Hi Anita, thanks for responding.

I understand what you’re saying. I also think it’s important to prioritise my mental health, I took this year off just to do that.

To be honest, I’m starting to feel like I’m the toxic partner in this relationship. Everyone has a different journey and different pace, and I feel like I’m being unfair by asking my bf to speed up his pace, even change his journey to meet me on mine.

You are right when you say I am motivated by fear. I omitted to mention that the conversation where I decided to take a break happened on our 9 year anniversary. That’s why we were discussing the relationship. I felt fearful and afraid because I’ve been making progress and he doesn’t seem to have. Again as you pointed out, he never got a chance to take time off, so how could he make any progress.

I suppose what I’m really afraid of is that we’re no longer on the same page anymore and I’m scared of what that means. That’s why I accused him of not making any effort to grow or change, when the reality is that he may just simply be moving at a pace that suits him and his journey.

As I’ve mentioned before, he has been tremendously supportive with my mental health issues. I don’t have many friends, and again, my relationship with my parents is dysfunctional so he is someone I consider very important to my support system. I’m the same person for him.

I don’t think it’s fair to ask people to change, but I’ve done just that by making him afraid of losing me and forcing him to introspect.

I think I’m also afraid for him, it’s difficult watching  someone you love engage in damaging behaviour, and worse being in denial about it.

In some of his emails, he mentioned that he felt as though he needed me to guide him through this introspection because I knew him best. He said that even if we weren’t together he would always support me and asked if I could still advise him and guide him because he genuinely feels incapable of doing this himself.

I don’t think he has considered professional help, ie therapy, for a host of reasons. But as I said above I’m still going to suggest it to him.

In the meantime, I don’t really know what to do from here, I’m quite heartbroken and sort of just going through the motions of life right now. It doesn’t feel good or right. I feel like I have no right to complain though, since I made the decision to walk away.