Koala,

When your boyfriend continually pushes you away in order to avoid difficult conversations, and then never apologizes or takes responsibility for his behavior, he is building a wall between you and your connection/intimacy.  The more he does this, the taller the wall becomes and the harder it is to break it down.  You can do and say however much you want that you accept him as he is and that you love him unconditionally.  But you can’t fix what he has broken.  Only he can do that, by taking responsibility and doing the things that need to be done, having the conversations that need to be had.  You can’t help someone who doesn’t want your help.  I appreciate your wanting to help him.  But he needs to help himself first and acknowledge what is going on for him.  What is he afraid of?  Why does he continually push you away?  Until he is honest with himself and can tell his truth, you’ll never be able to break down that wall.  No matter how hard you try.

You said that you are a strong independent woman away from him.  Maybe that’s what you should focus on now.  Being the strong independent woman you are, with or without him.

Good luck!

Take Care and Many Blessing to You!

Dawn

Hi Koala,

In order for a relationship to be healthy when it comes to resolving issues it has to be 50/50. Right now, it is 100/0. You are investing so much time and energy in this man..100% and he is investing nothing. (0%). His family is not making matters any better, which makes it a no-win situation. He wants to push things under the rug, act juvenile, not talk to you in a mature and rational manner, you can talk to him until you are blue in the face, and unless he wants help from counseling for underlying unresolved issues, you will soon burn yourself out.

I would tell him firmly, that nothing is going to change until he is willing to meet you half way. You can’t do this on your own. What he is doing right now is disrespecting you and not meeting your needs to be heard and have a mature conversation. It may be wise to advise him, to maybe take a break from each other for awhile, until he can relate to you like an adult, 50/50, or the relationship most likely will not last. He needs to do his part. You should not invest more time and energy in someone then they invest in you.

Dear Koala:

After reading your examples and the rest of your second post, then re-reading your original post, I will quote you and point to Possibilities. You are not likely to like reading these, but if you consider them and find some validity in them, it may very well be helpful to you.

“He is the least confrontational person I have ever met and he will do anything to avoid any awkward situations or feelings”- Possibility: you are too confrontational and he understandably doesn’t like it.

“I, on the other hand am very open about my feelings and concerns and find healing when I can talk to people about my emotions even if they are uncomfortable”- Possibility: whenever you feel distressed you pass on your anxiety/ distress to him,  It being a Win-Lose relationship: you win (distress is relieved); he loses (distress added)

“I have conformed to the bottling up emotions…This has lead me to become an extremely anxious person… Now and then all of my worries and fear just explode out of me in the worst ways possible, where I get so upset and cannot hold them in any longer and have a big fight with him”- Possibility: you prefer frequent smaller, daily confrontations with him, so to relieve your anxiety on a daily basis and prevent the infrequent big confrontations/ explosions.

“often, after these confrontations, I feel a lot better but he becomes very angry and distant with me”- you do feel better. Possibility: you feel better at his expense, after passing on your distress to him.

“I want him to know that he is loved and accepted for who he is and that I can help him with any issues he has also”- Possibility: you are often critical of him, pointing out his faults and inadequacies, and so you are sending him the message that you do not accept him and do not love him for who he is.

“The examples of uncomfortable conversations can range greatly, from me simply expressing that maybe he should try to do something a different way, like dusting or tidying from the way he normally does it”- Possibility: you micro-manage him, looking for inadequacies and point them to him, as if better dusting is more important than his emotional well being.

“…to more serious things like I feel he is distant or bad at staying in touch with me when I’m away with work”-Possibility: your expectations that he checks in with you are unrealistic or, it may be understandable that he is trying to avoid contact so to not get more criticism.

anita

Koala,

If you don’t feel safe expressing your true thoughts and feelings, then you will never have a trusting and safe relationship with him.  When you are with someone who “has your back,” even if he disagrees with you, he will still be respectful and listen to your point of view, as well as validate your feelings, even if he does’t understand them.  When he refuses to listen to you or have compassion for your struggles and difficulties (even when they involve him), it usually means he is unable to do that for himself.  It seems like his family has encouraged the “sweep it under the carpet” mentality and hasn’t taught him to be able to handle difficult situations.  Maybe they don’t know how to do it either.

The bottom line is you should not have to tiptoe around your own emotions/thoughts in order to make your partner feel more comfortable (in your discomfort).  You should always have enough trust, safety, and security in your relationship so that even difficult discussions will be talked about in a mature manner with both people trying to be sensitive to each other’s needs and trying to be understanding and compassionate, even if they disagree.  They should both have a mutual respect and appreciation for each other and should try to be as supportive as possible, rather than trying to shut the other person up, or avoid dealing with the other person’s true thoughts and feelings.   In a healthy relationship, both people should feel safe to be whom they truly are, warts and all.

We all want to feel loved and accepted and appreciated, without fear of being made fun of, or pushed away (physically and/or emotionally).  If he is unable to do this for you, even after talking to him about this and trying to work things out, then maybe he’s not the right partner for you.  Only you can decide the next course of action.  Only you can decide what is right for you.

I’m an advocate for trying to work things out.  But I also know that sometimes, it’s better to take what you’ve learned and move on.  Especially when the other person isn’t willing to take responsibility for his own part.  Only you can decide for yourself when that time is.

Good luck.  I’ll be holding good thoughts for you.

Blessings!

Dawn

Dear Koala:

In your interactions on this thread with respondents, including me, you’ve been very gracious and pleasant. In your last post you considered something in what I suggested that some people would have rejected immediately. You read to me like a gracious and reasonable person.

This relationship has been harmful to you and I am glad you came to the realization that you “now have very little desire to return to the relationship.”

As far as healing and moving on, my advice: maintain this relationship as a past experience. Do not spend more of your time and precious energy of a prospect that has harmed you and is likely to continue to do so.

Keeping the distance, learn all you can from it. In the future you can use what you learn to know better what you are looking for in a man, be better equipped to correctly evaluate a future potential boyfriend, and then proceed with a healthy, loving relationship.

Tolerate best you can sadness, distress, what you feel, without impulsively reacting to such distress, by reconnecting with him, for one. Keep busy with what works for you, to your benefit and have faith in a better future.

anita

Dear Koala:

You are welcome. Regarding “recognizing unhealthy and anxious behavior” meaning, your tendency “to react instantly to (your) feelings”-

1. Once you are filled with an intense emotion, you will need to lower the intensity of that emotion. When a person is overwhelmed with emotions, the person is likely to react impulsively, without thinking, in a desperate way so to relieve the overwhelming emotions as quickly as possible.

As part of psychotherapy or outside of it, certain guided meditations can help. The all start (or should start) with focusing on breathing. First guided meditations would be focusing on sounds/ one or more of the senses, which gives you a break from thinking and feeling. Following guided meditations will guide you to pay attention to your bodily sensations, feelings, thoughts. This practice of Mindfulness (paying attention to senses, sensations, feelings, thoughts)  will take a long time, but the more you practice, the more you are able to tolerate emotions without automatically/ impulsively reacting to them.

2. You will need to learn being assertive. Here is your sentence from a previous post on this thread: “I have had these outbursts of my feelings eventually when things have built up so much and I am tired or if I have been drinking I seem to get more courage to say to him how I feel.”- the outbursts follow being overwhelmed by intense emotions (#1). But you will also need the courage to assert yourself before “things have built up so much” and without drinking first.

anita