How does this end?

[Sad and alone]

Our relationship has reached a very bleak point.
There is zero physical contact of any sort. No affection at all. No intimacy. I miss having a cuddle but don’t miss the sex. It was something I had no enthusiasm for but kept trying at to see if it would bring us closer, but I just couldn’t cope with being close to someone like that who could then the same day say such horrible things etc. I don’t believe he loves me as he wouldn’t have said and done what he has, and still does.
Every day there will be something he criticises or comments on and if I don’t agree he’ll say I’m arguing. I don’t need to reel off examples as I’m sure you understand the type  bs we all try to get through.
So I’ve said many times let’s call it a day, we don’t get on, it’s not fair on either of us to be upset (trying to humour him). But he says he’s never given up on things before and he doesn’t give up and that’s my answer to everything. It seems a pretty simple solution to me if we don’t get on and haven’t got on for as long as we haven’t. Now no physical relationship. He says he’s accepted that and will just do it himself. I said I don’t want to be in a relationship like that, it’s not normal, and he says again no but he doesn’t give up on things.
There’s an element in my life that prevents me from going anywhere at the moment, but when I don’t have that any more I don’t want to stay. But how do I go? If he won’t even discuss it? I can’t believe he’d rather live in misery than go our separate ways.

[Sad and alone]

I mean seriously, I think he strives to be unhappy. Moaning everyday. Scowling at me all the time. Criticising all the time. He’ll be fine, go and do something, then come back and start on about what I’m failing at and how it isn’t fair on him. He throws stuff back at me that I’ve said. Innocent stuff that is just part of a conversation that he twists into a criticism or ridicules or uses as an example of my massive failings in life. It’s exhausting. How he’s old (he’s not) or knackered or tired. He’s middle-aged, not old-aged. He doesn’t work outside of what we do at home. He has a comfortable life. He just chooses to be miserable. He could choose to be nice to me which would obviously promote a better response from me and it’d be better all round. But he’ll never do it. He has such contempt and resentment towards me. I feel like I’ve wasted half my life with this person. It makes me sad. I don’t want to carry on feeling that way. But I still get sucked into those little glimpses of how we used to be.

[EvenSerpentsShine]

I think it is possible to reach a sensible conclusion in these kinds of relationships. After many many years of being told how awful we are and how their lives are diminished by us. As sensible people we say “well I’ve tried everything, and it seems like you don’t like me much and you don’t want to be with me, so let’s just call it a day”.

Thats what sensible people do when they’re unhappy and think they’re making someone else unhappy.
They separate. Usually in a friendly-ish way. Understanding that the spark has gone, or they’re not really compatible or they’ve grown apart, or any number of other sad but true reasons.

So, what happens when we say this to our abusive partners?

They refuse to split up.

Odd.

They offer no way forward, but still keep on moaning at us.

Odd

Will it ever change?

No.

 

[Sad and alone]

We’ve had a massive blow up, something I really strive to avoid the best I can by being non responsive but I’ve bitten (timeframe removed by Moderator). Over something so small and unimportant. Something I was doing and he told me to stop and I didn’t because I wanted to do it and am still fighting for the right to make my own decisions. Because I didn’t do as I was told. He is so spiteful and nasty, saying I’m a born loser, I don’t do anything, and how I lie. He says it’s down to me that we didn’t have children, how I have no career, how I’m basically useless and couldn’t get a job. For reference I had poor fertility and after medical interventions I said I didn’t want to do any more. I wanted to adopt but he sabotaged the process and I understood it wasn’t what he wanted to do. I had a job that I wanted to change but he said to stay where I was so I did. When the place I worked shut down I got a temporary job that they wanted to make permanent but he didn’t want me to. I ended up staying at home with the excuse that someone had to be there for our dog. Recently he has become very vocal about me not contributing financially. I try ventures at home but nothing that makes a great deal. I have said about getting a part time job to bring a little bit in on the side but he then demands I have to earn lots of money and I can’t have a “(quote removed by Moderator)”.

[Sad and alone]

I don’t know why I babble on so much here. I’m just tired of now being told I’m a freeloader and a born loser along with the usual stuff.
He said again about taking me to the station to go and stay with family but I feel so unprepared. I don’t know what the purpose would be. For space to get back together in a few days or for good?  He has said it before but then never takes me and says he doesn’t want me to go. And the thing I have here I don’t feel I can leave. It’s really killing me here though. He is such an ugly person,  bitter and miserable. And says he knows what he says upsets me but then that it’s my fault for being the way I am. When I look at his twisted face spitting out all this venom I get so upset as where did the person go that I married? This isn’t him. Was he ever anything else or is this always him and he’s covered it up over the years? It breaks my heart thinking I’ve wasted my life with this individual, I mean years and years and years.

[Fallenofftheradar]

I recognise the exact exchange of him reeling of a list of behaviours from me that he thought were completely unacceptable in a relationship, whilst I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong, and there was no arguing with him so it was a case of rolling over and giving up so much of myself. But apparently the situation was killing him with me being the way I am.

So I said that it sounds like we are incompatible in really fundamental ways, and I would never want to make anyone feel the way he (claimed) he did, but I can’t fundamentally change who I am, so this is going to keep being a thing. If he feels it’s something he finds unacceptable and can’t live with, we have to part ways.

But I got the exact same response, he doesn’t give up on things, especially not after everything he has done for me and this relationship and I always try to go for the easy way out blabla.

I think this narrative is all manipulation by making us having to change everything about ourselves and our lives to basically live to please him and he has control over everything. If we aren’t submissive, you will get endless extreme fights. Breaking up is never an option.

Very manipulative and unhealthy. And has nothing to do with love. He clearly doesn’t love you the way you are.

[Sad and alone]

Thank you for your post. Interesting to hear that he’s not the only one who says  he doesn’t give up on things. These behaviours are sometimes scarily familiar and transferable across relationships described on this forum and it’s some sick comfort recognising them and realising you’re not alone.
Apparently it’s soul-destroying being with me. I am that bad a person. I mean, what’s more soul-destroying than being criticised and moaned at daily with absolutely no care or love or affection to even balance it out?

[Sad and alone]

This blame game is also exhausting and just have to say yes sir no sir and swallow it basically unless I want to scale up to all out arguing yet again.

He’s bought something. I wasn’t there. It’s not great and he overpaid for it. Didn’t knock the seller down when he viewed the item in person. Or just walk away. Now complaining and saying it’s my fault. But I wasn’t even there I say. No it’s my fault because the reason he felt pressured into buying it is because I have had months to get this item and haven’t bothered. Can’t go into details for risk of being moderated obviously, but we had a backup item in case we hadn’t found anything. He started saying he’s sick of me arguing when I questioned how this transaction could be my fault when I wasn’t there. I tried to reason with him and say surely he could see my point of view. He’s always told me if you go somewhere and don’t like it or it’s not what you thought don’t buy it. Don’t buy it for the sake of it. But this is what he’s done! And now I’ve had to just swallow it and say okay to not “arguing”. I don’t even know what arguing is anymore. Just me defending myself I guess. If I’m wrong I’m wrong and I know it but this is not on me. Not the first time it’s happened either. But whenever he does it it’s because some other thing made him do it. Just hate it. Hate the way he is to me. He’s got so much worse in such a short time.

[StrongLife]

Sounds like you had a job that he sabotaged.

 

Do you want to be in this relationship? Is this where you see your life going in 10/20 years?

It sounds a difficult thing where you don’t make decisions and there is constant verbal harassment. Sorry this is happening. You deserve a happy life.

[Author]

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