Please tell me what you think of this kind of behaviour.
Last day of holiday with boyfriend. He is 50 I am 40. We are having a great time, out for lunch, by the beach, we have two separate flights to catch in the evening. We’ve spent four days together no problems.
we finish a bottle of wine at lunch, feeling a bit tipsy, I ask him to kiss me. Just a kiss on the lips not a snog. He says no. Okay. We go to the beach, hang out, laugh some more, swim in the sea. Literally leaning against each other, holding hands, making jokes. I ask him again to give me a kiss on the lips. Just a peck. He says no again. It becomes a bit of a joke. Me begging and him refusing, although I really did want to just be able to kiss him on the lips.
As we are waiting for the taxi and getting into the taxi to go to the airport the joke continues. I said please now we are about to go our separate ways I just want you to kiss me. He was very assertive, the tone completely changed and said “no sorry I really don’t want to.” I asked why. He said I just don’t want to and I have a right to not do something i don’t want to do.”
I am ashamed to say I cried because it was the last time I would see him for a while and he was talking to me as if I was forcing myself on him and he was some kind of victim of my sexual advances (bear in mind this is a three year long, emotional and sexual relationship we are in.)
as soon as I started crying (I was also a bit pissed) he sat back and said “my god, you are so pathetic.” This made me feel 100x worse I said why, why won’t you kiss me? Why is that pathetic we have done it thousands of times before? He said it’s completely pathetic I shouldn’t have to explain why.
I then got out of the taxi and stormed off with my bag and caught another taxi to the airport. He sent a series of texts saying again how my reaction is pathetic then told me he was turning off his phone and would not be checking messages. I got on the plane crying. And the same thing happens every time (the same thing but different has happened before,) I start to panic that I have done something stupid, that actually i am an awful, chaotic crazy person, who cannot respect other people’s boundaries and that I have fallen I to the trap of his stereotype of me. As this crazy, unhinged person who loses it and storms off over something small. So I send a view texts apologising for over reacting and saying how sorry I am and how I will respect his boundaries in the future. This is so confusing to me because I don’t feel I crossed his boundaries, just wanted something we normally do in the course of our relationship.
this is increasingly happening in our relationship. He will take a stand over something or over a principle. Something we usually do as matter or course or have done for several years already: like kissing, holding hands, talking about a certain topic. He will suddenly act like I am crossing a boundary and become formal with me , almost like he wants to see my reaction. The jarring nature of jovial and loving to formal, cold and spontaneous boundaries catches me off guard and I find it very upsetting and will often cry or beg him to tell me why he has suddenly become like that. He then has carte Blanche to say I am over emotional, over sensitive, getting upset over nothing. It’s just a boundary why can’t I respect that? Have I ever heard of #meetoo? He is a person who wants to respect his own principles and live by them. Why can’t I respect that?
why does he do this?
I am walking on eggshells, waiting for the next surprise or boundary, starting to fear getting it wrong. It has also created a physiological sense of heightened anxiety in me where I feel like I could lose him any second and I feel desperate to keep him. The time before when this happened, he blocked me on his phone for four days. It was hell and it was because I had caught him Out in a small white lie about his work. I wanted to understand why he did not tell the truth and was asking him gently. He accused me of being abusive and systematically abusing him over years.
please help what is going on?