37F dating 52M for six months.
It was an amazing six months. He started off with treating me amazingly, we built a connection, and established compatibility. At first it was once or twice per week we were spending time together but then it was multiple times per week and I was spending most of my time at his place. The relationship took a weird turn once I formed an attachment, and he told me that paying for meals and drinks sometimes meant that I needed to spoil him in multiple ways; cooking for him, cleaning up his apartment, letting him do certain things whenever he wanted but I couldn’t initiate, and treating him to nightly massages. He also has very specific “needs” in the bedroom that turned into things that maybe re traumatized me, and had a need to punish me for certain things. This is something I thought I could move past but sometimes made me uncomfortable. This is something I’ve had time to process during a week of ghosting; I am very confused if this is a normal relationship dynamic.
I will admit I’m working on people pleasing, but I really cared about him so tried to meet his needs. None of this stuff came up until months into the relationship either so it was kind of confusing. At one point I just became exhausted. We both work full time, and his place is 45 mins away, so I broke down and told him it was too much and I was tired and this initiated our first fight because he said I challenged his authority. I told him it wouldn’t happen again, and things got better again. But a week ago he moved from an apartment to a house because there simply wasn’t room for both of us. It was a rough weekend for him.
However, after the move everything changed. I didn’t hear from him for days. Our usual routine is he calls me every night, and we either chat for an hour or make plans for me to come over, because he works and maintains his own business so we established this worked best since he had a busier schedule. I didn’t reach out to him, because he’s specific about our dynamic, and the first time he reached out was a week later, yesterday. I suffer from anxiety and I’ve spent the week basically having panic attacks (please do not judge, if you do not suffer from weird brain chemistry this is difficult to understand how debilitating it can be). We were spending almost all of our time together at that point, so it felt like a vaccum removed from my life.
I didn’t answer the phone but let him know via text I had been really sick. He just said “that’s awful” and still nothing.
How do I process this with no closure. Based on some abuse that’s also been going on, I know it needs to end, but for some reason.. I can’t do it.
Should I call him and try to resolve it – maybe he has something going on too? Is there recovery from this type of treatment and ghosting or am I overreacting?
Is this a normal relationship dynamic?
TL;DR boyfriend stopped talking to me for a week; I’ve been having panic attacks processing our relationship and do not know how to proceed.
Comments
I stopped reading after the first paragraph. He wasn’t treating you right from the beginning. It’s transactional. You deserve better. Allow him to fuck off.
You need therapy, not Reddit if you need to ask these questions.
It’s not normal. Don’t ever talk to this POS again.
No. This is not remotely normal. Even if you can recover from being treated like this, why would you? Is this how you want your life to go? Is this someone you want to spend time with? Your partner should not be okay with making you feel unsafe, upset, traumatised/re traumatised, or uncomfortable – and he absolutely should not want to do so. Your partner should not place his or her “needs” in the bedroom above your comfort or safety. If they are genuine “needs” he cannot have sex without, he needs to find someone compatible or get therapy. This is throwing up so many red flags for abuse. You’re six months in, end it now and consider yourself lucky to not have kids or a marriage in the mix.
This is abusive, even for d/s dynamics. This is not normal. This man is an abuser cosplaying as someone in the kink community.
No it isn’t normal in any relationship. Short term or long term.
He acted nice at first so you would fall for him and since then he’s been gradually testing your boundaries to see how far he go. He’s absolutely taking the piss.
Break it off. Or just block and ghost. Don’t give him any avenues to contact you again. Block on texts/ calls, socials, email etc.
Because these narc types, well they always try and hoover you back in (after they’ve been ignoring you for a while as punishment for some bullshit or other). They like to see if they still have power. They think you’ll be desperate to get them back. Don’t fall for it. Their behaviour gets worse each time the cycle repeats.
Please have some therapy as you seem to be quite naive. I hope you find someone kind and caring next time you try dating. This man isn’t the one. 💐
No this is all bad. It’s like he charmed you (love bombed) you in the beginning, and once you were dependent or enamoured, he started making more unreasonable requests. He’s wearing you down until you’re utterly submissive to him and all his demands. This is not a usual relationship dynamic. This is abuse.
You should never be afraid to voice fears or concerns. Someone who loves and respects you would never treat you like this.
You will find it hard but it is very important that you end this relationship. I think having poor boundaries and high anxiety means you might need some real support during this. But I think you should tell him the relationship is over and then block him. Tell friends about this. Stay firm and know that he will try to see you face to face. Avoid this. Try and get more contact and support from friends and family as i suspect he will turn nasty.
This is not your fault. He has manipulated you and tricked you. Good people don’t do that.