I recently ended a 2.5 year relationship after noticing some deeply unhealthy and harmful behaviors on my part that were affecting both the relationship and my own wellbeing. My partner believes breaking up is the wrong choice and that those behaviors could be worked through together. Does the fact that I've been miserable since then mean she's right? Big ol block of text with context below.
Both of us had dated people before but this was, for both of us, our first serious, long-term relationship, the first time we've had serious conversations about the future with a partner and the first time we've envisioned spending our lives with a partner. We make each other laugh, we can talk about big complex things and little silly things alike, our values align really well, and in general we care for, cherish, and love one another, through all the ups and downs that have come our way. Over the course of our relationship, however, I've become increasingly aware and concerned about a couple of behaviors that I've been bringing into the relationship and which have repeatedly cropped up and caused serious problems:
1. My partner asked me to make a number of perfectly reasonable commitments throughout the relationship; in several instances, I agreed to these commitments and firmly believed I was prepared for them, only to realize, usually at the last minute, that I couldn't go through with them after finding myself paralyzed by the uncertainty that lay on the other side of the commitment. This has, suffice it to say, caused her a lot of hurt and undermined trust in our relationship; it has also seriously shaken my trust in myself, because I no longer feel like I can rely on my own feelings and my own judgement, and I really do not like the person I become in those moments. It's a very, very crappy thing to do to a partner and it took me way, way too long to realize I was doing it.
2. Related to the above, I've realized that, particularly during difficult conversations where there seems to be a risk of losing or upsetting my partner, I will say or do whatever I think she wants me to say or do, especially if I'm afraid doing otherwise may make her leave or hate me. I never realize I'm doing this in the moment-- even now that I'm aware of it!-- and only recently have I started realizing it after the fact. My partner mentioned after our initial conversation about breaking up that, in the past, she has been aware of and used this tendency of mine to make conversations go in certain directions; she did not do so deliberately and she has acknowledged and apologized for it. She's indicated she will be talking to a counselor about this (among other things).
3. This is not a new realization and it's something I've been aware of for a while, but it's definitely related to the above: I have a very, very hard time letting go of people and accepting that they are no longer part of my life. In almost all my past breakups, I've been able to retain some kind of relationship-- if not a friendship, at least a cordial acquaintanceship-- and the thought of my partner no longer being part of my life in any capacity disturbs and scares me probably to a deeper extent than it would most people. Like, it's a borderline existential fear.
Some of this, particularly the third point, is stuff I've talked over in counseling, but to a large extent I don't know where these behaviors stem from, why I engage in them, or how to prevent them from recurring. The third thing has impacted past relationships; the former two are things I never encountered in past relationships (probably because they were briefer, less serious) and I don't know if they're endemic to the relationship or rooted in my own insecurities and psyche.
The fact that these behaviors have caused serious problems-- and the fact that I continue to engage in them even now that I'm aware of them-- led me to conclude about two weeks ago that I could not be in this relationship in a way that is healthy and does right by both my partner and myself. While I love and care for her, it seemed to me that the relationship simply wasn't working, and that the behaviors on my part that contributed to that were not things I could resolve while we were together, because I had demonstrated that I couldn't stop engaging in them even while I was aware of them. At the same time, my partner is a cis woman in her early thirties who would like to have children and has said she worries about the limited window of time she has to have children biologically. The absolute last thing I would do is ask her to invest that time, as well as emotional labor, by putting our relationship 'on hold' while I work out my own crap. I don't know how long it will take for me to do that work; I can't promise myself or her that I will be able to figure out how to address those behaviors, or that I will address them in a way that means our relationship can work moving forward.
Bearing that in mind, I thought it was best, as painful as it was, to propose breaking up, not taking a break or staying together while working things out. I suggested that we could acknowledge the door being open to trying again down the line, if we find we're both available and in a better place to be in a relationship with one another; I have to recognize that this may have come across as me saying we'd be on hold until then, which I definitely do not think is a good idea for the aforementioned reasons, but I think I wanted to communicate that I do love her and want to be with her, I just don't feel I can do so in a healthy way, not at this point, and I can't say for sure when or if I will be at that point, only that I will be actively working towards it through counseling.
My partner disagrees. Pretty strongly. She's expressed that she doesn't think this is the right way to handle this, that the relationship doesn't have to end for me to work out the behaviors in question, and that she feels like I've given up on trying to make the relationship work while she's still putting in the effort. We've spent the last week and a half or so since that initial conversation figuring out where things go from here and occasionally reaching out to talk-- are we together, separate, or on hold, are we staying in contact or not? I have to be honest, this has been pretty rough on me (and certainly, I know, on her, but I can only speak for myself here). For one, we'll wrap up a conversation and I'll reflect on it and realize that I still fall into the behavior, even now that I'm aware of it, of saying/doing whatever seems necessary to prevent her from cutting me off completely. For another, it feels like those conversations sometimes force me to reaffirm that we're broken up, or to break up with her all over again, and that feels incredibly shitty for both of us.
She's suggested that we stay together through the summer while I work on those behaviors, and if by the end of summer I haven't figured out how to manage them, we can break up then. I want to say yes because it means we'll stay together, at least a while longer, and give us a shot at making things work long-term, but I really don't know if those are behaviors that can be unlearned in two months. More importantly, I'm pretty sure I'd just end up spending the summer silently freaking out about figuring things out 'in time' instead of actually figuring things out, with the upshot being that summer ends and we still end up broken up, maybe in a worse way.
In the time since I first broached the topic, I've pretty much felt like I'm living in a Type O Negative song. Just tired, sad, in random bad moods even when I'm around friends, not really wanting to do things I normally enjoy doing, feeling incomplete. People who don't know about the breakup have asked if I'm doing alright and mentioned that I look like hell. I think about the possibility of her no longer being in my life and I find myself almost overwhelmed with fear and the urge to say this was all a mistake and we can make things work. On one hand, I get that breaking up with someone you love sucks, even if it feels like the right thing to do. On the other hand, is it supposed to suck this bad? Does the fact that it's this hard mean that maybe she's right and I'm being too quick to just give up on things? I don't feel like I'm giving up-- rather, I feel, or felt, like I finally had the guts to put the wellbeing and needs of both of us over my own fear of losing her-- but I'd like the perspectives of others, especially folks who've had to grapple with whether or not to leave someone you love and want to be with because it seems like the right thing to do. |
Video
Web
Image
Music
BlogU
