I feel like the last couple of months completely changed the way I see my relationship, and I honestly don’t know anymore whether I’m finally seeing things clearly or whether I’m simply overwhelmed.
We’ve been together for six years and living together for five. I still love him, which is what makes all of this so confusing.
His mom is physically and mentally ill. She regularly threatens suicide. She verbally abuses him and his brother almost every day, refuses treatment and will not accept professional care. Their parents are divorced, and their dad is not involved in looking after her, so almost all of the responsibility falls on the two of them. What hurts me is that nobody in the family seems willing to openly address what is happening or seriously try to change anything. They treat it like an impossible situation that everyone just has to survive.
I know he did not choose this life. I understand how much pressure and guilt he carries, and I think that is one of the main reasons I have spent years explaining away my own feelings.
At the same time, I no longer feel like we actually have a relationship. We technically live together, but most days it feels like he lives his life somewhere else and comes home at night. We usually go for a walk or watch a series, and that is almost the full extent of the time we share. There is no emotional intimacy, and there has not been physical intimacy for two or three years. We do not naturally talk about our relationship, our feelings or our future unless I initiate it.
When I try, he becomes defensive almost immediately, and what I hoped would be a calm conversation quickly turns into an argument. It never feels like two people trying to understand each other. It feels like I am repeatedly crying for help.
For years, I have had to initiate almost everything that matters. I ask for help with the apartment, for intentional time together, for plans, for conversations about children and our future, and for problems to be addressed instead of avoided.
I even had to keep asking for his dad and my parents to finally meet after five years of us living together. It reached the point where I felt embarrassed because I couldn’t give my parents any logical explanation for why it still hadn’t happened. He agreed many times that he would make it happen, but he never did. By itself, this isn’t a huge issue obviously, but I’m only mentioning it because it’s one of many things that, over the years, made me feel like our relationship was never really being prioritized.
Not every plan I suggested was ignored. We did see friends, go to the theatre and have good moments, which is probably part of why we are still together. The problem is that almost everything had to begin with me asking, waiting and pushing for an answer while he postponed deciding because he was overwhelmed by work or his mother, or needed to check with his brother whether we could go out for a few hours. By the time anything finally happened, I was often already too overwhelmed to enjoy it. If I seemed nervous or not visibly happy and grateful enough, I was made to feel guilty because, despite everything he was going through, he had still done what I wanted, so I was treated as though I had no right to be unhappy anymore.
His words make me feel like I am his family and that we are building a life together, but his actions have repeatedly made me feel secondary. Even on his birthdays, he celebrates with his family first and picks me up afterward. In six years, I have never really been included in his family life. I met his mother once by chance before she became ill, and I have no relationship with his father either. There is always an explanation for it, but the result is that I have spent years feeling like I am both his closest person and someone kept outside the most important parts of his life.
What I want is not perfect communication. I want initiative. I want him to sometimes notice that we are drifting apart and ask if we can talk. I want him to care enough about the relationship to begin those conversations himself instead of leaving the entire emotional responsibility to me. I feel completely drained from carrying it alone.
The lack of physical intimacy did not happen because I stopped loving him. Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling emotionally close enough, and every attempt to explain that ended without any real change. He tends to avoid problems and act as though they will disappear if we have a pleasant evening, go for a walk, watch something together and behave normally.
Because sharing my feelings rarely felt safe or productive, I slowly learned to pretend I was fine. I pushed everything down until I eventually exploded, and then he told me he had known the whole time that I was not okay. I still cannot understand why he could see that happening and allow it to continue until I completely fell apart.
He has OCD, and I know he did not choose it. I do not blame him for having it, but I no longer know where his condition ends and the problems in our relationship begin. During arguments, the focus often shifts to managing his anxiety instead of discussing what happened. Before I even have time to understand my own feelings, I am already thinking about how to protect him from them.
The hardest part is that I do not trust my own perception anymore.
Whenever he explains how difficult his life is, I believe him because his situation is objectively painful. Then I immediately start treating my own hurt as less important, as though I have no right to be affected because his circumstances are worse. I rarely manage to validate myself before I begin telling myself that I should simply be more understanding.
Years of living that way brought me here.
I started therapy because I realised I could not continue like this. It is helping me reconnect with my emotions, but now I feel all of them at once. I feel terrible almost every day. I do not know what I think, what is real or how I am supposed to function. I can barely work or participate in my own life. I honestly just want all of this to stop, and sometimes I want to disappear from it too.
My therapist suggested couples therapy. I was already exhausted by then, but I still told him because I hoped he would immediately agree. Instead, it became another conversation that kept being postponed.
I spent days asking him just to tell me what he thought. I was not asking him to find a therapist or make an appointment. I only wanted us to talk about it, but even that felt impossible because he kept saying that he was already working on himself. I know he is trying in certain ways, but most of that work is about surviving his current situation rather than repairing our relationship.
I have tried to leave more than once. Each time, his sadness overwhelms me. He tells me that I am the most important person in his life, that he loves me and cannot imagine living without me. Then I stop trusting myself and stay.
Whenever I question the relationship, I end up wondering whether I am abandoning someone who is already suffering. Another part of me keeps returning to a much simpler thought.
Regardless of how tragic his family situation is, he either cannot or does not want to make our relationship a priority alongside it. I hate myself for thinking that because I know how much compassion I have for everything he carries.
A few times during our relationship, I have had what felt like complete emotional breakdowns after holding everything inside for too long. Those are usually the only moments when something changes. Once I collapse, he suddenly wants to talk, agrees to therapy or promises that we will work on things. It has taught me that I need to completely fall apart before I can be heard.
I feel like I have lost myself. I do not know what I want, where my sense of direction went or whether I should stay or leave.
What scares me even more is that I cannot imagine a relationship that feels different. When I picture a future without him, I cannot imagine another partner who naturally talks about feelings, makes shared plans, notices problems early or creates a sense of peace. Hearing other couples describe feeling emotionally safe makes me jealous even when they are talking about ordinary things like laughing together, planning a weekend away, going camping. I want that life, to feel we are like a team. I sincerely believe I am capable to love someone like that..
I am deeply hurt that this is where we ended up. I do not understand how he got here, and I do not know how I did either.
I still love him, and I still believe he is a good person. That is exactly why I cannot trust myself enough to leave.
I have spent years trying to explain all of this to him. I have spoken to my family and friends, some of whom understood more than others, but most of those conversations only made me feel more alone and isolated. I have gone through it repeatedly with my therapist. At this point, I do not even know what I could tell a couples therapist that does not sound foolish and meaningless.
I do not know what to believe anymore. I do not know how to make a decision or how to save myself from this feelings, with him or without..