dp wants space

[happiestblonde]

don't know how to namechange.

Dp of about a year and a half wants space. I've had a hard time over past couple of months because I hate my job and had a bad smear (among other things) and i made huge error of leaning on him in a suffocating way. I have felt so sad and insecure that he now feels miserable because he thinks my happiness is entirely contingent on him and I'm trying to stop him seeing his friends. This is not true but I can see why it appears that way - he works away for a couple of days most weeks and often socialises in the evening. This is of course fine but I recently had the tendency to think, in my insecure spiral of sadness, that he will forget about me and so got a little bitchy about this. He also went out with a particular female friend that I have/had reservations about this week and said he'd be home at 9pm but actually got in at 6.30am after leaving the bar after 12 (despite my many calls) and the girl fell drunkenly so he took her to hospital. I expected an apology but now realise I shouldn't mind how late he is out anyway.

This all came to a head and he's told me he is miserable and feels a huge burden of my love. I know I have to take control of things and be more secure which I can do - I've never been like this before - but he now wants space and I'm terrified this is the end. Our relationship has always been wonderful, effortless and amazing - he's my best friend and I feel awful for leaning on him so heavily. I want him to realise how this is not me and I can easily fix things but I don't know how. If I push him or cry anymore it will make things worse. I don't want to tell anyone in RL as I don't want the drama. I don't know what I'm looking for here, perhaps just someone to listen or care that my heart is shattered. I don't want to lose nmy best friend - not because I can't cope without him but because I love him and until recently we made each other so happy.

It's quite likely that because you have had a lot of upsetting stuff going on in a short time, you have found yourself clinging on to this relationship as the cure for all your problems. Women are, after all, socialised to think that The Right Man is all we need, so when everything else is going wrong, it's not difficult to thing that having a 'great relationship' will help you through it. Unfortunately, no relationship can do this (fix everything else in your life), even less so when it's with someone who sounds a bit spineless and selfish.
The pain will pass. The reason it feels quite so bad is that it's an accumulation of all your other distresses, a kind of last straw thing. Be kind to yourself and let your friends and family be kind to you.

You're entirely right, I know this and now I'm aware I can stop acting/feeling this way, I just wish he'd give me the chance to do that. I feel so pathetic, so sad.

Ask yourself why he won't give you the chance, there are other issues at play here I guarantee it. If you really care for and love someone you would surely gave them a chance wouldn't you? Especially with everything else they had going on. I know I would. Has your behaviour really been so unacceptable that he had to end things so finally and coldly this way. Clearly he is not feeling the same way as you and I suspect is not actually capable of it.

Oh happiest - you do keep talking of him "giving you the chance to fix it" whatever that means. Does it mean you won't lean on him any more when you are distressed,won't complain when he comes in at 6.30 a.m. - in short will let him have all his own way and you will be a door mat for him? These are the actions of a very needy, emotionally fragile young woman which is what you are. This kind of thinking is not good for you , nor for him. Raw need is very unattractive.

In my view, when people start talking about wanting "space" it is the beginning of the end. It's a way of saying "I'm tired of this relationship but I want to let you down gently" - I too would be very suspicious about him being out with a girl till 6.30 am and not sure I'd buy the hospital story.

Sorry love but he sounds very emotionally immature and hops from r/ship to r/ship - he probably needs flattery and easily gets infatuated. I gather that you 2 got together soon after he split from another partner. 18 months maybe his limit.

You need to STOP thinking about him and his needs and wanting him to give you "another chance" - another chance for what - you ARE NOT AT FAULT, although you seem convinved that you are........you are'nt, unless there is something you are not saying. You need to start thinking about YOU and your needs. I know you are hurting but it will pass - you are young and intelligent - you have your whole life before you. Don't be a VICTIM. Be as emotionally strong as you are able and take responsibility for yourself and not him.
SORRY if this sounds harsh but I think it needs to be said.

If he cared he would act in a caring way and not resent your needs.

NPD is narcissistic personality disorder, and if he has this then he is not relationship material. His relationships will be all about him, and his partners will feel they are having the life sucked out of them, and yes, made to feel small and stupid and guilty for having needs and thinking they can ask him for a shoulder every now and then. With a narcissist it is all take and no give, and that certainly sounds like what you have here.

I am also a bit about the story of the exwife and his relationship with her. It sounds very textbook devaluation to me -- done in order to justify breaking up the relationship, to justify starting the next one, to make the next woman feel she is somehow more special to him than the last one, better able to be his perfect woman, the woman who understands him better than his previous women and meets his needs better...

I like Nananina's post here. You are a very young woman, he is older and has baggage, and he should be pathetically grateful that you even gave him the time of day, let alone moved in with him. There is no way he should be out drinking with anyone, or anywhere else in the evenings unless with you.

Appreciate and value yourself more. Don't settle for someone who makes you think you need to beg him to let you try to fix things. That is like saying you're not worthy of him, you don't deserve him, when the truth is the other way round.