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????

Seriously he attaches so many strings to anything he says you must be able to see this.

He’s expecting you to be so grateful that he’s not drinking that he thinks he can smother your life.

They are his words not mine. And I almost wishes he hadn’t to make it easier to leave him.

he will never see it like that. He is clear that his ‘obsession’ with me, again his actual words, are a good thing

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

Oh @Suffocatedlove 😣He really has done a number on you. Read what @BeenThereBackThen has put....

Your DP lied and now he’s turned all needy, demanding and using you for his dopamine fix.

Op that would make me feel totally suffocated.....if he won't back off might be worth thinking about your long term future. Good luck x

You have a choice re this man, your 17 year old does not and she's also been through more than enough also re this man already.

What do you want to teach her about relationships and what is she learning here?. What are you getting out of this relationship now?. What would life be like for you and she without him in it?. A lot calmer I would imagine.

You could just put ‘we don’t live near my DD,s sixth form’, no one would question it as quite a few teens go to other sixth forms rather than their local one. You don’t need to tell us that it is a selective one, unless the post is about her education.

Absolutely spot on.

So no then.... He can't just be proud of you. It's all about him and always will be.

No. But how do

Whoops! How do YOU see it I meant to say. Does his ‘obsession’ make you feel loved?

Just adding my voice to those saying he's not 'perfect' at all, he's manipulative and controlling. You don't owe him a relationship. I would be extracting myself from this one.

Relationship is not one person being obsessed with someone. Thats stalking.

Relationships should make both people better off- happier, more content, more stable and comfortable.

This is not a relationship. It’s an obsession on his side, and you are being treated as an object. Indeed, an object that’s failing its role/duty of pandering to him.

I suppose I meant ‘perfect’ in terms of all the things a lot of women want their man to do, help around the house, put money in, spend time with them etc

Actions speak louder than words. If you were truly “disgusted” with yourself and regretted bringing him into your home, you would have broken up with him by now. He may be sober from alcohol now but how will you feel if in a few years time your DD tells you how awful it was living with him once he had transferred his addiction to you? Please do better for your DD’s sake and get this man, whom you don’t even love (??), out of her home.

And he's a sex pest. Ick.

Get out, OP!

That’s not perfect, that’s just the basics. A flatmate would do all of this.

Your bench park for “perfect” is low @Suffocatedlove

Really low

Sorry I was just trying to justify why I take her to school when she is 17. I wondered if people would derail by asking why I was still doing school runs for my 17 year old

We live together in my house.

poor kids. Having him move into their family home. I imagine your teen daughter was not exactly overjoyed to share her space with him after you dating him for 18 months

No, it makes me feel in debt to him and suffocated.

But I do also wonder if he is just genuinely so obsessed with me and therefore in love with me that he does want to be around me all the time. I 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

Very good point tbh

Then just after he moved in I discovered he was an alcoholic

and you had a 3 year old and a 14 year old around this? In their home?

It doesn’t matter.it isn’t good for you. Move your focus away from him, what he wants, what he needs, what he feels, and onto yourself and your DD!

Thats not" perfect"
Its the baseline
Did you have an absent father ? @Suffocatedlove

Often women who have absent fathers either physically or emotionally put men on a pedestal in an attempt to heal their own childhood trauma