Scarleteen

Hi,
After feeling this way for months now, I am finally ready to share my feelings with someone else. I’m currently in a relationship with someone that I truly love and who mostly makes me feel like I’m being loved and respected, which is perfect I know. However, I’ve been feeling a bit weird lately, it might be a part of PMS that i’m feeling this way. The truth is, I always feel like my boyfriend does not like me anymore. He used to compliment me all the time, yet he does so much less now. It’s been a little rough for him lately, he dropped out of college to start to a new college next year, so he was busy with the application process etc. and he also worked as an intern in the meantime. Anyways, he started acting as a forty year old... (he is 20 btw) i can’t say he is distant but there is something different with him. Maybe it is because he is stressing out about college right now... he never tells me what is the problem even though I ask every once in a while. The thing is, now I started to feel like I’m not enough for him, that is why he is acting this way right now. A month ago, he told me to dress up more appropriately (not that i was wearing something inappropriate, just a tshirt and my skinny jeans), since he was working he was dressing up for work, so he wanted me to dress up as if I was working too. But the thing is, I am a college student in a university that doesn’t have a dresscode and I should be wearing whatever I want... I found this quite rude and told him that he had no right to say something like that to me. Yet, this really broke my heart and I started taking more time dressing up, wearing what I thought he would like, as if he did not like me at all and I should make him like me as he did before... The last few times we had sex, I felt like he was not enjoying it at all, it took much more time for him to come... so now i feel like i’m not pleasing him in bed and i’m not enough. I’ve been working out so hard lately and almost stopped eating to look like a model. Yet i started eating much more now since I became underweight and started skipping my period. He was telling me that i lost so many pounds and my butt became flat... this made me really insecure with my body which never happened before... I don’t know if i’m just overthinking or he is trying to change me. Please help, I’m feeling super guilty and insecure... i’m crying myself to sleep for days now.
Thank you in advance

Hi laurabriann,

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. As we move through life, and especially when there are big changes, we change too and sometimes our relationships grow and change with us and sometimes they stop being such a good fit. That's usually not about our partner not being enough, it's about us and our needs changing. It may be that your boyfriend is experiencing something like this right now. However, that is NOT an excuse for making you feel bad or trying to change you - which sounds like what's happening here and are red flags. Can you read through this and tell me if anything in there sounds familiar? Potholes & Dead Ends: Relationship Roadblocks to Look Out For Also, if your boyfriend is going through big changes, is he still someone you truly like and want to be around?

How are you doing on the eating properly front now? Do you have someone you can reach out to for a bit of additional support around this and building your self-worth? You say you're in college, are there services there that you can reach out to?

Hi again,
Update here! So, as I told before, my boyfriend has been telling me that he is so stressed about getting accepted to his dream school (he dropped off college before, so this will be his second time) and that he is not emotionally stable these days... anyways, i told him that i will be there for him no matter what and he can call me anytime he wants. He thanked me for my support and told me that this was not about me. So, i never ever talked to him about this again, i mean if he was telling me about all this stuff i would listen but when he was not telling anything, i did not force him to open up... so, this past week was like me texting him a few times during the day and him replying (hours later). So, finally I called him and told him that i was feeling so sad that he’s trying to become distant. He told me that it was his reaction to the stress that he’s been facing... so, i stayed calm for a few more days. But what has happened is he stopped saying “i love you” and stopped sending me his long good night texts, so i also stopped doing that stuff. 3 days ago, I called him before i went to sleep in order to see what he was up to and of course he didn’t take the call... after 3 long hours, he sent me a text saying that he could not take it because he was with his family and he said something like “what is it?”, but not in english, it was a bit rude in our language but when i translate it it does not sound rude at all, so just so you know the way he asked me what it was i wanted to talk to him about, was pretty rude... anyways, i got super mad at this and my heart is still broken. I totally stopped texting him. It’s been 3 days since i decided not to text him unless he apologizes, and he only called ONCE yesterday and I didn’t take it. Now, he does not even try to contact me at all, so do I. I don’t know what will happen but he’s been underestimating me a lot lately, and he’s being SO distant as if I do not exist... he’s been following other girls and liking their pics which he never did before. What do you think? Am i being selfish, or is this what i should be doing? By the way, due to stressing about what is going to happen made my appetite go away, i forget to eat and my mom forces me to eat some... i’m feeling sick all the time. I love him, but if he does not show me the love that I need, i don’t think i would go on with this relationship.

You sound - understandably - unhappy in this relationship.

So, what I am thinking right now is that it sounds like it’s time for you to figure out what you want here, and what you want to do about this. It sounds like this is no longer meeting your needs, and us possibly contributing to you not taking good care of yourself.

What do you want to do at this point?

I once loved him so much, we promised each other everyday that we’re going to marry eachother one day... it was a long distance relationship, and we were so happy. Then he dropped out of college and came back. I feel like his parents -especially his mom- do not approve of me, since not only she declined my friend request (we’ve met once) but also spammed me... i could not tell this to my boyfriend since i did not want him to be mad at his mom because of me. But now, it really hurts seeing him pulling away like this. I’m crying when i see our photos, the photos he sent while he was away... now, his parents are probably accusing me of making their son dropped out of college which is obviously not true... i’m feeling so sick, but the thing is i’ve been feeling like this even when we texted throughout the day... i decided not to text him or call him, in other words i will keep on ignoring him. I wish he could see how sad i am because of all this stuff... i still love the old him, and hope for the best for us both...

By the way, my mom is telling me that i’m much more better than i was last week... i’m eating much more and trying to keep up with my life...

Hi laurabriann,

It sounds like this relationship is making you deeply unhappy and is likely to continue to do so. I hear you when you say you still love the old him, and it sounds like you're maybe holding onto a hope that things can go back to the way the used to be. Unfortunately, from what you're describing that doesn't sound likely to happen. So, taking that possibility off the table, what do you want to do? Too, it may help to realize that this mutual ignoring is not going to resolve what's happening; eventually, you'll have to decide to end the relationship or do something else.

I once loved him so much, we promised each other everyday that we’re going to marry eachother one day... it was a long distance relationship, and we were so happy. Then he dropped out of college and came back. I feel like his parents -especially his mom- do not approve of me, since not only she declined my friend request (we’ve met once) but also spammed me... i could not tell this to my boyfriend since i did not want him to be mad at his mom because of me. But now, it really hurts seeing him pulling away like this. I’m crying when i see our photos, the photos he sent while he was away... now, his parents are probably accusing me of making their son dropped out of college which is obviously not true... i’m feeling so sick, but the thing is i’ve been feeling like this even when we texted throughout the day... i decided not to text him or call him, in other words i will keep on ignoring him. I wish he could see how sad i am because of all this stuff... i still love the old him, and hope for the best for us both...

Laura, I mostly just wanted to add that this sounds tremendously painful. I'm sorry it's the place you've been at and are still. It can be so hard, so painful, and also so confusing, when relationships change over time and we ind in the spot where we're grieving over the loss of a relationship we're still actually in because it's changed so much like that over time. That's obviously one thing if it also has changed in ways that work and that bring their own benefits: sometimes we can truly miss old parts of a relationship but find they have been replaced with equally good parts that are just different. That doesn't sound like it's been the case here: it sounds like you just have been losing all the good stuff and that's it. I'm so sorry. That's just awful.

I am glad to hear that it sounds like you are doing well at avoiding unhealthy ways of managing stress. That's a big deal: good on you.

Hi again,
I want to first thank you for helping me during this tough time. So, today I told him that I wanted to talk, so we did. He told me that it's been so hard on him dropping out of college and applying to another one while his friends are all finishing off their first year in college. He is quite an ambitious guy, and his biggest dream is to become the CEO or CFO of one of the World's biggest companies. We've both graduated from the two of our country's most prestigious high schools, which means we both aim the top. I'm studying law right now, and still have no idea what I want to become after I graduate... I might go to Germany for my studies after I graduate from my current university, or I might become a lawyer and stay here. It seems like he wants to live in Germany for the rest of his life, and I still have no idea where I would be living in then... So, he told me that it is so hard for him to study while I'm on his mind and that he do not have a second chance to drop out of college, his parents are quite strict about this. So, he told me that what he had been thinking was to mutually end our relationship to see whether we would end up together or not. He told me that he still loves me and I mean a lot to him... I love him too and he means a lot to me, still... So, we mutually ended our relationship. We decided that we might still end up together at the end but for now, it's the best for us to break up. We both need to focus on our studies and at the end if we still have feelings for each other, who knows we might even get married. It still hurts soooo sooooo much, but I know that it is for our own good and we should be patient. I put away all the stuff that he gave me and deleted our photos to stop looking at them. Now it's time to move on. Thank you again, for your help and support.

How are you feeling about all this? Is there anything we can do for you right now? <3

Thank you for asking how i’m doing. I really needed someone to ask me that
Well, of course I’m rather upset but I always thought I would also be mad; but no, I’m not mad at him, it’s pure sadness I guess. I know this is the right decision no matter how hard it seems to get over it. I know we both will get over this. Everything will be just fine again. I really hope that I will be smiling whenever I remember all those good days we spent together. All the memories that we made... I love him so much, and hope that we’ll end up together one day.

It's challenging -- and for sure, takes time -- to get to a place of acceptance with relationships we've ended, and then appreciation for the good things they gave us and we made within them. You're probably going to have a range of feelings with this, too, and I hope you can accept all of them, even if they're hard or you feel like you should be feeling differently.

Of course, sometimes, too, we can feel some relief at even an unwanted end (or very long pause, you really do never know), just because we at least get to let go of all the uncertainty and all the stress that's involved in trying to keep something going and stay in something that's coming to an end. I hope at the very least some of those initial feelings you voiced in this thread of not feeling like enough are things you can start to let go of a little (you are, of course, always enough).

I hope you have the ability to give yourself some real time this weekend to do some grieving if you need to, or enjoying your life without the stress of this if that feels more right, and plenty of self-care no matter what.

Thank you Heather, for your support. It is indeed a tough time for me right now, but after weeping a little after I wake up or before I go to bed, I believe by heart that this is the right decision for us. I had two more long term relationships before this one, and I know that even the two of those breakups were also tough as this I'm experiencing right now, I got over them. It took me a while, but at the end, I found myself in another relationship, which was by far better than the previous ones. So, I know that the pain will go away, maybe I will miss him all the time, but I won't be crying like this or feeling this pain, since we are all humans and there is nothing in this world that we can't get used to.
There is something I'd really like to share with you. The thing is, I always got over my exes by getting into another relationship. I know it sounds awful, but that is the way I deal with pain. This time, I really should not get into another relationship, since I feel like I am not ready and it is the best for me if I could be single for a little while. There are so many things that I want to accomplish during my college years, such as becoming a yoga instructor or improving my German. I feel like I need to spend some time with my true self, not with another person. Of course I will make new friends, and hang out with them every once in a while but I do not want to regret not taking the time to make my dreams come true. Next week, I will go on a trip to Sicily with my friends, who have been the most understanding during this time, and I hope that I will find peace during that. We don't know what the future will bring and life is full of surprises. I can't wait to experience these upcoming years without spending most of my time overthinking and worrying about a relationship that do not fulfill my needs. I need to learn to love myself. I know that I'm being so harsh on myself sometimes. I find myself overthinking most of the time. I love drawing, writing, reading, playing my ukulele and doing yoga. I need to spend my spare time doing these and what not. My biggest concern is that, every time I am single and all of my friends are in a relationship, I feel like nobody likes me and I will never find the one. Thank God, most of my friends are not in a relationship right now, but that should not be my concern. How am I going to get rid of this way thinking

Thanks for trusting me enough to make that share.

I don't think it sounds awful. I think it sounds common. (And I have certainly been there myself, even when it wasn't what I intended.) But I agree, it's certainly not ideal, and it can become pretty problematic, especially if we're not giving ourselves time to grieve, review, process, and also get some time on our own in this way, and/or if we're locking ourselves out of other things, and into the one thing, from the front each time.

I think all those things on your list sound like parts of a fantastic, phenomenal life, and I wholeheartedly encourage you to pursue a focus on them. Honestly, I don't think there is a "the one" (and really, I'd hope not: as a person who has had more than one big, important love relationship, I'd wish more than one on everyone), but I'm also pretty sure that whether there is or isn't, we're more likely to find and enter into relationships that have the capacity to be mutually big and great when we are also living whole, full lives we love a lot and can make for ourselves already, you know?

Extra bonus: when you learn that you can make and have a life that's got a ton of what you want in it without a big romantic or sexual partner, it gets a lot easier to stop worrying so much about what-if that doesn't happen. Because it matters less and less if it does, ultimately, when your life doesn't feel full of holes, if you follow me. I hope you have a wonderful time on your upcoming trip!