you see what he's doing here?
Even though he is not saying "No" to you directly, because he probably doesn't want to hurt your feelings, so he's leaving any hard decisions like that, up to you entirely.
Maybe he has some doubts at the moment, and the pressure from you wouldn't be helping things much.
When it comes to delivering bad news in relationships, often men just can't bring themselves to make up their minds.
Especially when it comes to deciding whether to keep on going or end it.
They just avoid it altogether, and let it all evolve on it's own, and hoping maybe, that it will just die a natural death, or just fade away into oblivion.
Perhaps this is what he is thinking.
Do you get the feeling that if you didn't call him or text him like you do, that you might not hear from him at all?
Because if you do feel that way, it's possible that if you just let things ride, you might not hear from him again.
I realize that is NOT what you want to hear, however I am being completely honest with you when I say this.
Also because of the restlessness of his life and how it's been, having a job for a short time and then losing it, and going on this way for a few months, hasn't put him in a stable environment either, has it?
So he probably is fairly short of cash, as a consequence.
And no doubt, this wouldn't help the situation very much either.
He might not want to end it with you, and I didn't mean to imply that he did, however, it might be a wise move for you to stop all contact with him for now - no phone calls, no text messages either.
And simply give him some personal space, to try and sort out his life on his own without any pressure by you to come and see you all the time.
At the moment, his biggest pressure is probably a financial one - even with the job seeking allowance.
His main focus at the moment, is probably to try and find some kind of stable work, so he has a steady cash flow coming to him every week.
And the cash flow from employment, would be much more than that which comes to him from the job seeking allowance, for sure.
And it's a distinct possibility, that finding steady work is of a far greater priority to him right now, than working on any relationship issues.
The jobless situation he finds himself in and has been for a little while, would almost certainly be influencing his life with you in a relationship.
When one part of your life isn't going to plan - for instance, employment - it will always affect every other part of your life on an ongoing basis, whether he realizes it or not.
So with an uncertain financial future, it doesn't put him in a good place when it comes to relationships.
He certainly would have very little money to spend on you or on taking you out somewhere, he is probably absolutely strapped for cash.
And even if he did take you out somewhere, he wouldn't want you to be paying for things all the time, that's not how he would prefer to do things.
He would much prefer - as most men would - to be able to easily pay for everything himself.
And that would be perfectly normal behaviour for any man who is taking a lady out.
A
female
reader, Dear Mandy +, writes (26 October 2012):
 HI
As you already know the answers your going to get to this question I feel your making progress to a better future. Walking away is the best and only way your going to ever have a chance to be happy again. This will make him open his eyes as to what he will miss. At first your going to find this quite hard but you HAVE to stick with it if you ever want to get this relationship back on track. Don't worry he WILL want things to work. you have just been there for him none stop so he is taking advantage of your kindness. So if he loses what he has he will fight to win you back :D.....
keep me updated ok
Mandy x
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (26 October 2012): I suggest you look into codependency. I've dealt with it, I know these emotions can suck. It sounds like he really doesn't care anymore (I know this hurts), and it's just having a negative impact on your life/emotions. You've already tried talking to him, and he's made NO attempt to understand you, or make time for the relationship. It's going to be very hard to walk away, but I'm sure it will be the best thing for you. Good luck.
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