I have been with my bf for nearly a year. Both 50, him childless, affluent and me with children, one of them primary age and I work but we live within a finite budget. He knows I have been through significant trauma in my life (my own cancer, DV, court battles, early deaths, late miscarriage)
He has been slowly unravelling over the last few months. Work is apparently too much (he has had 8 different managers in as many years due to reshuffles but I suspect he is unmanageable and not being told) He constantly has a feeling of being overlooked and in one of the reshuffles lost his directorship.
Him and his ex-wife had a cat and the reason why they never had children was in order to not upset the cat. I suspect she didn’t want children with him, and as she is ten years younger, will still have the opportunity to do so if she met someone now.
They were no contact for two years.
The cat escaped and was picked up by someone who took it to a vets. It was registered to her so they called her. She then asked if she could visit the cat and he agreed. I was due to see him that night. Previously to this I had revealed that in my last relationship I was pushed out in favour of an ex so the grandparents could maintain relations with my ex’s son (we also had a daughter so it was a huge event).
On the night of the cat visit, my bf erased every part of my presence ahead of the visit. In order to not upset her as this would be the final time she would see the cat. I challenged this when I found out, citing my experience with my daughter’s dad. He again tried to justify this with her potential upset. The cat has since died. He is inconsolable as it was his “best friend”. This is the first death he has experienced and I “could never possibly understand how he’s feeling.”
Last weekend I took us to a European city break. On the way he realised he forgot his passport, and on the return back to his house to collect it he was punching the car and shouting at himself that he was a stupid “cunt” and screaming at himself. We still went away and relaxed into the weekend. He said he believes he is depressed. He has have over 40 sessions of therapy in the last few years. He remarked his ex-wife found him insufferable and was cruel to him, but that she had gone through a nervous breakdown before leaving him and the cat.
This week, every comment I’ve made has been taken the wrong way. Each time I try and raise something I am deemed unfair as I could never understand. He encouraged me to find my love of travel again. I mentioned I’d like to try and visit a country every couple of months next year (for context I have been out of the country 2 times this year and prior to that was 10 years, in his marriage and for work he would have 2-4 long haul every year). He then said I was irresponsible and to think of my carbon footprint. I suspect he may be ND as gets visibly agitated seeing people out recycling into normal bins, as an example.
I said we needed to talk, he wanted time to think (2 days) and yesterday we met. He remained stuck in his position of justification regarding my displacement and it wasn’t until I said that he hasn’t even apologised for hurting me that he finally did. He then said he realises the gravity of it all and wants a break to think about us. 2 weeks. Which takes us over Christmas. My children are at each of their dads and my family are holidaying abroad so we’d planned movies and chilling. I’m now going to be on my own. I suspect, due to his lack of accountability that he is planning a slow fade but doesn’t want to do it before Christmas.
Can you all help me understand how I can have a lovely Christmas on my own? And that I did the right thing is challenging him? In my head we are already over.