I’ve namechanged for this.
I’ve been seeing someone since the summer and I really need some advice.
Disclaimer: I’ve been single (apart from the odd fling) for almost ten years, and I really don’t know what I’m doing with relationships anymore. I guess I don’t trust my own judgement.
I met this guy through work. We talked on the phone for a few weeks (outside of work time!) and eventually arranged to meet. We met a couple of times for walks / coffee etc, then he invited me out for dinner. Afterwards we went back to his flat and at the end of the evening we kissed. A couple of days later he asked me to be his girlfriend.
So that’s the background.
He’s 12 years older. Both of us have been single for a long time – me because I’ve been focusing on work and I’ve had some serious health issues to deal with, him for the same reasons plus both his parents passed away in the last few years.
The good stuff: he’s interesting. I could (and do) talk to him for hours about all sorts of things. We have lots of (oddly specific) interests in common. He’s very attractive – to me at least. The sex is great and we’re very compatible in bed. When he’s relaxed, he’s very funny. He has the same goals as me and we want the same kind of things out of life: lots of books, animals, no kids. We’re in the same line of work and we’re both passionate about it. At first, things were genuinely amazing between us. I really thought this was it.
The less good stuff…
- Even just in the 5 months I’ve known him, he’s had a period of what I would call depression. He doesn’t call it that, he just says things like ‘things are difficult at the moment’. His way of dealing with it is to retreat into himself and become very quiet, for 2-3 weeks at a time.
I had serious chronic depression for more than 20 years and I tried to be understanding and to give him space, etc. But I found it hard – because I haven’t known him for long, at first I didn’t know what was happening when he just went quiet.
I know this isn’t about me and of course he doesn’t owe me anything, but if he’d just said ‘I’m struggling at the moment and I need to be on my own for a bit’, that would have helped. When I tried to talk to him about it, he became passive-aggressive and said ‘well, maybe I should just go away and not see you at all then.’
When he’s like this, he doesn’t speak, doesn’t smile, he isn’t affectionate. I hug him and it’s like hugging a pillow. He won’t even talk about going to see his GP or a counsellor. Again, I know this isn’t about me, but I tried to explain how hard I was finding this – I hoped it might make him want to get help – but he shut me down.
- He has a lot of anger in him about one of his exes. He wasn’t with her for long and it ended a long time ago, but when he talks about her he sounds furious. She had a miscarriage soon after they met and he’s said some horrible things about her and how selfish she was afterwards. I called him out on this and pointed out that while they both went through something terrible, she was the one who physically lost the baby and had to go through the pain and the hormonal upheaval etc – but he just told me that I wasn’t there. I’ve tried to talk to him about how he feels about the miscarriage, and he said he didn’t want to talk about it.
- I don’t feel like he listens to me. He often interrupts me. We can’t see each other during this lockdown due to work (a long and complicated story!) – coming straight after his period of depression, this has been tough. So I’m unhappy, and I told him this – but he says he doesn’t think there’s a problem. So now I feel dismissed and ignored.
We’ve only been together five months and already I’m struggling. I don’t think it should be this hard this early. But at the same time, I realise that the last few months have been really, really shit for everyone. Things aren’t normal. Lots of people are struggling with their mental health.
We’re both off work for a week over Xmas and we’d planned to spend it together. Part of me is really looking forward to it; part of me…isn’t.
Do I hang on in there and hope things get better? Do I see how things are in the spring when the world might be a bit more normal? Do I cut my losses now?
I know I can break up with him and I don’t need a reason etc etc – but it’s been ten years since I met someone who seemed to get me the way he did at the beginning AND where there was mutual attraction. Would I be throwing away something with potential?