Am I toxic?

[Ahets]

Accidentally posted in chat

I’m worried I’m running my relationship. It’s not that new, 18 months nearly. For context, DP is quite introverted, not much relationship experience, quiet and reserved and is happy with just being rather than getting overly excited or enthusiastic about things. That makes him sound like a misery, he isn’t, he just doesn’t express himself much. Not sure if that’s relevant.

I fear I am controlling or at least clingy.

1. Can’t stand not having plans to see each other set out in detail. For instance, he works different hours each week and sometimes doesn’t get his timetable until the Sunday. I feel upset and annoyed if he doesn’t check it immediately and then tell me so we can plan.

1. I feel upset if he doesn’t become as excited as me about a weekend away. I email him ideas and hotels and he rarely responds other than to say it sounds nice. He doesn’t book annual leave in advance and doesn’t plan ahead to fit these things in. This makes me feel rubbish and I send him more ideas I guess as a way to make the plan more appealing to him.

1. If we have only one or two texts in a day I feel like he doesn’t care or is losing interest. I get upset and don’t express this to him but withdraw for a while.

1. I don’t like that we don’t speak on the phone daily.

1. I felt upset that he told his family about a promotion the day before he told me. I had helped him work towards this and discussed it with him at length.

1. I want to see him most days and feel pushed out if he says he is busy with work etc.

The worst thing about all of this is that before him I was wildly independent. I didn’t give a shit about whether a man text more than once a day or whether we spoke on the phone. I couldn’t have cared less. It’s as if the more he is chilled out, the more I panic and feel worried and then do these strange things. I’m not sure I’ve ever emailed a partner so much about trips away or been so keen to pin down in detail the next time we meet. I’m just not like that. Except I am with him. I can’t seem to help it and I don’t know why!! Am I being neurotic and toxic? How to stop?

I suspect you're responding to his lack of emotional availability.
If you don't like the person you have become when you are with him, and it doesn't sound like you do, I'd let this one go

You stop by ending this disaster. The two of you are totally mismatched. You are desperately trying to illicit emotions from someone who simply will not express them, and that is never going to change. Just walk away and move on. This man will never give you what you need, and honestly, he doesn't appear to be even remotely invested in this relationship.

Both PPs are totally spot on.

You do sound incompatible. He is clearly unavailable and you are trying to overcompensate. Time to end it I think, for both of your sakes.

Your description of how you act is actually quite shocking. It sounds smothering and I can't really blame him from minimising contact with you if thats how you are being. I'd run a mile if a partner acted like like that towards me. You do seem aware of it though which is good and means you can stop it. You will drive yourself mad if you don't.

Sounds like he isn't the person you want him to be, but you do sound very smothering.
You might meet someone who's ok with that, but I think most people aren't.

I think you need to take a wider lens on the situation. You are being you - it’s just the you that this relationship / situation brings to the surface.

It’s clear that this isn’t making you happy. So the real question is; why are you punishing yourself with this miserable relationship?

You're not toxic but you are putting a lot of stock in the fact he isn't meeting your attention and emotional needs. If he can't meet those, or at least try to, the relationship is going to keep making you feel unworthy and miserable. End it.

i spent 2 years trying to change my ex into the person i wanted him to be, ignoring who he was.
I was exactly you about 4 years ago, i felt awful. Eventually he broke up with me (and good on him) and it was the best thing that ever happened to us both. I have no bad words to say about my ex, he was a geniunely wonderful human - but we were not right for eachother.
I wanted him to be as excited as me for little trips and doing silly stuff, but he wasnt. Not because he was a kill joy, but because he just wasnt me. He wasnt the person i wanted him to be.
Im sorry my love, but your just not right for each other, it sounds so Cliche but it just can be the case. Doesnt mean theres anything wrong with you, just means your searching for something that isnt there.
You deserve someone who will give you all those things without having to ask, he will never be that person.

PS - 6 months after breaking up with my ex, i found the absolute love of my life who matches me perfectly. they do exist so stop wasting your precious time when you know deep down its not worth the fight!

Hes just not the right one xx

Is this your second thread on this today?

I agree that you are incompatible. You often see relationships where this happens that move in triangles. It goes like this:

He is distant and uninvested
She moves into that space in order to get him to open up and show more interest. When he doesn't, she backs off thinking he's uninterested
He starts to chase her and brings her back then becomes distant again

Rinse and repeat

Different attachment styles. When someone is interested, there is no anxiety as you know where you stand.

@Ahets it sounds like you are acting this way as you feel he isn’t that invested in the relationship. If you acted the same as he is, there wouldn’t be much of a relationship would there? So you feel like you have to go the extra mile to keep it going. This might be just how he is or it might be that he’s just not that invested in you. Either way, after 18 months it won’t get any better now. Rather than driving yourself mad and losing who you really are, walk away and find someone equally as invested in you as you are them.

I don’t think you sound toxic, instead very needy and insecure. If your insecurities are that deep they could easily turn into toxic behaviour though, so it’s good that you’re checking yourself on this so that you can make sure you prevent yourself becoming emotionally abusive. Tbh, it doesn’t sound like the two of you are suited to each other. You want different things out of relationship and that doesn’t make either of you wrong, just incompatible.

Let’s imagine a man posted this about his gf.

1. Can’t stand not having plans to see each other set out in detail. For instance, she works different hours each week and sometimes doesn’t get her timetable until the Sunday. I feel upset and annoyed if she doesn’t check it immediately and then tell me so we can plan.

1. I feel upset if she doesn’t become as excited as me about a weekend away. I email her ideas and hotels and she rarely responds other than to say it sounds nice. She doesn’t book annual leave in advance and doesn’t plan ahead to fit these things in. This makes me feel rubbish and I send her more ideas I guess as a way to make the plan more appealing to him.

1. If we have only one or two texts in a day I feel like she doesn’t care or is losing interest. I get upset and don’t express this to her but withdraw for a while.

1. I don’t like that we don’t speak on the phone daily.

1. I felt upset that he told her family about a promotion the day before she told me. I had helped her work towards this and discussed it with her at length.

1. I want to see her most days and feel pushed out if she says she is busy with work etc.

People would be telling him he’s stalkerish, abusive and controlling and they’d be a line about more red flags than bunting.

A person can't be toxic on their own, like a musical note can't be happy or sad on its own. There has to be a relationship or communication.

Do you feel toxic with everybody, or just your partner? That should help you narrow down the source of the toxicity.

www.simplypsychology.org/attachment-styles.html

He's probably got an avoidant attachment style, and yours is anxious. This is often a toxic feeling relationship. Brings out the worst in both partners, and for the anxious one, it feels like being really distressed often, and the partner just not giving a shit and dealing with it by being elsewhere.

@LargeInCharge

Don't think so. The post is all about OP's feelings, not trying to make the other person do something. It's unhealthy from any sex or gender, but it's not 'RED FLAG RED FLAG!!' abusive. OP just feels crap.

I don't think he sounds especially distant or unavailable. In fact, he sounds a lot like me when I started going out with DP (and it's still often the case 10 years in). And I couldn't stand any of the demands you place on him.

I also work different hours every week (and was self-employed when I met DP). Very often I wouldn't know my schedule in advance and very often it would change at the last minute due to shifting deadlines etc. This made concrete plans hard to commit to. But it's just the nature of my industry and it's not going to change. DP and I compromised - I committed to bigger holidays and plans, and he learned to accept the constant low-level spontaneity. I would not have accepted a demand that I spring to action the minute I got my timetable to plan time with him.

You know people can be excited about things without expressing it in the same way as you do? Actually this is more DP than me, he'd never visibly overflow with excitement about a weekend away. Doesn't mean he's not looking forward to it or that it won't be nice.

Admittedly this was 10 years ago but we never sent more than a handful of texts per day to each other and never had a proper phone conversation. Not my preferred communication style, doesn't mean I'm emotionally unavailable.

Getting upset at being told something one day after his family seems incredibly childish to me, sorry.

It's very annoying to have to juggle work AND a needy partner who thinks your non-negotiable deadline is a rejection of them. My DP felt that way at first but to his credit realised that if I had to cancel at the last minute because of a deadline, or if an event overran, or if I had to react to breaking news, it really wasn't about him in any way.

You are not compatible.

My previous BF who I met at University was lovely but my God so needy. I just felt totally suffocated. I think him not telling you about the promotion is about rubbish as you helped but that’s it.

I have now been married to DH for 22 years. His Mum visited last week and he has taken her home and is staying to do DIY. One text to say he arrived and a quick conversation about his arrangements to travel back over four days. That’s enough for me and him. Suits us both. You need to find someone who wants what you want.

I think its worth bearing in mind that even healthy people don't respond well to toxins, so if your relationship is toxic, it may make you behave and feel ways that are alien to you. A bit like when a healthy body gets food poisoning, and all kinds of sweating and diarrhoea and vomiting occurs. It's gross. And then you can look back and think 'Holy moley. What the hell was my body doing?! It NEVER does stuff like that!'

And a toxic relationship is not always toxic because one of the partners is toxic. Nobody has to be wrong. Two lovely people can be toxic to each other. This, for me, made it easier to leave; recognise the sad reality of incompatibility, rather than endlessly have 2 people trying to change each other.

@TheFoundations is absolutely bang on

I’ve been the anxious one in an anxious/avoidant relationship. I barely recognise who I became. I’m generally very independent but I was forever in tears. It made no sense, but it wasn’t right.