BF freaking out over commitment issues

LegacyUser

Me and himself have been together two years now.We've tried to keep it casual, since we're both pretty private people. But lately our relationship has reached a point where we both feel like it has to go forward. We've considered moving in together, but can't find an affordable place, we've talked about moving abroad and plenty of other things. Eventually we decided that we'd start off small and just get to know each other's families and friends.
But his attitude has got worse since then. He keeps disagreeing with me and saying no to everything I suggest, without any reason. It all blew up last night when he started ranting that I 'expect him to do whatever I say'.
He's not usually like this, so I think the problem is with the change. I want to sort it out, but I don't want to go backwards. Has anyone dealt with this kind of thing before? How am I supposed to handle it?

banie01

Ye are together 2 years and only now are ye getting to know each others families and friends?
I think ye may have more issues than just 'commitment'
Whatever about being private and keeping casual, 2years with someone with no mixing of social circles would worry me!
While families can be seperated by distance and not see each other often or even be estranged...
Friends are by nature the people you socialise with and associate with, surely in a 2 year relationship ye have some group interactions with each others circles?

Or has it been private....as in secret?
Sorry if this post comes across as odd....But the situation strikes me as very odd

LegacyUser

banie01 wrote: »

Ye are together 2 years and only now are ye getting to know each others families and friends?
I think ye may have more issues than just 'commitment'
Whatever about being private and keeping casual, 2years with someone with no mixing of social circles would worry me!
While families can be seperated by distance and not see each other often or even be estranged...
Friends are by nature the people you socialise with and associate with, surely in a 2 year relationship ye have some group interactions with each others circles?

Or has it been private....as in secret?
Sorry if this post comes across as odd....But the situation strikes me as very odd

Well we met in work. We really didn't want to make much of it until we knew where we were going. Especially since we started off very casual.

Is Cuma Liom

Hi
trying to be sensitive here...are ye gay?hence the not telling the families etc,,

LegacyUser

No we're not. We just wanted to keep it quiet and casual for the sake of not making things awkward at work if we split.

Big Bag of Chips

2 years is a very long time to keep things quiet incase it doesn't work out. A month, 2, 6 months maybe... but 2 years??

Nobody here can tell you why he is now acting the way he is, all we can do is guess, the same as you are.

For what it's worth, my guess... he's seeing someone else too, and doesn't really want you and him to get anymore serious.

Either that or he just really really is not able to be in a normal relationship. Are you together 2 years, working together, and nobody in work even knows that you are going out??

I know it might be what works for both of you, but for most people it will sound like a very strange set up, and something that has to have some other underlying reason behind it.

Maybe it's not... but none of us here are in your relationship, so we can't really come up with why's..

Best you can do is talk to him, honestly. Ask the questions, but be prepared to hear answers that you mightn't like.

mood

Surely you could have both meet and socialised with each others friends, meet each others families etc without your work place finding out! Two years is a very long time to hide a relationship and I don't think 'work' is a genuine reason for doing this. Are you 100% sure he isn't in another relationship?

Katy89

it does sound for me, sorry if it comes across very direct, you don't really love each other.
you keep a 'relationship' secret for two years, if you really love and be sure of each other, you won't be that hesitant, the opposite, you would like to know 'the world' about it.

things for you might have changed and you consider it now a strong relationship, but he's obviously still seeing it as a non serious relationship.
difficult, just sit down and talk it through in a calm manner I would suggest.

at the end only you can make the decision wether it's worth keeping this arrangement or go searching for a real committing relationship, if that's what you want now.

Chinafoot

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

For what it's worth, my guess... he's seeing someone else too, and doesn't really want you and him to get anymore serious.

Yep, this is the first thing that popped into my head too.

OP, ask yourself some questions and answer honestly...

Which of you pushed to keep it "casual" for so long?
Did the casual nature of the relationship mean you both could see other people? Was it ever explicitly stated that your relationship was an exclusive one?
How much time do you spend together outside of work?
Are arrangements to meet generally on his terms?
Has there been any suspicious behaviour on his part?

Now maybe we're totally wrong and there is nobody else on the scene. In that case you need to decide whether or not you want to continue a relationship with someone who seems completely against having a public relationship. Blowing up at you the way he did seems like an extreme overreaction. All you're asking for is to have what would be deemed a normal relationship. If he can't do that after 2 years then I reckon you need to have a good long think about what you want from this.

username123

There is something 'off' about this setup. I never think keeping relationships secret is a good idea, its almost making it out that the people are doing something wrong. I agree with remaining aloof and professional in work, but after 2 years if no one else knows you are in a relationship and you have not met any of each others friends or family, there is something wrong. That type of insular behaviour is not healthy, for either of you. It has all the hallmarks of massive dysfunction. Now the reaction to moving things forward seems extreme.

I would hazard a guess that either 'himself' has another relationship somewhere else, that he never intended this to be a public relationship or that he has invested nothing emotionally and is now worried that he will be forced to engage on a more intimate emotional level.

Its a tough call, but unless the reasons why two people would hold each other at such arms length are clear and understandable I cannot see why anyone would bother being in a set up like this at all.

I dont believe for a minute that there is NOWHERE you can rent due to affordability - rents have come down considerably, how much space do 2 people need? So Id feel thats just an excuse too.

LegacyUser

I think you're all getting the wrong impression from my post and I'd better clear it up. Firstly; it wasnt totally secret from day one. A few of our closest friends knew etc. We avoided telling families because mine in particular tends to blow relationships out of proportion. Everyone's known for about a year by now. At first we had agreed that we could see other people, and we did, but in the end it was HIM that said he wanted to make it exclusive.
Thing is since then we've had trouble figuring out how we want to move forward. He asked me to move in, and aside from the money issues I didn't really feel ready. We decided that we'd start off easing into each other's lives more by meeting families, getting to know friends, etc. But it was around 3 months ago, when he first met my ma that he started this. He seems to have it in his head that I'm trying to push him into something he's not ready, which I'm not.
I understand that this is the longest relationship he's had. But he seems to think he needs to be thinking about marriage and things NEITHER of us want yet. It's winding him up and he's winding me up.
I can see that he's trying to distance himself a little by his behaviour, but he's being annoying most of the time to obnoxious at his worst. The other day he turned to me and said "You expect me to do everything you say!", to which I told him not everything but SOMETHING would be nice. It's driving me up the wall.
Usually we're very good together. We're good friends, but we give each other space too. Lately we've just been clashing so much when I ask him to do something that it's getting out of hand.

LegacyUser

op, don't let anyone else tell you than not being completely entertwined in each others' lives after two years is in any way odd or peculiar. relationships grow and evolve and progress at different levels and paces. i was a bit horrified at some of the earlier responses tbh! there4 are no rules or regulations that say by 6 months you have to be x, after 2 years you should be x, y and z. i think too many people get caught up in the ''milestones'' that should be achieved by a certain amount of time together.

as long as the two people who are actually IN the relationship are happy with the pace of progess so to speak, that's all that matters. the only issue i can see with yourself and himself is that at the moment, one of you ISN'T happy with the rate of progress, that's all.

his little outbursts are probably a knee-jerk reaction, and because of that he may feel that distancing himself will sort of 'cover up' any reservations he's having. but you need to sit him down and find out his expectations. if he seems to think it's nothing or marriage and you don't, have you made that clear to him and discussed his views on this? if the plan was to move in together and you felt you weren't ready yet, do ye both have a time in the future when ye might bring the idea up again? like you may not be ready now, but you agree to look at it again in 6 months and take it from there? if the plan is to ease yerselves into families/friends etc, how does he see this happening? what are the cut-off points, like if one family is closer than another it can hard for that partner to get used to new familial relations, especially if this is his longest relationship. i only mention these cause you hadn't mentioned how much ye've gone into detail with this idea of ''easing into things''.

my honest woman-to-woman advice to you would be leave it for a bit, give yerselves a break from discussing it, don't ask him to DO ANYTHING. then pick a neutral time to ask him what it is he actually wants. softly softly catchy monkey was great advice my sister gave to me when i was having these issues with my now husband ;-)

i hope it works out for you op. xx

mood

OP who's idea was it to keep the relationship so quite for so long? I have a feeling it was his. To feel the need to do this is not good IMO. Not wanting work to know if fair enough but to keep friends in the dark and family is way OTT. That would have rang alarm bell with me form the word go.

LegacyUser

mood wrote: »

OP who's idea was it to keep the relationship so quite for so long? I have a feeling it was his. To feel the need to do this is not good IMO. Not wanting work to know if fair enough but to keep friends in the dark and family is way OTT. That would have rang alarm bell with me form the word go.

Actually it was mine. He was the first to start telling his friends and family.

mood

Suinis wrote: »

Actually it was mine. He was the first to start telling his friends and family.

But why? I really don't get why would would want to hide a relationship (except form work).

LegacyUser

mood wrote: »

But why? I really don't get why would would want to hide a relationship (except form work).

Does that really matter!?! Honestly, I came here asking about a specific problem and all you people have done is make gross accusations against my BF and insinuate that there's something wrong with the way I'm handling my relationship! All you're doing is spamming my thread with malarkey and I don't appreciate it!
If anyone has something to say about the topic at hand, please feel free. Otherwise mind your own business!

Maguined

The only thing you can do is sit him down and calmly talk to him. Ask him if anything is bothering him, explain to him that you are not trying to put pressure on him to take things further than he is comfortable with and that you were only moving things along as you thought he wanted. Ask him what he wants out of the relationship and how he wants it to progress and see what he says.

Big Bag of Chips

Suinis wrote: »

all you people have done is make gross accusations against my BF and insinuate that there's something wrong with the way I'm handling my relationship!

I did say earlier...

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Best you can do is talk to him, honestly. Ask the questions, but be prepared to hear answers that you mightn't like.

People are replying based on the little information you have given. As I also mentioned earlier, nobody here is in your relationship, so only YOU can really know what is going on, and if you're happy with it or not.

People here are giving advice/opinion based on their own personal experience. And few people would be in a relationship for 2 years without meeting family, and particularly friends of the other person.

As I also mentioned before, if this is what works/has worked for you, then that's fine.. and nobody can say it is wrong... but now you are wondering why your bf is freaking out ar even the slightest change in the status quo. People are, understandably, linking that back to the length of time that the relationship has been kept quiet/separate. And questioning why that would have happened (to maybe come up with some reason that your bf is acting the way he is now)

Other than communicating all your questions/problems/worries to your bf, I don't really see what other advice you expect to get from people.

CorkonianRebel

Hi OP,
As a guy I would have a different take on all this.

Suinis wrote: »

We've considered moving in together, but can't find an affordable place, we've talked about moving abroad and plenty of other things. Eventually we decided that we'd start off small and just get to know each other's families and friends.
But his attitude has got worse since then. He keeps disagreeing with me and saying no to everything I suggest, without any reason. It all blew up last night when he started ranting that I 'expect him to do whatever I say'.

Suinis wrote: »

We avoided telling families because mine in particular tends to blow relationships out of proportion. Everyone's known for about a year by now. At first we had agreed that we could see other people, and we did, but in the end it was HIM that said he wanted to make it exclusive.

He asked me to move in, and aside from the money issues I didn't really feel ready. We decided that we'd start off easing into each other's lives more by meeting families, getting to know friends, etc. But it was around 3 months ago, when he first met my ma that he started this.

The other day he turned to me and said "You expect me to do everything you say!",

As you can see from these quotes that I think are the most important, you say he has commitment issues but I don't know about that. You say you both have considered moving in together but then say he asked you to move in.Then you said that it was your idea to keep the relationship under wraps for a while as ye got to know each other.

From the way I see it, if I was him, I have a GF who has kept things quiet for a while (which would be ok on its own), I asked her to move in but she said no and then I have met her mother.Have you met his? It sounds like you are making all the decisions as you say you have both considered moving in but really he asked you and you shot it down.So its not surprising to me that he finally snaps and says you expect him to do everything you say and then says no to all your ideas. He was the one who said to make it exclusive!

From the sounds of it, he sounds like he just wants to be more involved in making decisions and not feel like he is being dictated to. I am not saying that you are dictating to him but maybe thats how he feels its like.I think if ye both have a good clearing out talk that things might get sorted out.I don't think that it is too big a problem. I have been in this kind of situation where I felt everything has been decided for me and that each step is labelled for me to follow and then of course I want to turn the other way!

Maybe ask him what he would like to do and you might be pleasantly surprised! Maybe he still wants you to move in with him so he might be wondering about your commitment after all you did say no! A good honest chat about both your true feelings might clear the air and get things sorted again!

Good luck!

Big Bag of Chips

Just rereading the quoted bits from CorkonianRebel and it would seem the biggest issue in your relationship is communication.

You're thinking that he's thinking something.
He's thinking that you're thinking something.

And neither of you are actually discussing what you really want from the relationship, or where you want it to go.

Be honest with each other. Say what YOU want, not what you think he wants you to want..!

pickarooney

If the OP is anywhere near as demanding and judgemental as just about everyone else in the thread I kind of understand why yer man feels under pressure!

Is it possible, OP, that he has been making suggestions (making your relationship public, meeting families, moving in) for over a year now and you've kept saying no but now you want to do these things and he's wondering why he has to agree to your requests when you didn't agree to any of his?