Hi Anita,

The most recent conflict from my end was: I invited him to plans and he gave a weird, clearly fake semi-excuse, then invited me to the same plans that he just said had a time conflict with my plans. (I feel that this is so vague so in more detail, he said something like “I might be going to dinner with x so I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it, but you guys should definitely come to dinner!”). My plans were for 3pm and never would’ve interfered with dinner and we ended up going to both. The situation was a little more complicated but that’s mainly what happenef.

This annoyed me a lot because I have repeatedly told him just to tell me if he doesn’t want to do something. He will insist that he doesn’t have any doubts and was giving a legitimate excuse, until I push harder and he admits that he had a lot of concerns about my plans. Then we had a conversation about why I want him to be more straightforward with me, and he says he thinks that’s reasonable and will try harder.

He has held really big concerns without bringing anything up, and I also sense that something is happening right now which is upsetting me as well – he is giving little hints but I think is unable/unwilling to explicitly address it.

My overreactions start as just emotional pain and lead to thoughts like: this relationship is not going to work, and I am destroying myself staying. My boyfriend isn’t mature enough to be in a relationship. I know this is bad for me so I should initiate a breakup. To be clear, I don’t have these thoughts when I’m feeling well (obviously), but I also have brought up so much with him and want to give the relationship a chance to settle and grow before ending things. But sadly I’m not sure that any of my thoughts are wrong.