So I am 22F and my boyfriend is 24.
Today we had plans to go walk with the dog, get some stuff for gardening, and work on the garden. During us going, I asked if I could practice driving a little bit. Where I live, people doing their driving lessons don’t get driver’s permits, so he is a bit worried about letting me drive because it is illegal, which I completely understand. But we live in a very rural area and police are almost never patrolling around—but still, the risk, I get it.
Me and my boyfriend also have a great relationship, but the one issue that I always come across is that I feel unheard when I express what I want and my boundaries. Especially because I am the type of person that did not get to do that growing up, so I’m still learning and figuring out how to basically speak up for myself.
My boyfriend has ADD and he forgets really easily, but for the better part of our relationship now, I have been expressing that I feel unheard and that he should respect my boundaries, especially when I repeat them multiple times in a short period of time.
I am also just starting to get comfortable in my own skin, and I’m very anxious driving because I’m just a very anxious person in general. So while driving, he was obviously worried, but his anxiety was rubbing off on me. I’m the type of person where if I’m doing something and you take over or start lecturing instead of giving positive feedback—especially when I’m saying that I’m in control and everything is actually going well—I get very, very anxious.
So he had done it a couple of times, and I was starting to get anxious and shaking because it made me feel that uncomfortable. Multiple times I said, “Can you please stop?” and I expressed why. At some point, he took the wheel over a little bit, which kind of jerked me. I immediately stopped the car and told him to take over.
After that, he didn’t acknowledge anything. He didn’t say anything, just waited and pouted for a few minutes, and then just said sorry and continued on. This happens every time, and I’ve expressed how I want situations like this to be handled so that we both leave the situation understanding each other.
At that point, I literally just sat there, and I sat with it for a few minutes, but I was just so upset that I ended up asking him to stop the car. I stepped out and ended up going for a walk because I couldn’t take the train at the time. Then I ended up taking the train an hour later and getting home about an hour and 30 minutes later.
After getting home, I didn’t say anything to him because he didn’t contact me. He didn’t say anything and just basically sat there watching YouTube and looking at me, kind of acting like a puppy dog—like I need to say something or initiate something before he can acknowledge his actions. That made me feel horrible, which I have expressed multiple times.
I know this situation wasn’t just an overreaction—it was an accumulation of something that I’ve been expressing for a very, very long time in multiple different ways too.
So basically, I just left the house again and went on kind of like a picnic on my own because I really needed that space not to explode. To be honest, I just felt like I didn’t have anything to say in that situation anymore. I was just trying to process my own feelings and regulate myself.
After that, at some point in the evening, he tried kind of shrugging it off, which we usually do when we have little tiffs that are not that huge. I basically explained how I felt and that I felt even more hurt that he did not care that he hurt my feelings to this point.
Since then, I’ve really just kept to my side. He has literally not said anything. He has not apologised anymore. He has not taken accountability.
And I don’t even know if I should post this because I don’t want people judging him, because he’s generally not a bad person. But I just don’t really know what to do with these feelings. I never thought that I would ever get to this point because he’s usually so considerate and everything else.
So I’m just like—am I overreacting? Is this just part of ADD? But also, can I live with always having my feelings neglected and always being triggered within my own trauma, especially after expressing it so much that it’s clearly an issue and something he is aware of?
I just wanted to know—am I being a dickhead right now? Is this too much? Or is it valid that I’m like, okay, my feelings have been dismissed so many times and this feels very familiar to something I grew up with that I really don’t want to experience ever again in my life?
This just makes me scared and anxious, and it makes me feel so depressed. It’s not even that deep, but for me it’s also like—it’s a pattern of behaviour.
And maybe I’m just projecting, because I’m the type of person that’s always analysing myself, sometimes too much, and always trying not to hurt people and trying to be considerate—especially people that I care about. And in this moment, my boyfriend is high on that list.
But it just feels like a slap in the face every single time, and it just feels so upsetting. I’m just like, I don’t know what to do.
Please give honest feedback.
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Edit: I want to clarify that I didn’t stop talking to him or give him the silent treatment. I am talking to him, just not my usual self because I feel upset. I don’t want to hurt him while feeling this upset and confused and I don’t want to carry the emotional weight this time. I just need to regulate
Also, I wasn’t driving erratically or badly—I’ve been having lessons for months now, so I can do the basics. I just need to do my exams. It was a quiet road in the countryside side almost no other cars and maybe a couple bikers. Also I have ridden down this road a lot.
And just to add, I was using a voice dictator because it’s late at night. I was stressed and crying and just needed to get everything out I guess sorry for the difficulty 😅 my bad.