Hi all!
My situation is a very complicated one and it's taken its toll on both my and my boyfriend's mental health over the course of the past two years.
To give a bit of a background, we've been together for over 8years and a half now. He moved to the UK after I came here to study (my parents forced me even though i didn't want to come here). So he started from ground 0 when he came here, which led him to be behind our friends and me with his career. He started to study here. My family also pressed me to support them financially as soon as I finished uni and got hired. This put a strain on our finances and eventually when I started to argue with them that we can't keep sending them money because we're struggling they pointed the finger at my boyfriend saying that he is a loser and I am supporting him through his student years while he barely managed to get money (part time student job) when compared to me who was working full time. Over the years they kept blackmailing me emotionally into giving them more money and they always insulted both me and him.
They went even further and forced us to support my sister when she came here to study as well 2 years ago. They told me that she is my sister and that they can't afford to support her here and it's my duty to pay for everything because they have sacrificed their lives for me and they are poor because the have invested in me all these years.
My sister is a horrible and shallow person who never showed any compassion towards us and felt entitled to stay with us and for us to pay for everything and this led to a lot of tensions in our house.
Eventually I decided she needs to move out as we can't keep on supporting them when she can clearly work like all students do (like we did!).
This didn't bode well with my parents and then they went full on hostile towards my boyfriend and his family and tried to break us up.
That is when my partner lost it. He felt betrayed that I've let them get us to this point, he started seeing a lot of my flaws and just wanted to break up after he had a complete meltdown.
We didn't break up as we still live together, but he is very distant from me, doesn't kiss, hug or show much affection most of the time since then (almost 4 months). He said he still loves me and if he thought our relationship had 0 chances he wouldn't still be here after all this.
My family has been cut off, and I started a while ago to see a therapist to help me cope with the entire situation.
It's gotten a bit better, but not too much. He is very depressed as his career is behind and now he started his master's and can't focus on his course (he's close to a first deadline and he is just lost).
All I want is to help him not fail his master's and for our relationship to be saved.
I am working on myself and know what is bothering him from my behaviour so I try as much as possible not to upset him while also myself growing as a person.
I just don't know what else to try to help him as well as steer him towards us both working on our relationship. It may seem selfish from my part but I do believe that once the relationship is sorted a lot of stuff will just fall in place.
I would also mention that our schedules are different and we rarely have time together. Especially lately, because he goes away until late to avoid both me and his situation in general. I know he's not the cheating type so I trust him not to fool me like this. I will admit sometimes I worry but usually when he is next to me I don't get any feelings that he would do anything bad towards me. I just feel like he's self destructive at this point. He hasn't gone to a counselor yet, even though he said last week he should, which is a great progress as he didn't want to consider that months ago.
I hope this all makes sense. It's so twisted and sad, I don't know what to do more than I already am at this point. I just want to know what else i can do to assist him with all of this and how to save our relationship.
This has been on my mind constantly for the past few months.