I’m in a relationship with a woman older than me for a few years now. I’m 28m and I’ve been in this relationship for about 2 years now.
I don’t want to say much but I would be considered majorly as the creative type. We’re both acadmeics. She will make me feel inadequate in every little things, in every conversations and it has been going on for a long time now….so I have learnt to clench up go into my cave and disconnect when I feel overwhelmed or disappointed. But when she complaints about that and I have to tell her why (all the small things she did) she’ll ask for instances. If I cannot give her the information I will be absolutely dismissed. Like there’s no meaning to my feelings…. The actions from her that make me feel that way are extremely subtle and backhanded that even talking about them makes me feel there’s no solution to this.I will be put in a spot for not speaking up and finally when I have built the courage to do so, my feelings will be dismissed. This is a loop that has been going on. She says she does not have any personal agenda about me but I suspect she has…..My suspicion is that she secretly wants the creative abilities to adapt and when she can establish she’s superior to me in every way she’ll show me down and leave. I cannot confront her about this and she’ll always mention in an argument that she does not have anything to gain from me…… But again, in everyday life, when I make something creative she will never acknowledge that and…. will try finding some technical fault in it. Whereas she has no idea even how to do what I just did. She’ll always minimize the things I do….. She’ll come to me often to discuss ideas for a problem and I usually am able to give her a few solutions. She’ll take the points and find faults in them by nitpicking and nonetheless she’ll working with my ideas at the end of the day. And she’ll never acknowledge it. As a result of such things for a long time now, I withdraw myself into my room, sometimes doing creative things and sometimes doing just nothing. I have become extremely negative in my mind and my creative flow is suffering because of this. She will control what we watch during dinner…and even if I have a few suggestions or something I really want to watch with her she’ll always question that and throw it out of the window saying she never liked that. On the other hand I always do things with her even if I never do them with myself. I do that to be close with her, to know her better. These are very small gestures I find valuable in a person and I get criticised for all this. Lately I have trouble trusting her words because her actions do not match and when I confront her about them, I get the gist that I’m complicated and she’s unable to have a normal relationship with me. I understand my love language is very different from hers and I’ve been trying but everytime I get the blame for not doing enough for her.
TL;DR; : I absolutely have no idea where is this going and I keep lying on bed all day avoiding work that I need to do and make excuses for not doing them. It has deeply affected me and I literally have no one else to turn to. Maybe I haven’t given many other details here but there sure is.