[sekai333]

Hello,
I am in a committed relationship for 4 years, and lately, it’s just been falling apart. I have a feeling that we have gotten to know each other very well, and the problem is, that we’re too comfortable with each other now. We used to have late night conversations, and fun dates, and everything that we did in the beginning was amazing and such a fun experience. As the years went by, we both started getting busy with our own lives, such as working, and education. I can’t help to notice that my partner has a very short temper now that he works. He blows up on me a lot, and he gets angry at the tiniest things. In my opinion, I just feel like he never admits his mistakes, he gets angry at any kind of confrontation, he wants me to realize all the bad things that I’m doing, but never takes the time to realize the bad things he is doing. The one thing that we are lacking the most is communication. If I do something that upsets me, he will never tell me and he will just give me the silent treatment, and he will bring it up many times even after it is over. When I confront him when I’m upset at the things he does, he just gets angry, and points fingers back at me saying “You do that too”, and it just doesn’t go anywhere, and nothing gets solved when he says that. When I’m confronted about something that I’m doing wrong, of course I won’t say “Yes. You are absolutely correct. I was wrong and I’m sorry”, right off the bat, but at least I will consider it, and see his point of view. He doesn’t do any of that whatsoever. The last time I confronted him about us not talking at all. We don’t talk like we used to. I do understand that he is a busy person. But it irritates me when I take the time out of my day to talk to him, and all he says is “Yeah”, or “Ok”. I just assume that he’s busy, so sometimes I let it go. But then I see him talking to his friends, having 3 hours conversations with them and he only says a single word to me. I told him about this, and he said “Why don’t you try fixing the things you need to fix before you tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

I’m at my wits end. He was never like this, and I just want us to have conversations like we used to. I want us to talk about our problems without getting offended, and without any fighting. Please help.

Sincerely, Devastated.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Since you’ve been together for four years and you write that the relationship is only disintegrating of late, my question is, What’s changed? Until you can answer that, you’re going to be guessing at what to do.

Clearly, you aren’t communicating and you’re also in fight mode. In general, it takes one person to decide not to fight to dissipate things. My advice is that that be you. Don’t engage with him in arguments.

Next figure out if there’s anything YOU can do to make his life and your relationship better. Are you still alluring and sexy to him? Do you make time to make him feel valued and important to you? Men want to feel like they’re doing wonderful things for their woman, so you have to give him the opportunity to do that and then make sure he knows how amazing he is at x, y and z.

Get back to basics and check out your grooming, replenish your lingerie wardrobe, infuse the romance into your life together. Surprise him with a sexy date night and send him a love note or a little present now and then.

I hope this helps. Let me know how things go! And please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter.

[sekai333]

Dear April,
Things have been going pretty smoothly thanks to your advice. We try talking to each other, but we still need a lot of work. Things have been going pretty well until today. We got into a big fight today.

Long story short, sometimes I just don’t know if I’m not understanding him well enough. When we fight, I often notice that we think the same thing about each other. For example, he thinks that I don’t understand him at all, and I think he doesn’t understand me at all. He thinks I get too mad and upset easily, and I think the same about it. It’s always the same thing about each other. There’s a question that is always in my mind when we fight; “Yeah I might be wrong, but does he have to get THAT mad?”

Today, we got into an argument because we had made plans to spend some time together for dinner. When he came to my house, he said “Hey, is it okay if I leave after dinner? My sister invited me to go hang out with her and her friends.” So, in my head, I think it’s a little rude when you have plans with someone and you just decide to leave early at the last minute, and also, to just have dinner at my house and leave is rude as well. But I wanted to be fair, so I asked him if it was something planned, because if it was planned before our plans, then I wouldn’t have minded. He said “No, she just let me know right now”. I didn’t want to say no, so I said “Well you can go, I just wouldn’t leave early if I had plans with someone else”. After I said that, he got completely offended, and insisted that he will stay. After that, I remembered that we were supposed to go see a movie next week. So I said “We’re going to go see that movie next week right? It’s okay you can go, you can just make it up to me next week when we see each other”. But he just sulked like a child and said “No. You said no. So it’s fine. I’m staying.” Well, in my mind, if he wants to stay, that’s fine. If he wants to go, that’s fine too. But if he is going to stay, I don’t want him to be grumpy and rude and angry. He had a choice to leave, and if he’s going to stay, then I feel like he shouldn’t give me a guilt trip and act like I didn’t let him go.

That’s basically what happened today. Everything just went downhill from there. He wouldn’t talk to me the whole entire time, I tried talking to him and suggest that we watch movies, everything so that we could make up. He didn’t take any of it, and I was reaching my limit. So I decided to talk to him. What am I doing wrong and how can I make you happy. He just told me “When you act like that and when you do stuff like that it just makes me want to break up with you” I was kind of shocked. I’m asking myself “Really? We’ve been doing this for four years and you feel like breaking up with me because you decided not to go hang out with your sister?” Then he says “I love you so I want to stay with you and I want to fix it”. But everything we do, everything we talk about, it just never fixes anything. I think the one advice I need, is how to fix problems. How to talk about disagreements without offending each other, or making each other angry. I’m terribly sorry for pestering you with all my problems. But quite frankly, I feel like you’re the only one that could help me. Thank you for everything.

Sincerely, Confused.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

It sounds like you don’t know where you shouldn’t get involved. So let me help you with that, but it’s going to be a big adjustment for you even though it sounds simple.

When he asked you if it was okay for him to cut dinner short to go visit his sister, you weren’t direct. You should have said, “It’s not okay with me. I want you all to myself tonight!” But instead you gave a passive aggressive answer by telling him to go, but that if it were you, you’d never do something so rude. 😕 Do you see how that might come in to him as a scolding, a patronizing insult and a holier than thou message? Be direct and positive. Tell him no, because I was looking forward to this dinner with you. He still has the ability to leave. He’s a grown up. But at least by being direct, you’re treating him like one! If he chooses to leave after you’ve been direct with him, at least he’s left without there having been a mixed message and you’re both clear on what happened.

If, after you’re clear, he then pouts for a day and a half, you have to stop being co-dependent and trying to fix something you didn’t cause. It’s very hard for some people to not fix things they think they have responsibility for. Also, you don’t give him the opportunity to get over his disappointment when you’re constantly trying to fix things and assuming it’s you who did something wrong, when really, you’re just answering his question honestly.

I hope that helps. Let me know how things go, and please follow me @AskAprilcom on Twitter.

[sekai333]

Hi April,
I’m just giving you a heads up, that this is going to be a very long post. Because my boyfriend and I just broke up today. And I am beyond confused.

We had a really long talk today and he started off by telling me how he realized how much he has changed. He told me that he’s angry a lot compared to when we first started dating. He also told me that he wanted me to grow up, and learn to be more mature and understanding. We were both crying at this point, and he said “I’m not capable of fixing a relationship right now. I don’t want to be with anyone right now. I’m not breaking up with you because I want to leave you, I’m breaking up with you because I think it’s the best for you, and for us. I want us to spend this time away from each other to make ourselves a better person. I want to see change in us. And The only way to do it is to break up.” So, I asked him “Why does it have to be an official break up? Why can’t it be a break like last time?” (The last time we took a break, it didn’t go so well. The first break, we just tried not to talk to each other, but we ended up talking to each other and figuring things out. So we decided to take another break a few months later. One day he sends me a text, saying that he’s feeling really lost and empty, and that he needs me, and if it’s okay if he comes and visits me. So he did. He came over to my house, we talked, and we decided that we’re doing okay and that we don’t need a break.) He said “A break isn’t going to work. We tried doing that and we kept talking to each other. He said he wanted an official break up because he thinks it will help to know that we actually won’t be there for each other, now that we are separated. He said he wants to see change in the both of us. He wants me to change so that I would be more mature, and be more understanding. He wants to see himself change so that he won’t be so angry all the time. He just said “Right now, I can’t fix anything, and I can’t be the one to make you happy. Hopefully this time apart will do us good, and in hopes of us getting back together. To be honest, I can see us getting back together again, but right now, I think this is the right thing to do for the both of us.” So before he left, I said “I’m going to do my best so that I can become a better person for us”. And he said “We’ll see. Because we never know what’s going to happen.” And that just confused me.

To me, it sounded like he wanted to have an official break up so that we can spend time on ourselves, and to improve ourselves, so we can come back to each other and make a relationship that was better than before. I was so confused that I asked him “How are you going to see the change if we’re not going to be together anymore?” And he said “Just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean I’m not going to talk to you, and it doesn’t mean I’m never going to see you again.” That confused me even more. To me, it sounds like he wants to fix this relationship without being with each other. I just don’t know if I’m allowed to wait for him. I don’t know if I should wait for a day for us to get back together again. I don’t know what to expect, and I don’t know what to do. Please, I need some help, big time.

Sincerely, Confused.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

He’s broken up with you and he’s tried to let you down gently by saying things that are confusing you, but the bottom line is that he’s moving on. I don’t think he has any plans for reconciliation with you. He may get lonely and in a weak moment call you, but he doesn’t want to get back together with you. He wants to move on with his life without you. I’m sorry this is harsh, but I’m trying to make things clear for you.

Looking back to see what went wrong (because that’s important in order to evolve and do better in future relationships), you never answered the question I asked you in my first post to you:
[quote]Since you’ve been together for four years and you write that the relationship is only disintegrating of late, my question is, What’s changed? Until you can answer that, you’re going to be guessing at what to do. [/quote]

If you don’t know what changed after four years, then there was a deeper problem in the relationship that had to do with the two of you communicating, being honest and intimate.

I’m sorry you’re hurt. I hope you’ll find a way to pick yourself up, heal and move on. 🙂

[Member]

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