Here are 7 early warning signs of a controlling boyfriend who thinks he owns you. WELL I WONDER WHAT YOU WOULD DO AFTER 20 YEARS MARRIED TO SOMEONE YOUD PROBABLY JUST BLITHELY DUMP HIM THEN TOO. I have an ex my friend refers to as The Physical Manifestation of MellifluousDissents (Formerly) Low Self-Esteem. I suspect this b/f may belong to that club as well. If what he says pisses you off, take it as a good sign that your self-respect and self-preservation instincts are waking up and working. When I was unhappy with the way her behaviour impacted me, our living space, or our relationship I saw the fact she wouldnt do the easy, obvious things I told her she ought to as indications that she wasnt actually committed to her claims or our life together. Eat veggies! offered as a panacea for your depression sounded so much like when my fianc would tell me just drive more even on days when I was really struggling with memories of past car accidents. If your life bores, frustrates, disappoints, or depresses you, then it's time for a change. Well. Its an unfortunate reality that some couples are couples not because they are passionately in love, but because its easier to stay together than it is to break up. Kindness. Lets stay on topic.. Theres no discussion or debate or simply respect for holding different views; he simply insulted your view in a way that seems designed to shut you up. He was scared, I was exhausted and largely unresponsive, and neither of us knew what was going on or what to do. You need figure out what makes you happy, and start doing that. I was in a controlling relationship (where I had recurrent depression) and it took being away from my partner for 3 months (he left the country to visit family) to feel the intense relief and lift of stress and realize that the main problem was actually him. I love you anyway is, in practice, almost nothing like I love you. Sadly, I would not be surprised if he saw outcome 1 as being necessary for the LW to be happy and healthy or at least how he self justifies wanting the LW to return to the passive role that they played in the relationship while they grappled with their depression and lack of confidence. It makes taking care of ourselves seem hard, even impossible on some days. Excessively monitoring and correcting a partner (with the silent treatment, no less!) LW, you describe your partner as angry, and the type of anger is such that you qualify it as he never lashes out. This was my college boyfriend in a nutshell. Aargh, accidentally hit reply before done editing. Another pertinent question: How does BF react to advice given by LW? Someone who doesnt follow your clear requests on how to help you might not be good at helping you, or motivated to help you. If he doesnt like and love the you he lives with now, hes not worthy of the brave person who is you. LW, if his advice and criticisms increase as you gain self esteem and do better, he may have real self esteem and control issues of his own. But I do also think the LW is getting quite enough You should from their boyfriend. I 100 million percent second this. Nine times out of ten, a person who self-describes as logical or rational ironically does not understand this, and a much better self-description would be someone so egotistical that I think my subjective preferences should be treated as laws of the universe especially by my girlfriend.. renovate the bathrooms, start an advice columnit doesnt have to be terrible. A friend of mine called this sort of explanation, First, the earth cooled, Beware of I am very logical as a cover for I dont think your feelings matter and I dont care if I hurt you.. I think this is great advice. Your workout didnt count according to my standards is a vague inference. So few people seem to get this. It can be hard to stop caring, even when someone has done nothing but bring you down. You've forgotten your dreams. Heh). The situation seems chock full of red flags to me. Id been through worse. I can tilt my head to one side and see a boyfriend that this LW needs to dump *yesterday* because all hes doing is trying to build his ideal partner out of what he believes is some kind of nascent state that can go in any direction, like a bunch of stem cells. Don't put any extra effort into those who drain you. For me, life is better without him. Value to him also includes your offering of feminine energy and responsiveness, your surrender to connection moment by moment (which helps deepen your connection and renew his deep attachment to you). either way. I feel so much better and so much stronger. You are the person who knows whats best for you. LW, Im so sorry youre dealing with this. TL;DR: I hope you have good progress with your healing, and that either your boyfriend learns to be less of a jerk stat, or that youre in a position to be able to move on/out without him, because you deserve so much more support and respect. I watched my parents relationship work this dynamic for years. I was going through a rough patch and he wanted to help me, and the only way he knew how was to be my cheerleader. Some guys bitch about paying for dates because of feminism (or whatever). I did not in fact give up he left me. To be honest, I almost wonder if he said that because he felt he needed to say something (because maybe peanut-butter and chocolate chip sandwiches arent the most common meal and sometimes its hard not to comment on that?) He finally stopped when I was a teenager and I said something along the lines of it was a good thing I wasnt as sensitive about food as many teen girls, otherwise such comments could send me towards anorexia. People who base their identity around fixing you have a major investment in keeping you broken. One of the surest ways to find out why he stopped putting in the work is by asking him. The Captain makes some good points about transitioning from one kind of relationship to another, but there are some really worrying bits, here. said nothing about it just supported me about going, and listened to me talking about it and was totally go you! If this IS the case, he does mean well, but hes going about things all wrong. It also reads a bit like hes trying to control her looks as opposed to her happiness, though again, my vision may be a bit skewed here. i got a screw driver thing and tried to force the switch witih t; I have a hp 2000 notebook pc and the touch pad and cursor aren`t letting me click on things but the cursor does move? Ive been on both sides of the Have you eaten a food today? Without the receptive, captive audience, it isnt nearly as much fun for him. The idea of setting up a should about something like food or exercise for her and expecting her to abide by it sounds abhorrent. It seems like his help is nothing more than poorly disguised undermining of you. But I really think you deserve somebody who loves, respects, and likes you as you are right now. So in order to save your relationship, you need to find out what is going on and take corrective action if necessary. Its also a thing that gets easier once youve done it. It sounds like you two have a chance. He may have had his fun with you, but now he is ready to move on. I spent four years in a relationship like that, where nothing was ever good enough and taking steps to be a better Me was met with derision and controlling behaviours, and I know so much how hard it is. Its not that men suddenly become secretive when they lose interest in their relationship, its that men are not by nature sharers of information in the same way females are. Ill offer help if asked, but otherwise, I try to stay out of itunless an (in)action is directly affecting me, as it was in this case. Hmmm, actually, that wasnt the post I was thinking of. A lot of the time, people feel like they need a Big Serious Reason (like I caught him bonking my sister or he burned my entire book collection then peed on the ashes) to dump someone. I sometimes wish I could timetravel and tattoo this onto my brothers forehead a few years ago. That makes me so angry on your behalf. I make weird concoctions of things that are in the house, and if theyre tasty they make it into the regular rotation! Maybe not just the you he wants to make you into, but also the him who is Cool and Helpful and Makes Things Better so he doesnt want to accept that what hes doing is hurting you, because thatd mean hes not Cool or Helpful or Making Things Better and hasnt been for a while. He may have met someone new and is now taking her on dates, buying her gifts as well as making other gestures. You know when they got worse? He just got bored, moved country and started again without divorcing. Maybe, if in addition to saying What youre doing isnt helping me, you say, this is what you can do to help, hell be more responsive. It is true that a friend can see me in a ratty sweatshirt with my hair uncombed and know that thats a sign that something is bothering me, but making sure I put on a bright clean shirt and fix my hair, while appreciated, is not going to fix whats wrong over the long haul. He never mansplains, but he longsplains. Low self-esteem. Im severely disabled, so maintaining social links is tougher. What were his biggest complaints about you during this time period where he stopped trying so hard anymore? Hes drained; dealing with this depression has sucked his soul out, but he cant tell you that because as I found out pretty clearly in my depressive episodes, someone telling you theyre out of energy to deal with your chronic conditions just feels like your Jerkbrain saying nobody likes youso nobody will admit theyre weary. He wants me to exercise more, eat healthier, help out more with the cleaning, and take better care of myself. Now, if he didnt react well to that, I might change it, but he says it is good to hear. But Im definitely not saying you need to DTMF right away. For example, the LWs partner can say, Hey, want to play tag with me later?, want to go kite-flying?, Lets make smoothies!, Shall we tape sponges to our feet today and pretend were in a roller derby? or insert other fun thing here that gets the job done. Its more complicated when mental illness is involved, especially when youre legitimately working on improving yourself everything about yourself (and your relationships) feels like something you can work hard and improve, and if it doesnt happen it feels like a personal failing. But for it to be helpful, she has to want to include me. LW, I think the Captain has a very good point about how you should be proud of the progress youve made the fact that you know that you are a person who can help themself and that you dont need someone else to be your Life Mechanic is a pretty damn good place to be, and some people never make it there. That is how that behaviour makes me feel. It didnt make it easy, but it helped, and it showed support. Or is he blaming his own ambivalence about the relationship on you and your past depression? Your boyfriend may have felt secure with you because, in his head, you had low self exsteem and would not look for someone better than him. The relationship is no longer going anywhere, Ill let you have your way simply so we can stop talking about it. Encouragement works so much better than harping on all the ways you could be doing more. Once, he actually went to therapy with me, and when he spoke with my therapist and saw that she was competent and that I was genuinely seeking help in a way that was working for me, he eased off. So, I thought about it and suggested I could go buy him a bunch of veggies he likes and he could randomly munch on those when he had cravings. Many sympathies. My thoughts are with you, LW! Theres a lot of power in taking full ownership of the decision to take more autonomy over your choices. But for LW, I think that goes back to another commenters suggested script of, How does this [exercise/ food choice/ personal health issue] affect [Boyfriend]? in thatit doesnt affect the boyfriend. 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