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......!

Start looking into the practicalities. Look at alternative places to live and so on. Start making plans.
Just do it.
There will be no "right time" to make the break - don't waste another few years gearing up to it.

:( :( crying now, I never cry, a year of my councellor hovering near my face with a box of tissues didn't make me cry.....damnit....!!

Put him first at expense of me...yeah but why does it take only the smallest handful of comments from DP to make me think the opposite? Constantly feel like a selfish demanding never satisfied sort of a person...

Sigh....going to make more coffee....

Then is contolling you pretty damn effectively.
And you have woken up to it, which is good news.
I hope the genie is out of the bottle now.

He is controlling you, that should say...

Sounds very strange to me that someone so passive could be controlling....

Cat

Make some coffee indeed and dry your eyes. Crying is good, it is a healing process and is not a sign of weakness at all.

Maybe your DP is somehow replacting what your parents did i.e tossing you the smallest crumbs of affection to keep you both compliant and acqueiscent to their selfish needs at the expense of your own.

I would urge you to make firm plans to leave this man over a set but gradual time period before you get dragged down even further by him.

replating - no, should write replicating!!!

Selfish, demanding, never satisfied... you are trying to put forward your needs and he is not meeting them. He's not a bad person, just not meeting your needs. Of course you're never fucking satisfied- he never satisfies you!

Selfish = putting yourself first = good
demanding = stating what you want = good
Never satisfied = massive red flag that tells you that this relationship does not make you happy = good

You are meeting his needs at the expense of your own. He will say anything to maintain this. It doesn't mean he's right.

He just doesn't want you to go.

Just because he doesn't want you to go doesn't mean you shouldn't.

You think he will be devastated if you left. Not exactly. He will only be upset if you leave because your leaving will stop his cushy existance. This man is truly a selfish emotionally abusive individual who took advantage of your low self esteem and self worth issues from childhood.

Right, coffe made, nose blown, all good :)

I can't get over how much good sense there is on this forum, thank you all again.

It's going to be a nightmare trying to explain to him why I want to leave him. Tried countless times before - he just says I'm not being clear or I'm not telling him anything when I bring up what's bothering me.

Plus the old classic - tell me what you want me to do......I don't know - you have a think and tell me what you'd like to change = nothing!

One last thing occured to me - could it be I wouldn't feel so much like this if I made more of a life of my own, i.e went out more by myself etc without pressuring him to want to join in?

"This man is truly a selfish emotionally abusive individual who took advantage of your low self esteem and self worth issues from childhood"

Oh god, that makes him sound really calculating, like he's been the way he is deliberately to make a nice life at my expense.

Can't can't can't believe he would be capable of that (or have the brains for it for that matter)

He's got the sort of wouldn't hurt a fly personality about him (with a layer of anger just underneath that I grant you) but more railing at the unfairness of the world type anger.

Cannot believe I could have been THAT blind.....I may have some 'ishoos' but thought I had at least a grip on reality.....

There is only one reason you want to leave him- you are not happy.

Simple. Don't waste time trying to justify yourself or your reasons to him- you don't owe him an explanation. What's he going to do, refuse to let you leave because you haven't given him a good enough reason to split up?

"could it be I wouldn't feel so much like this if I made more of a life of my own, i.e went out more by myself etc without pressuring him to want to join in?"

No. It could not. You will have a life of your own, go out by yourself etc. when you leave him; and will have the time of your life without having to return home to the millstone round your neck. You are just suggesting this because your are scared to leave him, scared to be on your own. Just because it's scary doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. If you don't leave, you won't be happy. Ever. Are you ok with that? Isn't that more scary?

There is no half-way house option here. Leave. Throw yourself into life. Find someone who wants to join in.

cat

re your comment:-
"One last thing occured to me - could it be I wouldn't feel so much like this if I made more of a life of my own, i.e went out more by myself etc without pressuring him to want to join in?"

Short answer to this is no. You can have a life of your own, a happier life of your own, without him in it dragging you down.

Tethersend is also right - you do not have to give him a detailed explanation but just that you now want out of this relationship, infact you owe him nothing.

Your thoughts are telling you that you are unhappy and that you want out - listen to your inner voice and put that first now perhaps for the first time in your life. Too many people have told you what to do at great cost to yourself, time the worm turned as the saying goes.

"No. It could not. You will have a life of your own, go out by yourself etc. when you leave him;"

Can't hide behind that then evidently :)

'The cat really loves him and will miss him' - there, does that count? :)

I'll shut up now......promise

Cat

Many people have acted cruelly towards you; your ex being one such person, your current partner being another. He has it well made at your expense because you've carried him for the past decade. I am not suggesting that you were deliberately targetted by this current man but that possibility is a distinct one. At the very least your relationship radar was well off at that time you met and probably remains so.

Your parents taught you some very damaging lessons; these need to be unlearnt. I am glad to read you have previously had some counselling with regards to that.

Hi cat

re your comment:-
'The cat really loves him and will miss him' - there, does that count?"

Are you referring to your pet cat here, the animal that he himself cannot take to the vet when it gets sick but lets you do so instead?.

What is there to truly love about such a damaged individual as this man clearly is?.

What are you now getting out of such a relationship, how are your needs being met here?. I would appreciate an answer to that. Being conditioned from childhood to put the needs of others at the expense of your own has cost you very dearly and you must unlearn that.

And as for this:-
"I'll shut up now......promise"

Do not describe yourself in such self depreciating terms, you are worth more than that!

Oh Attila - I am so pathetically grateful just for someone telling me they're interested in one of my answers. Never realised I was THAT starved of validation.

You're very educational you are :)

Yep the pet cat is what I meant - my little victory in this relationship. I used to think 'such a small dream to have in life, to own a cat' so I finally went ahead and got him.

I am trying to find an answer as to the needs questions. Perhaps he covers my need to feel useful to someone, or even to feel a bit superiour to at times.

I don't have to face the big bad world all on my own all the time (he's someone to talk to after all) even if that 'talking' is of shite quality.....

Beyond that, no idea really

The only reason any of us are giving advice is because we've been there.

It is not a personality flaw to want to feel needed and want company- it's human nature. I'm not saying your past hasn't shaped you (I know nothing of it, BTW), but I think you need to leave him and analyse yourself later. Don't make this your fault.

It many not be his fault either. You are just not happy. Leave, feel happier (you will) and work out why later.

....leaving just because I'm not happy - there's a concept I've yet get to grips with.

DP's just got up and is stomping around not speaking to me cos I got angry at this snoring this morning.

Best go as I don't want him to find out I've been plotting to split from him all day so far.

Can you list 5 things he does/ has that make you stay?
So far we have:
No money
Not kind
Doesn't keep you company
Ignores you

Snores
Smokes cannabis

He's back in Playstation land......didn't take long :(

I am going to have a think on your question QueuePosition

Prefers ps to doing Things. Sorry but he just isn't that into you

Rewhat you said earlier about how you can't believe he is so calculating as you control you, and to do it on purpose in a thought-out sort out way...

No he probably hasn't pre-meditated any of it. But you can easily be very passive and yet controlling - as you say, he gets in a strop if you complain about something. Basically by sulking/withdrawing/ whatever whenever your behaviour challenges what he thinks should be the norm, he controls your response.

He probably does it without pre-meditation or an actual thought-out desire to control - it's just his instinctive reaction to change.

I know of quite a few men who are happy to slide boringly into retirement without any sort of challenge or change. Don' let him take you with him. Don't still be in the same position this time next year.