Hello Tiny Buddha community,

I’ve come here to make my very first post in the hopes that I’ll get some advice as I’m lost. I will try to shorten this as much as I can but it will be difficult, and thank you in advance for taking the time to read on.

Me (I’m 33 yo) and my partner (he’s 37 yo) met around 10 years ago at work, we worked closely together for 6 years before he finally revealed that he was in love with me. I hadn’t been in a relationship in a long while and it came as quite a shock but me and him had a great friendship and a connection we still can’t put our fingers on. Long story short, we gave it a go and I ended up falling for him.

Now the background of us both is important here. He comes from a very close Muslim family but he is no longer a Muslim himself, he left the faith a year before revealing his feelings to me, his mother knows this and I think sisters also though becoming an apostate in a Muslim community is very much frowned upon so he keeps it quiet and hasn’t openly admitted it to anyone other than his mother. He is the oldest and has 4 younger sisters, all over 21. He still lives at home with his parents and his two youngest siblings, even though he has his own home on the same street. I’ve met most of his sisters but his mother is the only other person that knows about me though she hasn’t asked to meet me yet and I have a feeling shes not best pleased about it. (I am a Caucasian woman with no religion) His father is senile and he doesn’t have much of a relationship with him at all.

He didn’t have much of a childhood, he was sent to work at his fathers business 7 days a week at age 14 and did that for years, attending after school and trying to fit in studies where he could. Then he had to help his mother out at home bringing up the youngest two siblings, why? I have no clue. She doesn’t have health issues as far as I’m aware and didn’t have a job either. It’s not a question I’ve ever asked why he had such responsibilities at a young age, and I feel his parents are solely responsible for his issues because of his upbringing but he won’t hear a bad thing about them.

I come from a small family, we are not as tight knit as his family though I love them all dearly, we are there when we need each other but we don’t do things together at all. I hardly see my siblings and my father passed away 7 years ago. Since then my mother has suffered with severe depression and is in denial about it so refuses any medical help. This has lead to a breakdown in our relationship so I don’t have many people around me to be honest. Only a few family and some friends, but that’s how I like it, being an introvert. (he is also an introvert)

One of the main things that bothers me in our relationship and the main cause of our disagreements is the lack of time he spends with me. We usually would see each other maybe once or twice in the week after work for a couple of hours before he headed home, and Saturday was our main day and the only time we’d spend the night together and usually all day Sunday. We used to work side by side all the time so most the time he’d avoid seeing me after work because he was tired or he wanted to go gym or to martial arts class. We realised working together was putting a strain on us so 2 years into the relationship we made a decision one of us should leave and he chose to.

Things became so much better, I’d see him outside of work more often and he even admitted to me that I was right all along and working together was causing problems. Things seemed to be quite harmonious and we seemed to want to see each other more because we hadn’t spent time together all day.
Almost 2 years ago I moved away from my mothers (for reasons mentioned above) and got my own apartment. I figured this would give us an opportunity to spend more time but he never stayed over and rarely does. I’d often wish in my mind that I’d hear his car door slam outside and he’d come to the door with an overnight bag and say ‘I’m staying here tonight’ but thats just a fantasy for me. However I still had hope that all the goals and dreams we talked about i.e marriage, children etc – would all fall into place at some point and I didn’t want to rush things.

Then in July of last year his niece was born, the first child to be born into the family. Since then I’ve seen even less of him and it’s since then things seemed to get change for the worst. He is obsessed with her (in a good way I guess) so much so that he has pictures of her everywhere, on his phone, his iPad, his social media accounts, and it kinda hurt me a little because he has never ever put a picture of me on anything like that but that’s probably me being a little jealous.

Our weekends were being consumed with the exciting buzz of the new baby, and him going to visit his niece who lives a good 2.5 hour drive away so it almost became ‘you one weekend, family the next weekend’ but I nipped that in the bud straight away, that wasn’t acceptable for me. I’m never invited because I haven’t been formally introduced yet. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him all week then he’d stop by Friday and say ‘I can’t come tomorrow as I’m off to see the baby, my mum wants me to take her’ – it began to infuriate me and I almost resented his time spent with family, and his responsibility for them that is always taking away his evenings (collecting sisters from work when they are only 10 minutes away, driving people here, doing this doing that etc) I told him I wasn’t happy with it and that I’d like to be introduced to his parents, and that’s when he told me it’s over. No explanation, said basically that he ‘can’t be a***d with the hassle. I was broken.

I tried to reason and fix things desperately trying to get through to him we can do this, we can make it work but he told me he doesn’t think he can ever leave his family home. I feel he is scared of commitment and keeps making excuses. He’s told me he isn’t worried about his parents disowning him because he knows they won’t, he just feels like he won’t be able to live with me. He finds it hard to spend a lot of time with me and I also believe he gets anxious staying away from home.
I’m not a high maintenance girl, I’m responsible, I work, I’m independent, I’m very clean, OK I can’t cook for toffee but I try to. I don’t feel I give him any reason to feel that way but he said he feels uncomfortable spending too much time with me, and feels a few hours is enough.
But then families aren’t built on a few hours. How can we build a family like that?

2 months after our split, he got in touch with me and basically asked me back, declared his undying love, that he can’t live without me and that he made a big mistake and although I said I’d never go back, I jumped at the opportunity. I missed him terribly and although I was starting to get back to myself again, I love him, and my father taught me that sometimes you have to fight for the things you love. I set down some ground rules and told him that I want us to focus more on us and put more time and effort into our relationship. I asked him to make me a priority and to stop putting our time off to do menial things for his family. He agreed and told me he realises he needs to change.

I told him I want him to move out of his parents house as we can’t move forward in our relationship while he still lives at home with his parents so he has had quite a lot of work done on his other house making preparations to move in. I personally feel it’s already a house that’s good enough to be lived in since it’s the place we stay most weekends but he insisted he had to wait for the bathroom to be finished which will probably be ready in 2 weeks. Things have been steady the past couple months (we got back together in November) but still not much has changed. I’ve put my foot down a lot with regards to him trying to change plans but I’m also very patient and lenient at times.

This weekend we were supposed to see each other – I hadn’t spent much time with him since Christmas as I went away with my friend for New Year. He spent New Year at his sisters with the baby. His sister and the baby came down again this weekend and they’ll be staying for a week but he still spent most of our day together with them as he said he had to ‘show his face’. I was furious as this always happens, it’s like I’m left till last but he eventually turned up at 7 in the evening with flowers to apologise and stayed the night with me.

We had such a great laugh and great fun. In the morning I made us breakfast and it was only just gone 12:00 midday and he asked me if I mind that he left to go home (which for sake of story is only a 10 minute drive away without traffic) to which I agreed although I wasn’t happy about it but we had discussed that instead of him staying and feeling uncomfortable, to just say if he wanted to go and so making him stay would make me feel awful, but I hadn’t seen him since last Sunday and hoped he’d want to spend more time.

We’ve had a few text exchanges this evening, I’ve told him how I feel and don’t see how we can move forward with this issue. It’s great that he’s doing as I asked and planning to move into his house to see if he can hack the independence it brings, but what about the elephant in the room? The awkwardness he feels when spending too much time with me.

This is where I ask for your help TB.
Do you think this man truly loves me?
Do you think all this could be down to his anxiety? As I do believe he suffers with an anxiety disorder (he will be going to get tests on this soon as I asked him to), he has all the telltale signs of GAD, Insomnia, over thinking, worrying etc. He has tried mindfulness classes, yoga, meditation, diet change, everything you can think of to stop his anxiety attacks. He even went to Vietnam alone during our break up to get clarity but he did nothing but miss me.

He saw a relationship therapist last month and the things she said made him upset. He said she was making comments that didn’t seem like she wanted to help our relationship, and more so she was telling him maybe he’s better off alone or maybe we’re not right for each other.

My friends tell me he’s no good, but I feel something here, a connection. I’ll fight for anything I love as long as it takes but I’m not sure anymore if this battle ever ends.

Thank You