Boyfriend unsure about our future together

fits

I’m hesitant to say this but I think you should go home and let him on his own for a while. Get on with your life.

Either he will come after you or he won’t.

Jequ0n

I’m going to be quite honest here: I am feeling exhausted reading this.

Why don’t you just let everything settle for a while until emotions have calmed down a bit. I don’t mean to have a go at you but this is all very intense.

qwerty13

I’ve now read some of your older threads OP. If I were to try to advise, I’d say that you really need to seek therapy about your family background, your dependence on their views, and establishing your own views and independent life.

There’s a recurring theme of you accepting, well, awful behaviour - but you not communicating your thoughts on it either. This is not to say that your current BF is awful; more so that you don’t seem to be able to tell a BF that you’re not happy, or what you want, without it being a disagreement. And there does seem to be a prior history of accelerating to 100 mph very quickly too in terms of the ‘happy ever after’.

Monkey09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117743395#Comment_117743395

You are right. It's been said to me before that I can exhaust people with situations I have. It's also been said that I go round in circles so I can understand how you feel. I'm trying to keep an eye on this though. I'm going to take a step back from this situation though. I was very distressed when I started this thread and just needed some help really. I have definitely got so much support and excellent advice here on boards and it's really helped mr to calm down and put things into perspective.

Monkey09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117745810#Comment_117745810

You are completely spot on, qwerty. I have attended a counsellor before when I had gone through a few different situations, and everything just became too much. I really needed to talk to someone. The counsellor said exactly the same thing to me about 'just putting up with everything.' And I know that's true.

I have discussed how I feel with my BF to a certain extent. I am reluctant to get into any dramatically serious conversation as I'm abroad and definitely wouldn't be the ideal circumstances for a break up. It's also his birthday next week and I don't want to mess that up. I just need the right time to discuss things but having thought about it, that might have to wait until we return to Ireland which for me will be the end of August and for him, a few days afterwards.

Monkey09

From the advice I have received, I've arrived at the conclusion that myself and my BF seem to be on different pages. I asked him a few days ago if he could see me in his life in 6 months or a year. I was expecting him to respond with a very definite 'of course.' But unfortunately, he made no reply.

When I discussed the fact that he doesn't seem as interested in me as I would like, he said that he invited me to visit his home country and introduced me to all his family and friends. And this leads me to believe, what is wrong with me? Of course, he is serious about me. I wouldn't have done that otherwise.

I would miss him a lot if we broke up and of course, it would feel that the last year has been a waste of time and ultimately just caused nothing but upset.

If i ended the relationship, I would feel that I had over-reacted and destroyed a good relationship... :(

I am very close to my mom. I told her how I feel and how upset I've been. Her advice is that I am moving too fast. It's only been just over a year and to take my BF at this own pace. Is this the right approach? My head is just all over the place trying to know what to do for the best.

YellowLead

Hi OP, regarding your comment that if you broke up you feel that the last year would have been a waste of time - every relationship where you don’t end up married is not a waste of time. They are all learning experiences and help you on the journey to finding something that is real and lasting.

I think your mothers advice is very sound - however you also have to listen to your gut. I agree with taking things slowly, but if you feel that he’s just not that into you as you’d like, then he probably isn’t. As you said you are are probably on different pages - he’s uncertain of the future and just taking things one day at a time and you are wanting to know if this will end in marriage and kids.

I think some time apart and perspective will do you both good. Those few days when you are back in Ireland without him - use them to spend time with friends and family and forget about thinking about this relationship.

Whatever you do, don’t try and force a square peg into a round hole and make the relationship work at all costs while sacrificing your own need and wants just because you want it too.

I have a friend who struggled with relationships as she would suffocate guys demanding to know if they were going to marry her 6 months in (I know that’s way more extreme than you) - it took her a lot of therapy to identify her need to control things in life was spilling into relationships and how to step back and let things happen naturally.

Thoie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117746453#Comment_117746453

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117728427#Comment_117728427

Damn the new multiquoting that doesn't allow you to snip out extra bits of text, but from these I'm looking at the "moving too fast" comment and the "pandemic year" piece.

I'm a lot older than you, so marriage/children aren't a big concern for me. I've been seeing someone about 2 years, but in my mind we've realistically had only 6 months of normality, and those first 6 months are often the honeymoon period anyway. So while some people say to me "ooh, 2 years, very serious", we haven't had 2 years of normal. There's a lot that I'll probably only find out after restrictions ease. I've met his family and many friends, but have no idea what "they" usually do - and vice versa. Maybe there's an expectation of weekly dinner parties for 20 people? Maybe 5 nights a week in the pub is the usual.

Long story short - I agree with your mother. Yes, maybe a year would be sufficient to know usually, but not necessarily at the moment. In the normal course of events, I might (only might) be starting discussions about living together at this stage in my own relationship, but I think it's far too soon at the moment.

Neyite

Your mother is partly right, in that you might be moving too fast, but honestly your question isn't that bad!

I asked him a few days ago if he could see me in his life in 6 months or a year. I was expecting him to respond with a very definite 'of course.' But unfortunately, he made no reply.

It's pretty standard around the 1year to 18 month mark to start thinking about whether the relationship has the potential to go the distance or not. By that stage you've become comfortable with each other, got past the intense coupling phase of the early days and settled into some sort of a routine. By then you've also seen the person in a lot of variations of moods, gotten to see their external commitments, family dynamics and all that. So you are at the point where you are looking at the whole picture of the person, their temperament, life goals, work ethic and seen enough of who they are to know whether this is someone you want to continue on with or not

After a year, everyone should know whether they would like to be with their partner in 6 months or not. It's a simple question and not one that should have him running for the hills. You aren't demanding an instant binding commitment. In fairness to him, he could have just bullshítted you and said yes he does see you in his life 6 months from now, but his response is telling you everything you need to know. If he genuinely didn't want to lose you, he'd be at pains to tell you that he wants you in his life, that he wants some sort of future with you even if he's not fully figured out the details of that future for himself.

Sometimes silence IS a full reply.

bitofabind

Hi OP. Querty's post rang a bell for me and I had a look at your post history. Often the things people post about here are actually a lot deeper rooted and related to something else entirely.

I read that you've had a big family trauma in the past and my heart really goes out to you. I'm so sorry for how hard things have been for you. I can relate to experiencing family trauma and then trying to cope alone, and then abroad, and the survival mechanisms you can create for yourself. You try to protect yourself in ways that can actually become harmful. It seems from the amount of posts you've had in PI / RI and the amount of relationship issues you've sought help for, like you're going around in a survival loop that no longer serves you. I recognise a few patterns: an inability to self-soothe and self-regulate your own emotions, a tendency to completely distrust your own instincts and instead seek advice or consensus from anyone and everyone, enduring relationships that activate your trauma and make you more miserable, feeling a complete lack of support and like you can never get your own needs met.

All of these things are self-perpetuating as constantly living out these frustrating situations and not getting your needs met leads to poor self-esteem, a poor sense of resilience, a need to people please in order to get validation and round and round we go. You feel "broken", lost, overwhelmed and end up in the same relationships / situations again and again because it's just deeply familiar. The brain wants what's familiar.

I know this is a lot of psychobabble, but I would strongly, strongly recommend therapy once you're back in Ireland. Because there's a way out of all of this, and it starts with self compassion and giving yourself the time to deal with the things in the past that you haven't fully resolved. For me, it got me out of a toxic relationship pattern and actually a toxic job situation that I stayed in for years passed its sell-by date. This particular relationship is such a small part but also a net result of that bigger picture.

YellowLead

Also OP - when you asked him if he could see you in his life in 6 months time and he made no reply - how did that happen?

Did you ask him over text message? Otherwise I can’t see how somebody could not reply when asked a question and ignore you, if you were ignored when talking then that was highly rude and disrespectful.

If you did text the question however that would have come across as super annoying from his perspective as you don’t have conversations like that over text.

This is probably a tad blunt, but to me it seems like he's lost interest in you, but hasn't got the neck to actually outright say it to you and is hoping you'll get the message and leave, but you're so adamant that you want to get married and have kids that you'll bend over backwards to keep the relationship going as long as you can, in the hopes everything will turn out great (it won't).

Dog day

Hi again OP, I know you said earlier that you don’t see a pattern in your relationships but from you’ve told us so far I really do. Equally I think at this point that your approach to this thread may also be symbolic of the way in which you may be approaching relationships & life in general. I think it’s likely that you’re tiring yourself out, constantly putting yourself under pressure & perhaps tending to exhaustive over-analysis of every detail. I’d gently suggest that at this point this thread is now encouraging you to get bogged down with all the details of everything & genuinely think taking some quiet time out to yourself to just ‘be’ will really help you. Then, when you’re ready I’d suggest talking with a life coach or counsellor. Sometimes it’s in the quiet times when we pause & stop asking questions that we find ourselves naturally making better decisions. Hope that all makes sense! Once again, I wish you only positive things. All the best.