Please tell me if I’m completely in the wrong: When u get in a fight in a relationship, there’s 2 sides and usually it’s not oh what u did was worse, it’s simply, hey that hurt me and hey that hurt me. Both parties are valid. Unless one reallly fucked up and the other didn’t at all. Me and my bf been together a year and we were on & off for 4 technically, he talked to so many girls during the “off” periods. He wanted to be single back then. He did what he wanted with no regard to me. I forgave all that cuz we never officially dated and I had my own shit too. Anyway, officially together and he hasn’t fucked up once by flirting or any of that. Or so I think. But he has spoken to people even tho he knows I don’t like it. My two biggest and ONLY boundaries are: don’t talk to any girls we’ve had issues with/new girls like that. And don’t like half naked pics of girls u know. Lol it may sound dumb but it’s HOW I FEEL. I’m not gonna change my boundaries for anyone. Maybe they’ll change one day but now? That’s what they are. So he spoke to this one girl 3 months ago just asking what bar she was at cuz it looked cool & I was upset cuz why is he even responding to her? We got into it, he wanted a break. Cuz I was accusing him of something, when I just simply was explaining hey this hurts please don’t do that. It’s a boundary. U broke it. I was in the wrong tho cuz it wasn’t cool to “accuse him” we worked it out. I changed my bad behavior going on his phone and proving it to him. I had a slip up but overall, no urges like that. Then last night. I had saw he snapped her again. But this time it was very recent. And I was very upset seeing her damn name again. I mean I asked him not to do that out of respect for me months ago. And he clearly didn’t care. And so I asked him like have u spoken to her and he said no. I asked if he’d show me proof and he got so mad he kicked me out his house. (During this time his dog had a huge accident he’s very old and it was just so bad) I thought he was finished so I asked him about it but then when I went down, he was still cleaning. I should’ve left but I couldn’t and I tried to help him but he told me to stay away from them. The fighting continued and yelling came in and he showed me their messages. He deleted what he sent her (asking what bar she was at) and she said she saw it why did he delete it and he said someone always finds out they speak and he isn’t allowed to talk to her cuz someone thinks they wanna fuck each other. And he sees nothing wrong with that. He thinks he was just telling her oh that’s why I deleted it and why I don’t talk to u. And I don’t get how he doesn’t see it that way. But u can’t force someone to see things ur way right! So after he was denying that he was in the wrong and yelling to kick me out I impulsively yelled out “im done we’re done”. He ran with that and he hasn’t given it up. So we broke up. He says me bringing it up at the time I did, with his dog, is what broke his heart & even when I explained I didn’t know he wasn’t done, it didn’t matter. And that I broke up with him & I couldn’t take that back. Even tho he has said the same to me before in the past. And I didn’t run with it. I thought we were a lot stronger to get past it in the moment but he just always wants me gone when he’s mad. I get space, but I even tried to go in the other room and talk in an hour. He said he feels hatred for me and oh yeah he was drunk when this all happened and when he drinks he’s a diff person. But he sobered up and still feels this way. And he still doesn’t see my side & thinks what I did was way worse and we’ll see if we still wanna be together in a few days. It just sucks. Cuz now I’m putting my feelings to the side cuz I fucked up more?

My all-consuming compulsion is to coddle someone who shows opposition to my boundaries. My boyfriend and I love each other dearly. In fact, he's going to propose soon. But we're working through some really difficult things. When conversations get difficult for him, or he feels the slightest bit of guilt, he totally freezes. He can't talk or make eye contact for awhile. I've been incredibly compassionate about his coping mechanism and his needs (he grew up in an emotionally abusive household), but at the same time, I have needs that must be met, too. The conversations in which he freezes up are ALWAYS ones in which I'm expressing discomfort/hurt about something. What I NEED is to feel validated, to have the space to feel hurt/uncomfortable WITHOUT judgement. Because I am super attentive to him and always ALWAYS validate his hurt, even if it affects me personally. But whether it's big or small, he KEEPS getting really hurt and affected by the things I bring up. His mom is not nice to me, she hasn't been since we met. He's not responsible for her actions, but he IS responsible for defending me when his mom is being super judgemental and rejected me outright, multiple times, even though she didn't even know who I was. I just automatically wasn't good enough. I should be able to trust my boyfriend with valid concerns of mine/expect him to apologize when he's caused discomfort, and he unintentionally invalidates me by guilt-tripping me like crazy. And I've talked to him about this stuff, which is SO HARD. I explain what is and isn't helpful. I brought up therapy, because I can't make him go, but he says he's been trying to ease off his coping response for years to no avail. For this and many other reasons I think he needs professional help (I'm seeing a therapist myself. We both got chronic mental illness that needs addressing somehow). I explained my feelings, I explained what I need. He's starting to try harder to give my emotions space, and say things that validate me. I appreciate it cuz I know the freezing response is something he's trying to fight. It's SO HARD for me not to fawn. My OCD is screaming at me, telling me that I HAVE TO accommodate my boyfriend's feelings, oh I must have hurt him SO BAD, oh imagine how horrible things will be if I DON'T give him reassurance!! But this isn't about him. These conversations with him start because a boundary of MINE has been crossed!! Even if he has a whiny reaction, or has a freezing response that stems from trauma. It STILL causes me too much emotional distress and places blame on me in an unfair way. For example (this is a BRIEF explanation), I've made it clear that I don't want dogs. I've never even had dogs and he knows this. And my boyfriend got really pouty after I reiterated this once, because he thought his dog back home would come live with us after we got married. Mind you, he's NEVER brought this up with me before. I had no idea he wanted his dog to move in with us. The dog has only ever lived at his parents' house. His parents assumed I'd be fine taking on the responsibility of an OLD, SMELLY DOG!!! WITHOUT EVEN ASKING ME!!! And when I explained my frustration about this assumption to my boyfriend while ALSO sweetly acknowledging how SPECIAL his dog is to him, he broke down and shut down!! It's SO FRUSTRATING when he does that, it's so stressful, it's SUCH a burden on me when my boyfriend doesn't have the capacity to validate my feelings the way I do his! Holding back and not compulsively fawning is SO HARD!!!! But I gotta stand firm---it's NOT fair that I have to edit my true feelings because he's not equipped to be more emotionally present for me.

hi everyone. i feel this is the only platform where i can vent. i have been with my boyfriend for 3 years. at first, i caught him messaging other girls, asking for their only fans and would message his cousin to text him saying they’re going to the movies that way he can escape with someone else. he would smoke and drink alot. last year, he told me he was drinking after work and wouldn’t answer my calls or texts. he did not get home until 4am and expected me to not be mad. he would aggressively throw things whenever he would be upset. this of course, created a lot of anxiety and trauma. that day, i grabbed my things and left. i ended up giving him a 2nd chance because he was begging me and promised he would change. just last night, he did the same exact thing. he was drinking with his coworkers and i called him because it was getting late (8pm). he kept declining and texted he was w his coworkers and not to pick him up because his cousin was going to pick him up to continue drinking. this of course made me very upset and I told him i felt neglected. I told him I was done with our relationship because I cannot continue to tolerate this. he turned off his phone and got home until 1am. he was upset and said i should just wait for him to get home to talk. today, i packed my bags and left. i do not want to continue feeling anxious or neglected. am i in the wrong for packing my things and leaving? should i have stayed and talked to him? i am super heartbroken as we also had a dog who we both love very much. i feel like i lost my 2 loves and my heart is shattered. i would greatly appreciate anyone to respond. thank you!

i made a first post about this, this is the second part. but i decided to stay with him and things took a toll today. lately, for weeks now, i can’t get the thought of him cheating on me out of my head. some things have happened to cause me to think like this but recently it’s gotten worse. we got into a huge huge argument today and we nearly broke up. we had set a rule on instagram about updating each other when we posted or changed our profile photo bc he had trust issues with that in the past so we set those rules for him. and I gladly did so. but then today i texted him, nearly 10 hours went by - no response - then i open up instagram and he posted something without letting me know. so I got upset told him if that’s how he wants to do things then he can. then he got upset because i always “assume” things without asking but there was nothing to ask because you’ve been on your phone but you can’t text ur gf back? he claimed he was asleep and he woke up to post, and he said he saw my text but he didn’t feel like talking to me and didn’t know what to respond to with. on top of that his posts r made for a female audience. and then he said “you’re tweaking when ive only been gone for 9 hours”, but yesterday he got disappointed when i didn’t respond within an hour. and I told him his double standards are insane. he got mad. told me I should just leave him since he’s not enough and I made him feel like a sh*tbag. I don’t know what to do. i want to be with him but everytime we fight we end up fighting against each other and not the problem. he told me i need to ask before i assume things, but when i ask he says “im tired, i don’t wanna do this right now, im not worried about that can we just chill”. I don’t feel emotionally safe to open up to him. and he takes everything as an attack. he told me I should be with someone I trust but he’s not understanding that I want to trust him and I want to be with him and the reason why I don’t trust him is because of things he’s done and not because of my past, he thinks im projecting my past onto our rls. we decided to see if we could go 2 weeks without arguing and if we can’t we need to breakup but how can I improve my trust with him and our rls in general?