Hey chat this one’s a bit long so I apologise for that but want to give some background info to create a proper narrative. I just want true and unbiased opinions so allow me to over share while asking you am I wrong for questioning my relationship and suggesting a breakup?
I come from a bumpy family .. my dad left my mom at a young age, he yelled a lot and got mad easily raising his voice to intimidate and get his way.. My mom also had a hot temper she wouldn’t get mad as easily as dad I think she bottled a lot of of her anger towards him to put it onto us.
in a way, I don’t really blame her but when she did she would scream and physically grab me and throw objects at my brother and I and get physical. She once gave me a bloody nose during an argument to which I slammed a door in her face where she attempted to put her hand in the door and her hand got messed up and was bleeding. (I’m not saying this proudly I just also wasn’t the perfect child.) My parents got divorced they fought a lot before during and after and couldn’t even be friends. My dad cheated, shocker. They constantly lied to me and my brother about the other to try to pin us against the other parent. My brother eventually ended up believing my dad (who told my brother my mom actually cheated on him with an “entire football team”) and moved in with him and I stayed with my mom. She got really depressed from not seeing my brother. We couldn’t really go to the other parents house without a lot of harassment and questions so we didn’t do that too much and lost touch. My mom got together with a new man, and he seemed okay at first until I realized he has a little bit of a drinking problem. It’s not that he drinks all the time, but every time he does he drinks way too much and gets emotional in a good or bad way and will have outbursts with tears, yelling, anything and you never know if he’ll be a happy drunk happy crying or an angry drunk picking a random fight with my drunk mom, because she too has also picked up this habit of getting too drunk. He once ruined Christmas Eve by getting plastered and accusing my mom of cheating on him. She has passed out in front of me a couple of times. I digress. My mother and step father started having problems in the relationship and would argue in front of me constantly. Screaming through the whole house anyway. He would tel her she’s a bad mother and a bad person. She would tell him he’s a piece of shit and so mean and they would constantly break up and get back together.
He was also super strict in the house and made me feel uncomfortable to leave my room. He always questioned what I was eating what I was doing what time I was eating if I ate “his food” if I was wearing socks inside because if not it would make the floors dirty with my sweaty feet… he had cameras around and I wasn’t allowed to have friends over while home alone (still I can’t and I’m 27 years old.) so he and I would fight too, all of this to say I didn’t grow up with lots of love or a strong male figure in my life and I don’t think I grew up knowing how to set boundaries or how to have a healthy argument.
I ended up in quite a serious relationship in my early twenties and we engaged. I ended up loving with this person and then getting into a bad situation during Covid and needed to have life saving surgery. While I was recovering, my finance cheated on me with a 17 year old girl. Lovely.
This took me a while to recover from to where I am now today in my current relationship. I understand that my past does not define me but I would be lying if i said I don’t carry some of this with me. I am working my best everyday to understand that I should learn from the past and not hide form it.
This leads me to recently my partner and I have been arguing in a not super healthy way quite frequently. We have been together for a year and a half, m(27) f(27). He asked me to move in with him after 3 months dating. I thought that’s fats and toxic but it’s a good way to get to know someone so I moved from Italy to London to his places. It started off like a fairy tale. Lavish dinners, talking all night with no to no phone, endless laughs, beautiful small random gifts of thought not monetary value, amazing passion… However he is still “young” I suppose for a man but he seems to be emotionally immature and doesn’t take my feelings or needs seriously.
For example, on Valentine’s Day he did not send me flowers- I am currently alone in Australia on a work trip for two months and we haven’t seen each other. (We are dating a year and living together already and he always says he wants to marry me and have a future with me and he knows I’m his future wife.) (I know it seems like love bombing but the hurt little girl inside wants to believe I deserve this intense first love so that is how I choose to accept it. Also he’s from Italy they’re spicy there.)
That he didn’t send me flowers upset me and I tried to bring it up to where he made multiple excuses as the flower store didn’t make deliveries on Valentine’s Day and the time difference confused him.. I would have rather he just apologise for forgetting and then maybe send flowers some days later.. anyways you can send flowers on uber eats these days but okay.. any acknowledgment would have been okay but he just kinda argued it and then eventually said he was sorry. He then went to a birthday dinner of his sister with 6 girls total all young 23 year old single girls (who one I know he has had something with in the past) and he was the only boy and he paid for everyone’s dinner(keep in mind this is an expensive restaurant in London and all the girls there have rich families and they have their family credit card so they wouldn’t have been paying for themselves anyway) this made me feel jealous because he spent money on other women around valentines (that didn’t need it and he knows that) rather than trying to make me feel special on Valentine’s Day..
it seems we were having a rough patch and he needed an ego boost so he paid for 6 girls dinners to get the satisfaction of buying them dinner. I know him and this seems more likely than just trying to be nice for his sisters birthday.. but maybe I’m wrong maybe it’s a cultural thing?
I find myself now when things are hard always saying I want to break up because I take the relationship seriously and if it is a future thing I want to make sure he’s the one so I’m watching all of the red flags. Every time he ignored my feelings or makes excuses I just feel it’s game over because it’s always the same fight. It’s not personality red flags like pet peeves, more so if this person is someone I can trust and if they try to communicate to understand and build a foundation. If our relationship was stronger I think it would be different but for some background info we have been together 1.5 year. About 8 months into the relationship I caught him texting another girl asking to FaceTime this girl, he deleted al the texts and him asking her to FaceTime being flirty, but I noticed a new follow on instagram and I dm’d her to ask how she knew him and she sent screenshots of everything that he had deleted. She turned him down and said he was disgusting to message her while having a girlfriend. They used to have phone sex on FaceTime which is why she assumes he called her as they hadn’t spoken for over two years. I then found a girl texting him where he told me was totally random and she just reached out. The weird thing was he didn’t tell me so I knew he was hiding it from me. The message didn’t start with “hey” or “hi” so it seemed the rest of the chat was deleted and progressing form another point. The message she sent was just a flat “are you busy tonight then?” It could be the start of a conversation but I had a bad feeling. He continued to deny anything about this conversation so I messaged the girl. She told me they met to discuss relationship issues together. She also expressed to me she was surprised he reached out as they hadn’t seen eachtoehr in a long time. I asked him about this and he admitted he met her for “coffee”. He also admitted he was talking badly about our relationship to her. This day he only told me he was going for a walk and his phone died while he was out.
I’m also in Australia for work at the moment (he is in London) and I got an option for Louis Vuitton (which meant me staying on for one more month) but it is a great opportunity and I would be a fool to say no, however when I told him, he met me with an upset attitude due to me having to extend my trip. He was not excited and didn’t say congratulations. As a model, this is a big deal. And he knew that I travelled for work when I met him so for him to express this upset of course I cared but I didn’t feel this news was so surprising. If you’re with me for a year you know how last minute modelling jobs can be or how they pop up randomly with no qualms. It was always the plan for him to join me in Australia and us fly home together anyway because he promised me he would come see me. so I thought it would be great for him to come in the middle of the trip to help break up the distance since I was extending an extra month. He not only refused to come, he continued to tell me he was coming but only if we could fly back together. The next day he’s not coming because “Australia is disgusting “ (mind you he’s never been.). To me this didn’t make sense and didn’t seem he wanted to see me so badly. He has rich parents that pay for every flight, he also has a job that makes excellent money and he has 14 days vacation available for taking off as long as he gives 1 week notice. I really just don’t understand if the person you love is in a new foreign country why you wouldn’t want to go to explore it with them, especially while they’re alone. And we already had the dates planned. This added stress and pressure to my work trip, to which ultimately I turned down the offer from Louis Vuitton. I knew I would never hear the end of it and figured I live with this person I don’t want to cause a problem.
I’m so stupid.
i don’t really trust him and just think if he really cares to build back my trust and self esteem a little from what happened I think he might have jumped on a plane and okay that’s extreme I get it but really sent flowers for me ?? maybe its a small thing maybe valentines doesn’t matter but am I the asshole to think he just doesn’t care as much as he says?
Also I get really angry when he doesn’t properly address my emotions and I can get quite nasty and it’s wrong. I feel so hurt I feel the need to say something mean and I don’t know why I do that. Id like to put it all down to my upbringing and past trauma and my inner self crying to be loved, but I know I’m a grown ass woman and it’s my job to do the work, too. So I feel ashamed every time it comes out and always regret it and feel painful regret in my chest I always wonder why I said those things but it always happens every time he ignores my feelings and I feel neglected. He continues to say he didn’t do anything wrong and I’m always overreacting and that he did so much for me and I’m so lucky and he’s “a god unlike anyone else” his actual words. He goes on these ego trips and doesn’t get that I’m just a little hurt and insecure because of all that happened. I know I chose to stay in this relationship, I am trying to move on, but I’m having a hard time believing that he stands behind his word. He continues to make promises he doesn’t keep and he says all of these things about the future but I don’t feel like he’s here, with me, today. And I think it’s important to respect and validate your partner. Idk maybe I’m overreacting. I just now told him I want to break up if I won’t be treated properly and gently with consideration after he’s already broken my heart, but I can’t tell if he’s maybe a good guy and I’m being too hard on him or if these things are kind of red flags and I’m valid to be concerned? I’ve been hurt by so many men and I don’t think I have a good perception of what love is supposed to look like and I worry my mind sees love too black and white. Am I missing the grey?
Is it unhealed trauma or the relationship?
or is it just navigating a young relationship?
Am I wrong for thinking he’s just not that into me?