DP ‘perfect’ but I can’t bear it!

[Suffocatedlove]

Will try and get all the info in as not to drip feed. NC but long term on mumsnet.

I am 36 & DP is 41. I have 17 yr old DD and he has 7 yr old DD. No children together. No plans to have any. We live together in my house. Been together 4.5 years, lived together for 3.

Start of the relationship went well, although love bombing in hindsight. Then just after he moved in I discovered he was an alcoholic. A very traumatic year passed as he lost his job and was drinking by daily. Long custody battles in court for his child, his family completely toxic encouraging drink and actually trying to ruin my life (maliciously calling my work, SS, etc I fell out of love with him in this time and asked him to move out. He begged for a 2nd chance and said he would get sober and do all the work on himself for a chance to be with me.

He did. He has been sober for 18 months, back in work (quite profitable business). He does everything ‘right’ puts money in the household; probably does more in the house and garden than I do, has built a relationship with his DD, gone NC with his whole family, buys me surprise presents, makes sure we spend time together, books trips away, walks my dogs if I am busy, literally on paper, everything absolutely right.

However. He is so full on. Bordering desperate. He constantly complains I don’t spend enough time with him, that he wants more of me, he wants to work on our relationship, he is constantly asking me to come back to bed after the school run etc (we don’t live near my selective DD’s sixth form so I have to drive her), how I am always busy with work. He says all the time how I am his priority, how he has put ‘everything’ in to me and us and it almost feels that I owe him for this. If I am not hanging off him he feels rejection. It’s suffocating!

But I feel awful. He has done and does everything ‘right’.

I read posts on here and see how shit men can be and look at my life and think I am being so ungrateful.

I just want him to chill. But I’ve spoken to him about it loads and he says that he wants our relationship to be intense and ‘obsessed’ and that ‘he won’t be told it’s not amazing to feel the way he does about me’.

What shall I do????

BTW - as others have said the 'obsessional' love thing is how he will have felt about alcohol. He loved it more than anything but it was going to kill him. It's not reasonable or normal to transfer that feeling to a human being, but that's what he's done. Alcohol is the 'other woman' he is threatening you with.

Dear lord that sounds almost frightening. He wants an intense relationship? Does he think he is an 18 year old who has watched too many romcoms?

He is manipulating you. That's why you feel guilty because that's his game plan.

People want someone they can relax with. He doesn't sound like a relaxing person to be around.

I agree that he's what the folks at AA refer to as a "dry drunk". They counsel people not to get into a relationship for a year after getting sober- for good reasons.

Like it or not, he has a whole load of work on himself to do.

If you still feel you owe him then his controlling behaviour has worked on you. You've admitted to yourself that you don't love him, in fact you've said that you actually hate him but you are now saying you owe him. He hasn't done anything for you, he's done it so he can control you by making you think that you owe him. Your poor DD, this is going to have a huge impact on the rest of her life.

OP, you are the metaphorical boiled frog here, the water has been heating up all along with his intense, inappropriate, obsessive, controlling behaviour and you have not been seeing it as you are listening to what he is saying (this is love, love is obsessional) rather than what you know to be true in your body (that you don't love him, you don't want sex all the time and you don't owe him anything).

You only get one life and so does your dd. Do you want this to go on for another 30 years? I think you know that this is wrong, which is why you posted, and what to do.

@Starlight1979 the 2 people I’ve known who very much needed the Eastenders level of relationship intensity and co dependency were not the sharpest tools in the box either, neither read at all or had any hobbies really - I think their hobby was being ‘full on’ in relationships - the guy I lived with like this I also think had huge insecurity issues, as it turned out ( unbeknown to me for quite awhile) that he had been dumped 6 weeks before getting married due to his booze habits and neediness- someone else kindly told me. Hexwasa good looking guy, fun and quite charming in many ways but in the end I actually had to ‘run away’ as he started blocking doors if I tried to go out without him or turning up randomly and without asking to pick me up at work etc

Interesting that you only found out he was an alcoholic AFTER he moved in with you. He hid that from you until he had his feet under your table. He is manipulative. You've given him a chance already. He doesn't need another.

It’s absolutely horrifying to think your daughter is witness to this.

Can you check if he has a violent history and then make safe plans to leave / ask him to leave.

His behaviours are unacceptable and abusive

He sounds scary OP.
I totally get it btw. One ex I had I felt like his hobby, interest, everything. Everything I liked or did or dreamt of he would be right there constantly mirroring me. It was fucking weird and horrid to be someone’s sole focus.
He’s in your house which makes things more dangerous (and I do think you need to carefully consider your safety with this one).
Do you rent or own? And do you have good friends / family members who would be able to back you up if you ended the relationship?

I think a sixth former should be capable of making their own way to school, selective or otherwise.
Don't most kids start travelling to and from school alone aged 10-11? So that frees up your 'school run' obligations.

Anyway tell him to calm down and stop pestering you. If he asks you to do something you don't want to just say no. I want to do X or I've arranged to do y.

Maybe some time apart from him might help, as he sounds like he's being a bit too dependent.

Think about you own wants and needs, not just those of daughter and bloke.

why? Why did we need to know it is a selective sixth form, unless she wanted to get in how clever her daughter is? Unless she meant ‘the sixth form my daughter selected’ in which case that is totally different

Have you watched "Raising Dion"? (It's a tween show about a single mum raising a kid who turns out to have superpowers).
There is a character in there who reminds me very strongly of your description - on the face of it at the start he is an amazing, selfless, 'perfect' man stepping up to help out but as the show goes on you can increasingly see actually he is very very entitled and the 'selflessness' is rather manipulative....(no spoilers)

Why?

Lady, this man is a controlling nightmare in a pretty form. From your posts:

‘he won’t be told it’s not amazing to feel the way he does about me’.

He is very clear he wants sex and sexual talk to be a ‘big part of our relationship’ so constantly is trying to engage in sexting during the day

if I ‘reject’ him he just thinks I don’t love him and that’s I am ‘punishing him’

whenever I tell him I love him out loud, inside my head screams ‘no you don’t’

Iv seen him with other relationships, work colleagues etc in what I appear to be transactional relationships.
He very much feels he has ‘done everything right so why am I not obsessed with him’

he sulks and makes a lot of comments about how he wants to be my priority, loads of sexual stuff being text the time I am away, then the questions, why are you not texting back? Have I done something wrong? It asks me loads of questions to try and make sure I reply.
I can and do ignore him but he just goes on. It’s more annoying that anything. That being said I do toe a line a bit,

They have a court order which neither of them follow currently, when one gets the hump with the other they will reignite it in the courts then it will die a death, then it’s texts about changing it. I have said to him in the past that the seems obsessed with that too but of course he isn’t

But he also told me that he ‘can’t and shouldn’t be held responsible for his past when he has made so many positive changes’ [of course he damn well is]

I have actually taken to writing down all the time we do have sex as he did at one point make me feel as though I was going mad with the questioning

whenever something is successful he is always very happy for me, but it’s closely followed with him needing attention now that is out of the way.

He is clear that his ‘obsession’ with me, again his actual words, are a good thing

think the reason Iv stayed is because I can’t work out whether it is genuine love and I am just being cold or whether it is over the top [you're not being cold, this is your sense of self preservation. and it's so far over the top it's turned into something else - utter control].

I have said to him before he is a bottomless pit of needing reassurance. He just said I am being horrible to him if I say this

he comes to me and says ‘I am so pleased with our conversation, the way you admitted you are neglecting me, the way you promised to do more to make time together is so refreshing’ im like what?????? I didn’t say that?

or if I work nights he will change his work pattern so he can stay up all night ‘to support me’ I don’t need this, I worked nights wayy before him. And then will lay on bed with me the next day so I don’t even get any peace then, Iv told him to stop this but he acts like Iv kicked him in the face and does it anyway as he is ‘making the effort to spend time together’

he told me I was controlling 😐

Please, please go to therapy. And not the sort that makes you feel all fluffy and warm - you need the real stuff that teaches you to look beyond the surface to the effect people have on those around them, and what a healthy relationship looks like. It's hard, painful and you learn a LOT from it.

This man is severe bad news.

You don't love him. You aren't obsessed with him. Your feelings sound conflicted. You sound proud of him. You pity him. You feel guilt about leaving and fear that he will relapse. You don't love him. You aren't responsible for his sobriety. I think he manipulates you so much you probably spend a lot of time thinking WTF. You need to be free of him. End the relationship. If he drinks that's on him. Don't take the responsibility on. It's his to bare.

He has an addictive personality. He gave up his addiction to alcohol and refocused that addiction on you. He sounds so full on, so damaged and the shit that his family caused you would have been enough for me to send him packing at the beginning.

I think based on what he’s done in the past, coupled with his desperate behaviour now you quite likely have the ick. And I don’t blame you.

He considers his needs more important than yours.
He thinks about relationships in a transactional way, he put all the 'right' numbers in and now can't understand why he isn't getting the outcome he wants. He values his experience over yours.
You mentioned a conversation where he came away being glad you had admitted you at fault (even though you hadn't) this shows you he will place the blame on you. His discomfit ie lack of validation, is your fault. He already perceives neutral things as rejection. He will evaluate you and measure how 'worthy and desired' he is by your responses, the constant evaluation will be exhausting if it isn't already. If he doesn't feel appreciated or respected (which is likely when someone needs validation like this) his narrative will be that you don't appreciate him, even if you do frequently show appreciation. But he will treat the feeling as a fact eg I don't feel appreciated so you must not be appreciating me, I feel rejected so you must be rejecting me.
His 'obsession' is driven by his need for validation, he doesn't truly see you or consider your needs, it isn't genuine love.

It was one word in a lengthy thread about a completely different issue. Whatever significance you’re projecting onto that word is entirely in your imagination.

Seriously, swap this man for a golden retriever (which you can also have neutered and train to stay in a crate sometimes).

I'd be really interested to know why you think your DP is perfect

I think he sounds absolutely awful.

Get rid of the tosser

This man will eventually fall off the wagon. When he does he will blame the OP. That's when it will get really scary. He is stalker or wife beater material.

All this business of owing a debt. No. OP has already helped to get him off the booze after being lied to about the booze which was hidden.

I don't think she understands just what a dangerous situation she's in with a man this obsessed.

It's wild that he's spun the narrative so that SHE owes HIM for him giving up the booze that was ruining his life and that of everyone around him. He sounds like a massive twat but he must also be a master manipulator.

He will definitely fall off the wagon. He's not dealt with the addiction in any real sense, just weaponised it.

@Suffocatedlove from your updates, you really must explore the feeling that it's all in vain and you're feeling of guilt from that. You can absolve yourself, if you like, that you have already helped him and tried to understand him but now this is quite seriously undermining you as a person and you need to take back control cos right now he has all the control. He's a very troubled individual but it is not your responsibility to give him everything HE needs in a relationship. You are not his therapist and my goodness he needs some serious therapy. You can't give it and it shouldn't be expected. If he doesn't have the emotional intelligence to realise what he is doing then I am afraid he's being abusive and you should be done. I realise this can't all be resolved in a day but a PP made a good post about tackling this in small steps. First off, contact Women's Aid for advice but absolutely do not tell him...even in a moment of frustration!

Mangel, yes "weaponised" is an excellent description.