My boyfriend of 5 months ended the relationship after a small disagreement at the weekend. He then immediately left in the middle of the night. He was incredibly cold and detached in that moment. I’m heartsick. He was the best person I’ve dated (I’m late 40’s and divorced) and had many lovely qualities. We had a final talk on the phone and he has basically listed the times I have reacted emotionally to situations and said that he feels he couldn’t make me happy. I’m kicking myself.
From my POV, it’s true there have been some occasions when I’ve become upset. There was no shouting, accusing, name calling or anything like that… a few occasions when we had both had a drink and feelings would come out that I may otherwise have suppressed. These were consistently about the same theme… me feeling taken for granted and not cherished. But now I question myself and wonder if I was expecting too much. He acknowledged I was very attentive to him ( hosting him at my house every fortnight.. that was the only time we could see each other due to child care and distance… I couldn’t go to his as his mother lives with him), paying attention to what he liked and surprising him with experiences I had booked for us to do or his favourite treats, offering him massages, little romantic gestures. He said I made him “feel important.” He felt that him driving 50 minutes to see me and brining a bottle of wine showed effort. It fell on me to do all the meal planning and getting the food in. Sometimes he would not respond to messages around things related to this or weekend plans. It was always me getting up to make him a cup of tea in bed and make breakfast. I just began to feel taken for granted. He also never showed much interest in my past where as I wanted to know all about him.
We had one massive arguement that blew up over Valentines. He gave me a card but no gift and I was disappointed as it felt like another example of being taken for granted. I wasn’t going to say anything though and just wanted to sit with the feeling of disappointment. He detected a change in my messaging style that afternoon (I still responded but more briefly and less frequently) so he directly asked me what was wrong. I gently explained that it was not his fault but obviously a misunderstanding about what we had agreed (I though we had said to get a little something) and that it had made me feel a bit uncared for. He got extremely defensive and, on the phone, talked over me, hung up on me twice and shouted that he felt he wasn’t good enough for me and that we could not keep having these highs and lows. I didn’t realise my disappointment and subsequent quieter messages constituted a dramatic reaction. He seems prone to defensiveness, possibly due to childhood trauma (violent father).
I will add that he told me that he was having the best sex of his life. I didn’t feel that (although I loved having that connection with someone I was really in love with) and the first time we had sex was awful as there was no foreplay and he just entered without a condom. He felt awful afterwards and explained he thought that, because we were naked and I pulled him close that that’s what I wanted. But we moved past that. I would stay he was still lacking in sensuality but it did improve . Lastly, he said he may be autistic and was going down the diagnosis route. Not sure if this is relevant.
He had some really lovely qualities too though… he was a good listener, funny, mostly consistent with messages, kind to his mum, invested father. Good job. Offered to visit my sick mum with me. He was also very much my physical type. And he did plan a future night away for my birthday gift that we will now not go on although on my actual birthday he let me pay for my own meal (we normally split the bill but that was my birthday)and for the cinema for both of us (I’d booked a film he really wanted to see and already paid for the tickets but he said it would be his treat then never paid).
I’ve got this sickening feeling that I messed up the best relationship I’ve had because I’m too anxiously attached or demanding. I feel like I should have looked at the bigger picture and all his qualities and not fixated on little things like romance or planning more day to day stuff. How do i forgive myself and move on?