I (F34) told my (M32) partner I don’t believe his stonewalling will ever stop and we ended up breaking up.

Throwaway because few people know my main.
Sorry for the long post just trying to mention all relevant information.

My partner and I have been together for 3 years, living 2. Overall we have a good relationship but we have 1 major problem. We have worked through most minor issues and fixed them on both ends, but the major issue for me persists.

Basically most times when I address my partner about any problem I have with him or our relationship such as lack intimacy, if I get frustrated with him over some household chores, if I’m upset about anything and I communicate it – 9/10 times he shuts down and stone walls me for days. He won’t ignore me 100% but it’s basic exchanges and distance. I have communicated over 20 times how much I hate it. We have talked this over and over. Basically his explanation is that at the moment of confrontation he feels too overwhelmed most times and needs time and space to process, I was very understanding of this and made a deal with him. Basically if that is how he feels at the moment of me bringing up the problem he needs to communicate that he needs time and space and then when he’s ready approach me and talk about it.

I told him that I’d rather have an argument or a calm conversation on his time then go through the silent treatment . I also told him countless times that there is nothing worse than the silent treatment and it is a dealbreaker for me long term, that I’m willing to be understanding and patient if that is something he is willing to work on but if he doesn’t think he can keep the deal or learn to communicate better than it’s better to end it right away. He didn’t want to end it promising this arrangement works and it’s fair.

The past 4 months we haven’t had any fights, just couple minor disagreements but something has been bugging me and I brought it up casually a few times. Basically any time I ask him to do a home chore he never fully finishes it, I brought it up nicely in passing because I always end up finishing it, and then I stopped completing his tasks and started making him come back to finish it, but he still kept doing this. I already do most chores and it can be frustrating when he doesn’t finish his most times and I have to stay on top of him.

About a week ago on the weekend I woke up to see him annoyed at my presence, I tried chatting with him but he seemed like he needed his space so I left him alone and started cleaning the place. I then did my own thing in a separate room and few hours later I came out and asked him to do 4 chores while I did more other chores. I cleaned for about 1.5 hrs , what I asked him would take about 20 minutes. I left him to do it on his own time because he still seemed like he didn’t want to hang and was just relaxing.

I came out later to see none of the chores fully finished, dishes werent completely done, the floor was swept only on one side – clearly, only half the garbage was out….At this point I got really frustrated about the chores and about his attitude towards me all day. I took a moment and came out to talk to him, I said I’m tired of half finished effort on chores and that I’m tired of picking up his slack and if he can’t manage to learn to finish them he should start paying for a maid once a while. He immediately said there was a problem with garbage bin and he’ll finish this later, I said ok but what about all other chores and all other days before that?! He got immediately angry and said to leave him alone and stopped talking, I got angry too and lost my cool I stormed off and called him an ahole.

He never approached me about this argument, in a whole week, I’ve been civil when we hang out with friends on Tuesday, we even shared some jokes and watched a movie together but overall I’ve been distant towards him because I felt hurt and resentful all week, and I cried almost every day since but tried to hide it hoping he’ll approach me on his own on his time, it really hurt that another problem I brought up turned into an argument that he ignored. Well today for some reason it really got to me, I couldn’t help but cry quite a lot and he noticed. He asked me twice and I said it’s nothing, and later in the evening he asked me again and I said “honestly why do you ask me now, I’ve been upset all week and you know why, as soon as I tell you why you’re just going to ignore the problem again so what’s the point of asking ?” His response was basically “oh because you snapped on me a week ago over some stupid chores?” I was kind of taken a back by that’s what he took from that day, and I took some time to calm and came back to talk.

Basically we had a long talk and I reminded him how much I hate how he just ignores the problem and won’t communicate , that he promised me to at least to say he needs space for now and he’ll talk when he feels he’s ready and he still won’t. His side was basically that he thought we were good because we had amicable communication all week and that we just moved past it, but later in the conversation he admitted he noticed I was upset and crying on Tuesday but didn’t want to say anything because we hang out with friends later that day and he didn’t want to start a conversation before that.

At this point I got so frustrated, and said so you won’t communicate when you know I’m upset OR when I’m being nice OR when I’m mad OR when I give you space – you always have an excuse for lack of communication meanwhile you find some way to blame me for not approaching me, either stating that I look mad, or that I look like I’m fine, or that I look upset and he assumes I need time….

I got really mad and said that at this point there is nothing he can say where I’ll believe him that he will work on this because I’ve tried to be patient and understanding, and gave him options that worked for him and the result is always the same. I also said that this issue has been the biggest problem for me and has hurt me many times, that I honestly don’t see us being together in one year because I don’t think it’s something he can improve on because honestly I do t think he’s even trying. He said that if there’s nothing he can say then there’s no point of continuing to talk, I thought a bit and responded saying I don’t feel like this is a safe space for me to talk , I’m at a point where I get anxious if there is a problem I want to discuss because I know that means we’ll barely talk in the next few days once I bring it up. That makes me not want to talk and seems like it’s all downhill from here. I also said that all the good times in our relationship is not worth the anguish I feel when I get stonewalled regardless of whether he does it on purpose or not.

I asked point blank if he thought his communication has improved and he admitted not as much as he intended.

It wasn’t my intention to break up now but I was being candid, and that led to us ending the conversation there.

I feel like I’m been very understanding and patient but I genuinely don’t see myself putting up with these silences with no improvement, I know I’ll only feel more resentful over time and eventually end it anyway. But now I wonder if saying this so bluntly was too harsh and unfair.

At the same time he had nothing to say in his defence besides blaming me, he gave me a lot of excuses on why he didn’t approach me and if it was early in the relationship I would believe him but at this point I have heard it so many times. I don’t regret anything I said today but I wonder if the way I said it was too harsh. I wonder if I did give him mixed signals all week and should have tried approaching him again on another day.

How else could I have communicated or handled it better?