Looking for advice on a lockdown relationship

[Noname91]

Hi all

Looking for some help or advice or just a place to come and talk. Feeling really alone on this one. Met my partner in lockdown and everything was going really well until.. the restrictions began lifting. Having both just moved to a new city we had loads to do, talk about and it really seemed like we had an incredible connection. After 6 months we moved in together..
However, since restrictions lifted slightly back in March (we’re based in the UK) I have been getting stuck in to city life: joining new clubs and trying to meet up with friends new and old. My partner on the other hand, hasn’t been doing this.
Me going out, plus spending a day a week doing sport, hasn’t gone down well with them.
I’ve been supportive as best I can and suggested they get stuck in to things but that’s not seemed to help. I’ve also spent time trying to focus on our relationship by suggesting going out and seeing people or doing things together.. but it’s always me suggesting this and a lot of the time they don’t seem interested in socialising with others. I’m an introvert but I’m fairly sociable.. so I’m finding this really difficult.
It’s gotten to the point now where I just don’t want to do anything. I feel very trapped and feel like I’m starting to change and isolate myself. We’ve started arguing almost every day on top of this and I feel like it’s just the pure resentment towards each other.
I’m really not sure what to do as it’s been going on for a couple of months now and doesn’t seem to be getting better.

The problem is that lockdown wasn't real life, and no way to be able to truly get to know someone, IMO. Now that life is becoming more and more normal it might just be that you aren't really compatible.

I think you need to walk away. It sounds like you just aren’t compatible in the real world and do you really want to spend the rest of your life arguing every day?

I'd be concerned that he's potentially controlling. It's very worrying that he resents you going out, doing sport etc.

Recommend you move out again.

The relationship wasn't 'real' because of lock down. You can really fully get to know someone when you can't even go out.

I'd walk away and stop wasting my time. You shouldn't be arguing after less than a year together.

Getting in a new relationship during lockdown, which isn't the real world, was always going to change when things went back to normal.

Its like when you meet someone on holiday.

You aren't compatible. Your focus is going out. Even when working on your relationship, your thoughts are going out together or with other people. And that's OK.

But its not him. He is more of a home body and doesn't need all of the socialising. And maybe he is too far that way.

Unless you are both happy to make a compromise. So you go out less and him go out a bit more and both be genuinely happy with that. It's not going to work.

If you love being out and socialising, being with him is going to make you miserable.

I don't think you necessarily see the "real person " in the weird environment of lockdown. You and she don't seem really compatible, so maybe just accept that you were there for each other at one time, but now things have changed and you're not as compatible as it first seemed. Its not shameful.

Getting in a new relationship during lockdown, which isn't the real world, was always going to change when things went back to normal.

Not sure I agree with this! My lockdown relationship is as good, if not better than pre normal.

You're not obliged to stay in the relationship you know. If it's not working and it's not resolvable (and it really shouldn't be hard at this stage), then just end it.

You wouldn't normally move in with someone after 6 months - you just don't know them then, and I think there's no way of actually knowing the real person in lockdown. It's such an artificial existence.

Not sure I agree with this! My lockdown relationship is as good, if not better than pre normal.

I didn't think I need to write a disclaimer stating there are exceptions to every rule. And the reason I didn't is that we aren't long out of lockdown and we aren't back to normal yet.

I wouldn’t call him controlling you just aren’t compatible. How long have you lived together, whose place is it?

I wouldn’t call him controlling hmm

Oh no? Why not? He gets stroppy when she goes out and it is having the effect where she says "I feel very trapped and feel like I’m starting to change and isolate myself".

It's one thing to not be particularly social yourself, it's another to make your partner so uncomfortable about going out that they start to feel they can't.

This is how controlling stuff starts, not with ordering someone about and force, but with manipulation and making it so it's not worth the arguments/stress at home to go against them.

The problem is that you are not 'partners'. You were people who were seeing each other for a few months and moved in together very quickly under 'unprecedented' circumstances without having known each other in a real world sense.

What is emerging is just that you are not very compatible.

Neither of you is wrong; you are just different. You couldn't go out and do your normal stuff during lockdown and were forced to stay in whereas the other person was just living their normal life.

It feels now though that the relationship is a lot more serious than it really is because you are living together. You don't have to stay together - especially I'd there are daily arguments. It's not going to get better because you are fundamentally different. You are not going to want to stop going out and doing your sport etc (and there's no reason why you should) and they are not going to want to start doing more (and there is no reason why they should either).

Under normal circumstances, you would have realised your incompatibilities and broken up after a couple of months of dating.

Other posters have assumed that you are female and your partner is male. However, when a poster goes to such lengths to conceal the sexes, it is often because the poster is male or its a same sex relationship.