Hi, all. What sort of signs should I look out for to know when it’s time to end a relationship, especially when you have lots of anxiety? I have been with my bf for ~1.5 years or so. My last LTR was several years ago, and I feel like he (and myself but more so him) didn’t fight hard to keep us together, so I very much am someone that will try to keep fighting for a relationship through the thick.
I just feel that things are stagnant in my bf’s and I’s relationship and that we may not be on the same page of timeline/values. For instance, he’s not looking to move in together until summer 2026, whereas I was willing to move in with him summer 2024 and 2025; he did not want to move in together summer 2024 or 2025 because he loves his current place and didn’t want to give it up and just felt that we needed to wait until we were more stable to do so. I generally prefer a faster timeline, but since a relationship is a give/take, I have sacrificed my personal timeline for his (move in next year, get engaged minimum 2 after that, get married minimum 2 years after that, etc). Additionally, he and I just are different in terms of certain desires. He wishes to build community with the area we live in, especially through doing shared activities with friends. I myself am hesitant with that because a part of me still wants to return to my home state (I initially came to live in this area for graduate school) but 1) he’s here in the area we live in and 2) there’s way more opportunities here where we’re at. I also just don’t see that way as strongly as him; I constantly move and have not had a lot of stability since childhood/adolescence, so I’m fine with having like 3-5 main friends and seeing them whenever I feel like it and doing my solo stuff, and to me, my friends are my friends. He sees his friends as people that should be my friends too or at least something that I want to be a part of, but I just feel the need nor desire because to me that’s his friends and his outings, but he wants me to be a part of all of that.
Overall we have the same shared values and interests. We both lean politically around the same (huge thing for both of us), we both have the same feelings about parenthood, both love traveling and trying out new foods and experiences…
I have a lot of anxiety and depression issues. I don’t use the nicest words towards him at times (possible verbal abuse), and said some mean things questioning his manhood for not putting up with me bc I’m not used to someone calling me out on things at all, so its been a huge change for me and something I keep want to improve on either way. I always think to myself certain things to the point where I wonder if I have “relationship OCD” because that matches me to a T, even in my past LTR. I always question our relationship and overthink every single thing. Any time we get in an argument I just spiral and think that I HAVE to break up with him no matter what, and when I calm down, I’m immediately like ?!?.. I think I’m going to eventually get back on medications because that helped at one point, but point still stands where I don’t know when you need to call it quits or keep fighting for a relationship.
TLDR; I have issues and don’t know if it’s something between us that we are just not compatible or if we (I) need to keep fighting for our relationship
Comments
You dont seem like you’re in a healthy spot to be trying to take the next step. You admit you’re verbally abusing him. What are you doing to fix that? You’re hyperfocusing on forcing him to move in with you and get married when you want when you’re admittedly not a very good partner.
I’d say your first step is therapy for yourself to figure out what’s in your head and what’s incompatibility. Meds are great, but they mostly just lower the difficulty of your bad thoughts. You still need to identify them & punch them down.