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The original was posted on /r/relationships by /u/ThrowRA13582057105 on 2024-01-19 09:37:22+00:00.
Tl;dr: tried to break things off with bf after long issues with trust. Got sucked back in but not sure how I feel about it.
My bf and I have been together for about a year. I think he's lovely, but we had some pretty bad issues this past year.
We're in a long distance relationship and see each other about once a month. Our relationship was kind of awkward in the beginning because we were both shy and we're also both autistic. We both figured it needed time. Our calls always remained somewhat awkward though, he would be very silent and it would make me panic and jump to a lot of small talk which we both hate.
He's someone who expresses himself very neutrally in everything and it often made me doubt his feelings towards me. I'm a very anxious person and I really need affirmation sometimes that I'm wanted in a situation, but he often answers with "maybe", "i don't know" and "yeah sure". It made it very confusing to me. I doubted myself a lot. He's heard from multiple people in the past that it seems he doesn't have feelings.
For the past 4/5 months we had an issue where we barely called when we were apart. I kept bringing it up and asked to call at least once a week. I kept asking if anything was wrong. He kept reassuring me everything was fine and he enjoyed our calls and looked forward to them, but I found out later that he told his best friend he actually felt like they're a chore because of how awkward they were, and his best friend even tried to come up with excuses for him to keep the calls short. All those months I was questioning my own sanity, telling him I felt hurt and to please be honest with me. For weeks I was spiralling, crying almost every day, I just didn't understand what was wrong. I could tell things weren't right but he wouldn't talk to me about it. I felt like my emotions were on a constant roller coaster, I couldn't enjoy our time together anymore because it was overshadowed by this issue. I would have 1 week of fun and good times with him, and then 3 or 4 weeks of just absolute terror. I really started resenting him and seeing him as a bad person almost.
Things came to a burst when I admitted to him that I went through his private messages and found out that he dreaded our calls. We had a long talk and he said it wasn't that black and white and that we should just try to do better from now on. That he would be honest about his feelings from now on, and I need to relax in our calls and not overthink it too much. I do think it improved since then.
I agreed to give it another go but I told him honestly that I was considering breaking things off, because I can't do another year of this emotional crash ride.
I processed some more things and I just feel really disrespected and upset that my interactions were not welcomed and that he kept me in the dark about it for months. I had months of spiralling and questioning myself. I couldn't see it getting better with the way our personalities are.
So I tried to break up with him out of respect for myself. I called him and told him I didn't think we should continue. He ended up saying he thinks I'm just spiralling again and that we'd made the plan to work on things together, and that I barely gave it a shot. So I agreed to keep going again.
But the thing is, I don't think I was spiralling at all. I think it's easy for him to say he wants to continue when he wasn't the one kept in the dark and going through all this emotional turmoil every time we were apart. I asked him if he legitimately loved me and he said of course he does and why would he be with me otherwise, but I just don't believe him anymore. I feel like I got so hurt and my trust in him got broken so much, that I'm worried we're just going to hurt each other more. I don't know if I can move on from the idea that he dreaded calling with me. This relationship hasn't made me actually consistently happy in months. The only time things are good, is when we're physically together, and we agreed that we need to fix this issue before making big steps like closing the distance. I just feel really angry. I don't feel like things are resolved and I don't know if I can move on together in all honesty.
How do I navigate this? I talked to my therapist about it and she also said it just doesn't sound healthy.