Being seen in relationships.

[OneNeatBlueOrca]

Hi, I don't know if this is the right place to post. Ive noticed for a while, but i'm not particularly assertive in all my relationships and I wish I could be more so.

I have a difficult childhood background.I won't go into.
I grew up being a people pleaser trying to get people to like me as I never really felt cared for.

And whilst I have worked on this and I ve had therapy, I m finding putting it practice very difficult. It's insidious where I don't often notice that i'm people pleasing at the time.

I have a boyfriend.I've been with for 2 years. It can be difficult to get him to do things that I like but. Overall, the things we do, we pretty much see eye to eye on. But it's where we don't, that's the problem.

For example, i've been asking him to go for a particular city (UK) for a break and wealth, he makes noises about it.He never makes plans. Similar with a particular day trip I wanted to go to - asking last year came to nothing and asking this year, he said, okay, maybe, and now never mentioned it again.

A few days ago, he asked me if I d like to go and see a show in a nearby city with some friends of his, who I know now and get on very well with. I agreed to do it. He asked if I could take a day of leave for it. I said yes to it.

Then I started thinking, this is a day of annual leave and train tickets to see something, i'm actually not that bothered about. Whereas the things I ve asked to do have just been left though i've asked the last couple of years in a row.

I hope this doesn't sound childish, but I was going to decide to pull out of the but he's already booked tickets and he said he will cover mine as a gift from him. I know it's kind of him and he hasn'done anything wrong because he did ask me and I said yes.

But why is he able to commit to something like this and the things i've asked to do recently we end up not doing it.

I don't have a great relationship history and I haven't really been in a long term one before. Nothing more than about three or four years, which is hardly anything given I m in my late thirties.

Because of my lack of experience, I m not sure if I should have a conversation about that's it or should I just let my actions speak. The last time this happened, I just went with somebody else and had a great time.And he was actually sad, he hadn't done it with me. Shall I just go off and do it myself and forget him.

But then that means I end up doing things.He wants together, and I end up doing things I want alone.

I want to be seen, and I sometimes don't feel seen. The things I like and want aren't given equal weight. I hope this doesn't make me sound childish.

OP, sounds like he has you exactly where he wants you and his punishments work.
You regret saying anything.
God help you if you really think this is a healthy relationship.
As for Lundy Bancroft, whatever about his vaccine views, his book has been a beacon of light and education to many many women who were desperately unhappy, controlled and manipulated by coercive men.

You can see your boyfriend clearly and his selfish manipulative behaviour, which seeks to punish you, but are actively choosing to avoid to asking for your needs to be met to avoid his punishment.

If thats all you want from a relationship then that is your choice.

Usually the best way to change a relationship isn't by grand sweeping statements.Its behavior.

I shouldn't have said it by text.Maybe I should have said it face to face. We had a really nice weekend last weekend and then a really nice date this week was amazing.

Then out of nowhere. I'm annoyed that he's booked something I actually said. I wanted to go because i've been keeping quiet about my own desires.

A few posters have said it to me if I want to do something, then it's no good me, suggesting it. And then expecting him to do the grunt work. I suggest it, he says, maybe, and then I come up with a plan, and then if he says, no, there's a problem. I haven't actually done that with the big things I wanted to do.

I just should have changed the behavior not by text message. Next time he asked me to do something, I don't want to do.I say no. I make a bigger deal of the things I want to do rather than sending text messages about it.

I bought DH an experience voucher last year, I didn't expect to have to book it, the gift is for him. Of course we would align diaries but it's his present so he should choose when he wants to do it.

Similarly if there's something I want to do I get all of the information, I want to go to X trains are y£ , hotel is z£ it's on from this date to this date , do you want to go? Yeah alright, ok can you check with work and let me know which of the weekends you can do by Friday and I'll book it.

We're going to a retro gaming festival tomorrow with live action dungeons and dragons, obviously DHs choice he told me the date, said is the Saturday or Sunday better for you? I'll drive us there, we can stay with my parents the night before if you like because it's near them, saves an early start. I said Saturday is better because I wanted to do X with DS on Sunday, I clearly wasn't jumping up and down to go but I'm fine to. DH went away and booked the tickets.

There seem to be other issues but I think this one about trips out is six of one half a dozen of the other. He shouldn't be organising an event of your choice.

Hes made it clear he wants to come on whatever we choose together. He earmarked it for something and then that wasn't available.

I looked at something a couple of weeks ago and he said hed like to do that in September. Now hes gone and booked the thing the friend wanted in September and he's so miserly with using his leave that he wont want to do both.

Ill juat book something myself. OK its good to know and I equally responsible and should be more proactive with booking the things I want to do. I'm not offended by constructive criticism.That's the reason I came here to get it
So it's been good to know

He is not your person and this relationship is going nowhere.

Keep going with your therapy re people pleasing. That often happens as a result of wanting to please a difficult and or emotionally absent parent,

Better to be on your own than to be this badly accompanied.

And you really do not know why you’ve ended up in a string a bad relationships, this one being the latest abusive disaster?. He is yanking your chain.

two word suffice as an answer here to the above - your childhood. Your parents set you up good and proper to become a people pleaser and otherwise a person with poor boundaries. You were targeted by him to abuse you.

Well maybe I haven't explained well enough.

99% of the time we see eye to eye. We have had so many amazing experiences.Nights out holidays weekends away. We generally have pretty similar interests, and we do things gear towards those interests that we both share.

It's just on the things that may be aren't common interests. I would appreciate more open mindedness from him on this point. Or maybe I should just go at alone.

Go it alone. He is both abusive and avoidant and the only acceptable level of abuse in a relationship is none. My guess is that your parents are of a similar nature.

Hoe did you arrive at 99 percent anyway?. It sounds like that was just plucked out of think it. When examined or scrutinised more closely it’s nowhere near 90 percent is it?. Denial is also a powerful force.

You see eye to eye because he yanks your chain and you go along meekly with his desires.

If you want to go out he more often than not says no to what you suggest. He cannot be open or do anything like open mindedness.

I can't remember the last time he suggested we do something together and I really didn't want to do it.
That's where I got it from.

A lot of it with me is when he asks me what I want to do I often hesitate, and I don't want to say what I want to do in case he thinks it's rubbish, and that is from childhood.Its fear of rejection.

I'm going to have to go to the thing I already agreed to go to. But beyond that, I'll be saying no, unless it's something I really want to see.