Need some advice, saw the thread on here about an insecure boyfriend and it resonated with some of my issues but I wanted to start my own thread as I am in a quandary about my current partner.
We have been together for 16 months. Both divorced and hit it off straight from the outset and were madly in love within weeks...
Talked about moving in together and I even got my coil removed on the very slim off chance we might conceive although I'm 42 and suffered premature menopause.
2 months in we had our first misunderstanding when I went on holiday
with a longstanding male travel buddy. All was fine until I made a flip comment about the naked sauna and he kicked off about it. I thought it was all my fault for the thoughtless comment and was very apologetic and worried Id killed off our budding relationship.
2 months later we went away together and ended up having our first proper row as I organised everything and was really stressed and he came along for the ride- he got on his high horse and wouldnt listen to me trying to explain to help him understand me (I'm under a lot of stress and people take advantage of the fact that I look calm on the surface but am paddling furiously underneath to keep afloat. I spent the night and next day crying as I didn't like the cold hard lecturing side of him but he later recognised he had been a dick and let me do everything and would never let that happen again.
Since then there has been a gradual deterioration and I have seen that side of him more and more despite becoming more and more fragile myself (anxiety/stress/depression
and two road traffic accidents leading to ongoing injuries and lots of work stress/bullying where I felt forced to resign and had months of stressful jobseeking).
As far as I can make out the times that he turns nasty are all because he is jealous/insecure but he reacts badly if I say that and says it is a perceived lack of commitment on my part. And he's right- I pull back when he behaves like this and said we shouldn't move in after all once we started arguing, to protect both our kids from potential fallout, have refused to book non-cancellable holidays long in
advance and even got my coil put back in, partly to help my hormones but partly because I didn't want to risk getting pregnant.
So he is right that I am not committing as I am essentially protecting myself and my kids (and his) from what has become a turbulent relationship.
When he is not being a cold,impatient, stubborn rock we get on amazingly well, I am ridiculously attracted to him and we have the best sex I've ever had. Passion is not the problem and he thinks I am silly to throw our relationship away but he has pushed me so hard I've had panic attacks and begun to have suicidal thoughts and he doesn't stop haranguing me or arguing with me until after I'm a sobbing heap saying that we are through and usually he eventually admits he was a dick and apologises and we are ok until the next time, but my trusting him with my fragile mental state reduces with each incident. He reacts to this with more pressure to commit and we end up arguing again. Apparently he and his ex wife used to argue a lot but it wasn't a problem- I'm just not built like that at the best of times let alone when I'm having mental health issues but he is physically incapable of biting his tongue or treating me with compassion.
Does anyone think there is any hope?