Boyfriend asked for space after first argument, is this a breakup?

[ForOpalEagle]

me and my boyfriend of 2 years have a really loving relationship, we were both in quite abusive relationships before we met and due to his previous relationship he struggles with communicating his feelings, he said it mainly stems from his previous girlfriend often invalidating how he feels. He hasn’t had any therapy for this issue but it hasn’t been a problem until a couple of days ago, I will try to keep the next part shot but I want to give as much info as I can.

last week he was really off, everytime I asked he said he was fine and it was just tiredness, fast forward to 2 days ago he starts telling me he isn’t happy, he doesn’t get any time to himself and he feels unstable in life, I ask if there’s anything I can do to help he says no because it isn’t us he feels unstable about, stupidly I asked why he didn’t just tell me this week and said I kinda felt lied too… this leads us to our first ever argument, by my standards it didn’t seem bad, we wasn’t shouting at each other but it was late at night so we both went to bed angry…

the next day he says he needs space to reflect, I understand this and agreed to leave him be, 24 hrs of no contact pass by and I start to feel anxious as he never stated how long all he said was I won’t be seeing you at the weekend, so I reach out and politely ask if he had a rough timeline in mind for us to talk. He says no because I made him feel how his ex did and he feels like he can only express his feelings as long as it doesn’t upset anyone, I feel terrible for this I apologised and explained that I felt lied to, I accepted responsibility for not communicating better and said in hindsight I should’ve just listened instead of fixating on the idea of him potentially lying to me, he then said I should stop trying to justify it, I sensed he was still angry so I apologised again and I said I was here if/when he was to talk.
im now back in limbo with no idea what’s going on.

my question is really is this a soft break up or does he genuinely need time to process?

my anxiety is telling me that by waiting for him I’m just delaying the inevitable, but I love him so much I dont think I can walk away.

Do you say the same to men who have partnered with the MANY women who have a history of abusive relationships?

Ok I feel I need to elaborate on this again. I don’t feel there is anything wrong with him taking personal space to reflect on what’s happened. It’s just something I haven’t experienced before. But I will take your advice and ask other men, thank you

Because that's how he evidently wants her to feel. A "bit of space" is not days of silence expecting the other person to just be left hanging.

It's like a pp said, going off for a walk or whatever. He could still check in if he didn't want to talk deeply.

Going completely silent on her is cruel.

Yeah it is and I dont think he has gone totally silent on her. You dont get to limit how much space someone else has to soothe yourself.

It’s one time. I don’t think that will be the case this was my mistake not his

Nobody should be punished for something that happened in a past relationship, man or woman.

What's your agenda here?

Abused women have the same responsibility to themselves and future partners to do counselling, therapy etc to deal with the trauma that this man does.

It's not OK to behave badly to someone and justify it by what someone else did to you.

Every healthy relationship has drawbacks agreements regularly. No two people agree on everything for two years.
If you’ve never had to work through a deal agreement in two years - then it means you or you both have been avoiding disagreements for two years. Possibly one or other or both of you have been giving way on every small difference of opinion. Which is not healthy.
If I go into town for coffee with a friend she might want to go to Costa for the loyalty points, I want the Cornish Bakery for the Cornish pudding. We disagree but by talking it out we reach a solution. IIf we can’t speak openly then resentment will build and the relationship is at risk.

We'd have to agree that asking for some space is "behaving badly".

I think you are over the top in blaming yourself for the statement about being lied to. Because it gives you some control- if you are in the wrong and then he’s right to be silent.
I can see how the lie thing would rub him up the wrong way for sure but you’ve apologised multiple times. It’s done.
he is not however. I’d let him get I touch now in his time. And how he gets back to. That will give you the answer

if he comes back and acts like nothing happened =red flag

if he comes back and wants to talk about it, youre in a better position but make sure you don’t take all the blame

Disagreements don't equate to arguments.

Is a bit of space (fully communicated) "a punishment"?

What’s your time frame then? The op is unaware if the relationship has ended or if he’s still processing. How long is she to wait?

You've mentioned multiple times that there’s been no raised voices in this relationship as if that means it is automatically therefore super healthy, but unpleasant manipulation can take many forms and can be done in whispers.
Your behaviour is being conditioned to walk on eggshells around upsetting him, in case this happens again, and that does not bode well. Lift your head up and say that this keeping you dangling is not acceptable. Relationships are not about how much you love them, they are about how much you respect each other.

we don’t avoid disagreements, we’ve had disagreements and resolved them. We just haven’t had a big argument before

Id wait longer than a couple of days. But I wouldnt have asked how long.

Sounds like the anxious-avoidant attachment dynamic to me.

I’m not saying it’s super healthy, neither of us like shouting so we communicate calmly, we both grew up in households where conflicts were resolved by shouting and screaming.

I don’t understand why people say no arguments isn’t healthy

Because they assume that there must be various areas of incompatibility that they typically overcome by "winning" a conflict. The idea that two people could be pretty in alignment on most of the things they find important, or have different enough areas of importance to not clash on the big things, is fantastical from their perspective.

Thank you for your opinion.

How long would you wait then? Three days, a week, a fortnight?

And ongoing, wouldn't you be afraid to have conflict again in case he "needs space" for days at a time? If you lived together, wouldn't you worry he is going to disappear for days, when you have children in the home affected by it?

If there's going to be a future for the relationship, he needs to find a better way of managing conflict.

You know, it costs absolutely nothing to be kind. but thank you for taking time out of your day to comment