He doesnt seem to be enjoying himself around you anymore now. i got a screw driver thing and tried to force the switch witih t; I have a hp 2000 notebook pc and the touch pad and cursor aren`t letting me click on things but the cursor does move? Walking or biking dont have those painful associations for me and are thus easier on me mentally. The ones who wont should be encouraged to date one another whenever possible. He means well is one of those phrases that is just full of NOPE. Reasonable. Do not copy, print, or repost entire posts elsewhere without written permission. No one can acknowledge it exists. Do with that information what you will. In some cases, thats true. Something stuck out to me in your letter, you said your boyfriend thinks that if you do your healthy self improvement things then he wont have to deal with you having depression. Ive been getting that in a current relationship myself, hey I did X, yay me is almost always responded to with what about Y and Z? Im severely disabled, so maintaining social links is tougher. No one wants to treat someone they love that way, it just slips out when you stop viewing them in that light. And they dont need to be The Worst for you to decide you dont want to be in this relationship anymore. Id put one more thing on that disaster preparedness list: a good friend who will hang out with you should you start to feel lonely. It really doesnt feel like he likes you. A lot of writing (calling, whatever) to advice people seems to be this. Keep my mouth shut about the chips? You have a conversation, maybe two, maybe several and nothing seems to be wrong. The specific focus of the boyfriend on LWs food intake and physical exercise is major red flag. I wholeheartedly agree. He may feel like criticizing you is the only way to help. Bliss. Hit the gym. Im going to read it again as soon Im done with this comment. I am so mad at you for having cancer! See the problem? LW, Im sorry youre struggling with depression, and Id like to offer you a fist-bump of commiseration for the emotional work youre already doing, if youd like that. But thats the best I can think of that might be of some help. And even in that case, I try to find out ahead of time what kind of helping is not so much helping as it is a reason for them to hate me. The situation seems chock full of red flags to me. Wow, boyfriend is definitely being the jerk here. It makes taking care of ourselves seem hard, even impossible on some days. Just looking at those two sentences beside each other without anything else made me realize how ridiculous they sound. When you constantly criticize their eating . You know when they got worse? The awful thing is that our families groom us to be victims of whatever BS is their flavour of abuse, and then there we are, pre-groomed for whatever arseholes show up to take advantage. Then perhaps from there they can move towards leaving. The dissonance between everyone says exercising will help! OK, clearly Im not making you happy here, what with my not exercising right and not eating well enough and doing the dishes as frequently as you like. Invoking logic by name in a discussion. I watched my parents relationship work this dynamic for years. I also expressed my fear that he was trying to fix my depression, because I suspect that depression is just part of my makeup, and however well I manage it, there are always going to be some low points. The fact that you said, complete with arm-flailing inflatable tube-men and blinky neon arrows, Hey, your helpyness is actually making my depression worse/making it harder for me to make changes, and HE DOUBLED DOWN makes me worried and also kind of like I want to smack him with a dead fish on your behalf (Im a whitefish knight, har de har har). He is not the boss of you, and something in you has woken up to that. (Female ones personally, I havent found this phenomenon to be in any way gendered. Your bf is trying to make you break up with him. Nevermind the fact that none of my friends were actually offended at all, he just couldnt admit that he had a problem with something I had said. He seems to be framing it as good diet and exercise will make you feel better rather than be thinner but I wonder if the latter is his true goal here. And yes, those cultural messages are a large part of the reason I still often feel like I am a failure because my (emotionally abusive) ex dumped me and I now have to mark Divorced every damn year when I do my taxes. But that doesnt sound like whats happening here. In the most recent invention, a group of university students in China created a kissing device that lets you make out with your partner from across the seas, country, or city. Is he happy? Why would they do that to me?. The LW stops loving him 4. Maybe Im projecting too much from my own experiences because your boyfriend sounds like my jerkbrain incarnate (btw, my jerkbrain is interested in my eating and exercise mostly because it thinks I should lose weight, hmmm), but this letter bummed me out because it sounds like you are making some great personal progress and your boyfriend is sandbagging you instead of giving you high fives and wtf is that about? Its ok to say hey, just keeping my head above water is all Im capable of at the moment, no challenges for me right now.. He was scared, I was exhausted and largely unresponsive, and neither of us knew what was going on or what to do. Probably better to stop and say why am I angry about this?. Walking is much better for me, sure it isnt strenuous (seriously, WTF????) Then he can treat you even worse. Sorry, it posted before I was done. Dont be ashamed of using a coping method that works for you, just try and do it safely, and know that I will never be upset with you for whatever you need to do. One notable occasion was when I got interested in a new industry and there was a 3 day workshop I wanted to attend. LW, you are already doing so much good stuff for yourself, and at your own pace. The thing to watch for is a change in how they behave. I was overwhelmed with adoration and new hope. I usually agree with our captain, but this time I see all those scripts as an exercise in trying to change him into a reasonable boyfriend even as hes trying to change you into someone who eats her vegetables. Do not wait until the stress of dealing with him makes your fingers itch for a sharp object (or whatever). This was where I got very concerned. Im also sure you have some great things in common and that you have fun together sometimes and that the relationship works some of the time, or you wouldnt have stayed this long. He has ridiculously good boundaries, because its always clear to him who owns what. If I tell him I already did, he tells me that walking doesnt count, that it needs to be more strenuous exercise. What really helped was finding a partner with previous SI issues who said Do what you need to do to feel better. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give . Excessively monitoring and correcting a partner (with the silent treatment, no less!) Its scary breaking up with someone when yr already in a vulnerable headspace, but it is very possible that you will actually feel waaaay better without this dude in the picture. 5. Prioritize on how to deal with your boyfriend and setting boundaries, because I know from experience, it can tear down your progress in a flash. Loving yourself is the most important love of all. We ended up breaking up about a year later. Your boyfriend is NOT being supportive, kind, or reasonable. This is fine isnt good enough when it comes to relationships, IMO. If you havent dug into relationship issues all that much in therapy, here is a script for bringing that up with your counseling pro: I feel like we do a lot of work in my sessions on building confidence and motivation, but when I get home my boyfriend harps on me to do better and be better, for example (give examples). It took me FOREVER to figure out, on my own, that a partner who was contributing nothing to the relationship and refused to take steps that would get him on the path to feeling able to contribute, was not someone I needed in my life. He used to love celebrating special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries or any important date in your life; but now these days seem to be forgotten too. Thats their job, not yours., I once dated a guy who was really, really into strength training. What is it that he doesnt like anymore and related to your relationship together? but its not like, oh man, now that I exercise I never feel sad! Thankfully, I like to cook, and shell eat anything I put in front of her except fish, so getting a healthy meal into her is relatively easy. This was more the province of all the callow youths back in college defending obviously indefensible positions for the sake of argument. He is not playing Logick Master, he is just trying to figure out if things make freakin sense. I hope Im wrong, but LW, I think your boyfriend would do the exact same thing. They do sound like exactly what Id say, though, if I were the type to try and manipulate my partner into getting thinner and doing all the housework. May 18, 2020 by Emily Cappiello. I only do that in ways that SHE has approved, and that weve mutually decided would be comfortable and appropriate for me to do. That is exactly the right way to help, I think. All the logical, reasonable, skeptical partners that the LWs describe are always trying to use their logic to make other people feel like crap about what they feel. As the Captain said, he likes potential you. Without the receptive, captive audience, it isnt nearly as much fun for him. When I said, I would find recognition for the progress I am making much more helpful than notes on what I could do better, he initially balked. TL;DR: I hope you have good progress with your healing, and that either your boyfriend learns to be less of a jerk stat, or that youre in a position to be able to move on/out without him, because you deserve so much more support and respect. I think you can tell dude that the things he is doing are not helping and that your therapist agrees with you (assuming therapist does and I think therapist is your number one go to about this) and also give him things he *can* do to help you when you are feeling down. Your current boyfriend sounds a bit like my first one. What are some of the relationship killers that might have led him to this point? Theres nothing logical or reasonable about badgering your partner or dismissing their feelings. That is some high-level head games. He will always be someone who has a history of serious self harm, who has anxiety and gets very low mood crashes. Him: You havent been to the gym today! Why do I get the feeling sometimes that an LW to Captain Awkward is actually just asking for permission to dump their partner? When your boyfriend stops making an effort, there may be a good reason behind it. I appreciate that you care about me, but Im good, so lets change the topic.. Neither of us ever has to do anything because the other is doing it and expects participationonly a prior agreement (or an obvious necessity like bills, housework or cooking) confers obligation. I know I'm not perfect and made mistakes (not cheating or anything like that). Knowing that fucking up around him was something forgivable (or something which didnt need forgiving) meant I felt braver about trying new things because failing wasnt so terrible an outcome. Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or text "START" to 88788. Theres also the fact that you are depressed, at least for now (although congrats on making what sounds like a lot of progress toward improvement). A big factor in that was that I saw her problems as easy to fix by doing X where my own were much more complicated (in my mind). I love it, but it doesnt agree with my boyfriend. A lot of the time, people feel like they need a Big Serious Reason (like I caught him bonking my sister or he burned my entire book collection then peed on the ashes) to dump someone. Rest days are a vital part of an exercise routine. And I think the reason for that might be that he doesnt understand depression AT ALL. My partner and I take walks, and thats about as far as it goes at this point. Actual logic is about statements, facts, reasons, not about How Logical I Am. It doesnt bother me because of how he asks gently, not sternly, the tone he uses, and because the rest of the time he demonstrates how damnably attractive I am to him. Also, being logical in emotions includes: I feel sad, so logically I should do things that make me less sad, Im feeling stressed, so I will eat food I enjoy as self-care, and I feel emotionally drained, so today I will make fewer demands on myself. It is not logical to demand someone ignore their emotions. A Kalgoorlie-Boulder woman has been fined for trying to stop police from chasing her boyfriend who had committed an office while out drinking by standing at the entrance of an alleyway he was using to run away. On time! It can be a nice, easy way to do social. Except now the LW is in therapy, things are getting better, the LW has a handle on it allbut Boyfriend still hasnt internalized this. 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