I (24M) am struggling with my partners (24F) need for reassurance and emotional dependence. We’ve been together for 3 1/2 years, in the beginning this need for reassurance was present but I was younger and couldn’t distinguish it from thinking I was just a bad partner. Now, I understand that the reassurance I’ve always provided hasn’t been serving us at all, and I’d like to somehow communicate that it can’t continue.
I feel completely emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed, and I know that I truly can’t continue this way for any longer, but I also am not at this moment able to just break it off, and for at least today and this week really need advice on how to communicate this. I’ve been writing some stuff down, but I just am essentially needing to say that I cant be her therapist, I can’t provide the constant reassurance, and I can no longer ignore my own mental health in order to keep things calm and manageable for us. A bigger difficult factor of all of this is that one of her parents has a terminal illness that’s progressed in the past couple months. I know how drastically this changes things, and my support for her has only been growing to be there, but I’m getting berated too often, and being put down, and I really can’t handle it anymore.
Is there a way I can make my needs clear even in the midst of this very tragic time?
It’s so hard not to feel all the sympathy I do, but I am honestly being treated very poorly. This was the case from the beginning, and as I said I didn’t notice it, but having done a lot of my own therapy and learning my own self worth, I see things much more clearly now – but with the extremely heightened stress of everything, the emotions have been amplified so much and I feel it’s all taken out on me.
Last thing, she used to hear me when I’d express my needs, she hasn’t for a little while, and I feel so completely invalidated, how can I approach this conversation with that in mind too?
TLDR: My (24M) partner (24F) is asking for reassurance too often and is draining me emotionally, I need help/tips communicating my needs