Advice And Honesty
Me and my boyfriend are basically on the edge of breaking up and I genuinely think it’s destroying me mentally. We’ve been arguing because I’ve felt emotionally neglected for a long time and like I have to beg for reassurance, consistency, communication, effort, honesty, dates, compliments, flowers, literally basic relationship stuff just to feel loved properly. I’m tired of feeling like I have to drag effort and emotional intelligence out of somebody instead of it naturally being there. Every time I try to explain how deep the hurt goes, it turns into me over explaining, apologizing for having emotions, or feeling crazy for reacting at all. Then once I finally emotionally pull away or hit my breaking point suddenly everything clicks and he wants to try harder, and it creates this exhausting toxic cycle where I’m constantly chasing reassurance while he shuts down or gets emotionally distant until he thinks he’s losing me.
Tonight we talked for hours and somehow ended up on a “break” for two weeks with check ins because he said he needs space and wants to “do him,” and hearing that while already feeling emotionally unwanted honestly broke something in me. He started talking about wanting to make new friends including female friends while also wanting distance from me and it made me spiral because in my head I’m thinking why do you want space from your girlfriend but openness with other women? We started arguing about postponed trips we planned together, him not making me feel wanted anymore, him getting colder emotionally, me feeling like he only reassures me when I’m at my limit, and me questioning if he even still wants to be with me at all. I asked him when was the last time he naturally called me pretty, made me feel special, or acted excited to love me without it being during an argument or breakup conversation and he barely had an answer for me.
The worst part is I still love him which makes all of this hurt even more. I feel like I’ve been fighting so hard for us while slowly emotionally detaching at the same time because the constant uncertainty, coldness, and feeling emotionally alone is starting to kill my feelings too. I don’t even know if he’s cheating or if my trust issues and anxiety are just making me spiral, but either way I know I haven’t felt emotionally safe in this relationship for a long time. I’m tired of feeling like I’m too much for wanting basic love and reassurance from the person who’s supposed to care about me the most.
At this point I genuinely don’t know if this relationship is something that can realistically be fixed or if we’re just two people hurting each other while trying to hold on. Has anybody else been through something like this and actually made it work, or is this the point where you have to accept love alone isn’t enough anymore?
At this point I’m taking the break as if we broke up just to keep myself afloat because idk I have a feeling it’s over ..