I am a big fat Austrich......

[CatButler]

Aaaaarrrggghhh - please humour me and allow me to vent!!??

Another weekend lie-in ruined because of his epic snoring....wakes me up at least twice every weeknight as well when I have to be up at 6 for work. Of course he doesn't do anything like that and I'M the one keeping him awake all the time with MY snoring.......

This feels like the straw that broke the camels back at the moment and feel like telling him to get out of my bed and life when he finally wakes up.

I've recently been posting about me and DP deciding whether to have children or not but hink I knew all along I was being delusional.

These are the main things that are really bugging the living daylights out of me and have done for ages now:

• No communication - at all, about anything not the little things or the big important things.
  

• We never and I mean never go anywhere unless I organise it and usually pay for it as well because he constantly pleads poverty.
  

That includes restaurants by the way because hhe's worried that eating out will give him a bad stomach due to their bad hygiene......(hmm)

• He smokes cannabis and has done ever since I met him. Fine, knew that when I got involved with him however, it makes him too tired and disinterested to do much else besides work. He swears blind it doesn't affect him at all - it bloody does, when we've been abroad on holiday and he hasn't had any he's a different character.
  

• Is glued to his games console every chance he gets and wants to 'chat' about what is happening in virual reality yet clams up when asked to share his thoughts and feelings in he real world.
  

I could go on some more but just reading back my own list makes me feel pathetic for putting up with it. Trouble is, immediately after thinking, god what a pants situation I feel guilty for even thinking and feeling that way. Sounds like I AM a nutjob......!!

I'll shut up now, but thanks for letting me put this in writing (blush) - it'll help get my head out of the sand it's been stuck in for the last ten years......!

[tethersend]

Dump, dump, dump and don't look back.

If you feel like this now, it will be unbearable with a screaming baby thrown into the mix.

[jesuswhatnext]

sorry my love, get rid of the teenager and find yourself a man! (although, you do realise real men snore too!! )

[CatButler]

Quite, tethersend. Guess a part of me was thinking 'he won't be able to live like a moody teenager when he's a father'

God, cannot believe I actually fell into that sort of thinking for a while. Think it's cos I've left it so long to speak/think up.

Don't get me wrong, a huge part of the responsibility of how the relationship is is down to me tolerating it and I'm really no prize catch myself but don't think I can spend another 10 years like this.

Sorry am going on.....

[tethersend]

Can I ask how old you both are, Cat?

[tethersend]

Bitterness and resentment is supposed to come after you've had children, not before

[CatButler]

:) :) :) at the real men snoring! Think the other 'man' will keep me on my toes there as he snores too (this being the cat.... :) )

[CatButler]

Both 37 this year so def. time to get my behind in gear.....

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Cat

I have written to you before now, think you need to reread your previous thread and the replies posted to that as well.

None of what you write about him bodes well either for you personally or your relationship. You got together with a damaged individual and you cannot even begin to hope to fix this. You previously wrote exactly why you are with him, my response to that answer is that you are better off alone rather than being badly accompanied.

He is not going to change, he is still stuck emotionally at 14 or when his parents acrimoniously divorced. All your thinking to date re him (particularly the part where he won't be able to live like a moody teen when he becomes a father) has been a triumph of hope over experience.

You cannot bring a child into this mess, its not fair on the kid for a start.
You are both incompatible on all sorts of levels and you would be better off apart. If you keep being an ostrich about it all, ten years will have past and you will be still in the same mess that you are now. End this dysfunctional relationship now before you end up being further trapped within it.

You are not too old to start again, its never too late. Quite apart from anything else you only get one shot at this life and you are a long time dead!.

[jesuswhatnext]

HE'S 37!!!! fucking hell!! i thought you were going to say he he was 20!

for gods sake dont get pregnant with him!!

[tethersend]

Ok, he is 36 and won't eat in restaurants and smokes weed.

I'm not anti-drugs but these two things would suggest that he is afraid of life and is not exactly the kind of person to grab opportunities. I think if you've not had children after being together for 10 years, there's a reason why.

Please get rid. At this stage, you should at least believe that you will be together forever; not dreading the next ten years.

When you get to the point where their breathing makes you want to hold a pillow over their face, I think it's over.

[SwansEatQuince]

Hand him his toothbrush and show him the door....

[tethersend]

Imagine how trapped you will feel with a child.

[CatButler]

Hi Attila, I love your no nonsense practical way of writing!

Think I've been indulging in 'cinderella' type fantasies over the years tbh - thinking that surely one day he'll get fed up with being a teenager and be an adult......

Def. can't bring a child into this - not fair to give it a father who is also a child......

Main difficulty is he will be absolutely devestated to hear I want out - and I feel so responsible for what happens to him in life.....I know he is not my responsibility but that's what's stopped me walking away in the past and is still the same now. Convenient excuse for me perhaps?

[tethersend]

Ok, that's fine. Sacrifice the rest of your life in order to avoid him being devastated.

Because that is literally the only alternative to walking away.

[Katisha]

I know at least 3 people who have been in a relationship for a decade, it has gone nowhere, and they have eventually broken up.
(And they all found someone else with some get up and go.)

If it's going nowhere after 10 yes then it's pretty unlikely to radically change for the better.

He is v comfortable where he is, which will be a large part of the upset when you call it a day. Change is always difficult to contemplate. Even change for the better. Yes I'm sure he wants to carry on his life with you, but that just traps you in his life of inertia.

Definitely sounds like time to wake up from the decade of slumber (apart from the snoring!) and move on.

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Hi Cat

Its now time to stop the fantasy type stuff re him changing and properly look at what is in front of you. BTW if you were standing in front of me I'd be saying exactly the same.

I would argue that he'd only be "devastated" (as you put it) that you want out now primarily becaues his cushy way of existance that you have partly made for him is coming to an end. I reckon he could well get angry too. You've have both enabled and carried him for the last 10 years, end this now before you are 47 and are still in the same position if not worse. Apathy is deadly here. I can only assume you got with him in the first place because you thought that your love for him could somehow make him a decent and non emotionally damaged human being rather than the cannabis addicted stuck in teenage years immature manchild you are currently with. You cannot act as either a rescuer and or saviour in a relationship and you have tried to act as that to him.

You are NOT responsible for him; he is an adult and you are certainly NOT his Mum to run around and parent. He will manage without you in his life. I argue also you'd be a lot bloody happier as well (and you'll be able to sleep soundly without his snoring!). Why do you feel so responsible for someone like this, did your own uprbringing reflect this?.

[CatButler]

Well, when you put it like that it sounds horrific tethersend (good, need to hear it)

You're all so amazingly strong and together - really really appreciate all of the comments since they help me makes sense of what is 'normal' in a relationship and what isn't.

[QueuePosition3]

OStrich?
not from austria?

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Cat

From the brief info you have written previously (on your previous thread) about your own parents it has not been at all good (understatement).

I am thinking that it may be beneficial for you to receive some counselling for these issues as they could continue to dog your life otherwise.

[CatButler]

Hitting straight to the centre as per usual Attila :)

My own upbringing was very much geared towards taking care of other people's needs and having none of my own.

Still not comfortable myself with having 'needs' - feels like a dirty word tbh.

re. being 47 - that's exactly what i ask him - how much longer are we going to live like this? course I don't get an answer from hhim.

I got together with him because he's very good looking and couln't believe he was interested in me. Also, he wasn't violent like the ex so kidded myself I'd made a great choice.

Feel responsible for him because he isn't close to anyone either (although he does at least have his family)

[CatButler]

apologies for spelling mistakes

[foxytocin]

I read your OP and heard someone who is accepting the reality that he is a bad choice of partner. Now the next difficult step will be choosing whether to stay or go.

He reminds me of Beavis or Butthead. Can't quite decide which.

[CatButler]

I had counselling for a year in 2008 to get the old childhood issues out

Still no further with the assertiveness though :)

[CatButler]

Don't know why things are coming out in bold - didn't mean to do that

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Cat

Thought you had toxic parents, you may want to post further the Stately homes thread on these pages as the ladies on there could well help you further with that. It is not your fault this happened and you are not to blame, they let you down abjectedly.

Your past relationships have shaped your present ones, you went from one bad relationship into this one which is also bad. You cannot remain with this man out of fear of being lonely yourself if you were to leave him (and I think this fear of being alone has kept you tied into this unhealthy relationship).

Your needs are as much valid as the next person's, they truly are but you as yet do not believe this (this is why I also suggest counselling). You have put him first at the expense of you and its not making you or has made you any happier. Infact its only made you more unhappy.