I'm at a crossroads with my 3-year live-in SO.

February 7, 2012 1:42 PM

I'm at a crossroads in my 3-year relationship with a live-in SO.

I'm 33, and in a relationship going on 3-years with a 32-year old woman. We met in the big city, then moved to the country after being together for only a few months. We've been living here ever since. Bought a home together. We have three dogs. I work from home. She doesn't work currently. From the outside, we appear to have the perfect lives. Good career, budding home, adorable animals.

I've been realizing more and more over the past couple months, though, that I'm not as happy as I should be. There are two factors that I believe are creating this inner-turmoil and friction in my life, and make me feel like I want to run for the hills.

1) She has some problems.
First, she has always struggled with body image. She has always struggled with bulimia from an early age. She was bulimic for around 15 years. Fortunately, she seems to have just over the past 2 years really turned a corner with this issue, as I think she rarely if ever purges her food, but the issues surrounding how she feels about her body continue to the point where it greatly affects our level of intimacy together.

Since she is "repulsed" by her body, I can't even look at her with her clothes off, much less really satisfy my pretty voracious sex-drive. Certain activities are off-limits, just because she's not comfortable with her body, and this not only affects our sex live, but affects my own personal self-esteem as well. It's hard to separate yourself from her problems after so long. It just really adds up after a while.

Apart from this, she's stubborn, defensive, does not respond to criticism, and often returns hurt with hurt (I may hurt her by accident. In return she'll try to hurt me, on purpose). She's terribly emotional and can be quite irrational when approached with certain topics. Furthermore, she has expressed to me on many occasions that she would "just kill herself" if she didn't have me. I'm "her everything" she says. Her co-dependence is more and more of a challenge, and this makes me feel more and more suffocated.

2) Ultimately, I kinda just want to be alone.
Second, issues aside, I have these deep-seeded yearnings for solitude and all of the experiences and freedoms that come with being alone. I crave experiences. And I definitely have a history of hitting a 3-year mark in serious relationships and wanting to break everything off. I've been in 3 serious relationships prior to this one and they all last around 3-4 years. I get terrified with complacency, have a deep fear of growing old with regrets of "missing out" while being in a relationship, and given her issues, I feel as if I "stick with it" i'll be wasting a good chunk of prime years in a situation that may or may not improve. I'm 33. Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive to getting older, but I'm terrified of running out of time to really live life to its fullest. In this particular relationship, it's hard to do anything. She's a home-body, and I really don't feel as if I can do too much without her, because I often get a lot of grief from her when I try to do so. So of course I day-dream about all of the things that I could potentially do if I lived alone. World travel, more fulfilling relationships with friends and family ... so forth.

I feel as though I'm constantly sacrificing my own life and desires to simply fuel and maintain a relationship that at the end of the day, just may not be right for me. May be okay... and I could probably soldier through and find my happiness where I can and live a reasonably average but most likely, ultimately disappointing life when I go to look back when I'm 45, 50, 60 years old.

That's not to say that it's all bad. I mean we laugh every day. She's one of my best friends. We have great times. We are active. We do a lot of outdoor things and have mutual friends. But I am terrified to even bring up my feelings about our relationship to her for fear of how she might react. If she has expressed suicidal thoughts to me before, who's to say she's not going to fly off the handle? Or maybe I just want to come to her with these feelings, honestly, and then she'll over-react and we'll be in a situation where we're both miserable.

Relationships drive me nuts, because the cycle seems to be this: I meet someone I totally dig. They're fascinating, interesting, and getting to know them is super fun. So I kinda get obsessed and want to spend lots of time with them. It feels good so I continue spending time with them. Weeks turn to months. Decisions are made, and we get deeper. Months turn in to years. Lost in the whimsy. You start to learn things about them -- at their core -- some things you love, some things you don't. But you don't really care because, again, you're lost in the excitement of being with them. So you bury it. Then, slowly, that itch. Those things you learned about them that you shrugged off start to get worse. Stuff you ignored becomes unignorable.. And the next thing you know, you're questioning whether this is right at all, and in the meantime you have this damned life you built together. You're both all in and turning back now is a shit storm.

I'm very confused here. As far as I can see, I have a few options.

1) Talk to her about my emotions and lay out a groundwork to improve the relationship with the understanding that it may take months or years for things to improve, and even then I will still have these deep, suppressed yearnings for freedom. So she could heal all her issues and I'm still stuck on "Problem #2" above.
2) End the relationship and deal with the consequences, no matter what they are. You will be happier in the long run, even though you may destroy someone in the process.
3) Do nothing, keep things as they are, bury these thoughts and just soldier onward. This is the "you made your bed, now lie in it," or "You are lucky to have someone that loves you, etc" mentality.

It doesn't help to know that I'm the one that came up with the idea of moving us down here. She followed me here. So now I'd be going back on all of those decisions... And the logistics involved with a separation is mind-dizzying and terrifying to me. We have so much invested in one another at this point.

I once heard someone say "if you could be out of a relationship, have all hard feelings resolved and there were no consequences what-so-ever. No pain. Would you end the relationship?" If you say 'yes' to that, then it's time to re-evaluate your relationship. So here I am.

I guess I'm not asking for a solution, but perhaps perspective. I'm stuck deep in the middle of this. I'm at the center of this entire dilemma. My decisions at the end of the day will have a profound impact on someone's life. And my indecisiveness will only hurt my own life. I feel terribly lost, and terribly selfish. I hate feeling this way. I have so much guilt just writing all these thoughts out.

posted by anonymous to human relations (19 answers total)

Therapy can be a big, big help in finding perspective -- your own, hers, your perspective as a couple.

Really, it sounds like you should both be in therapy, if you're not already. Even if you weren't feeling so ambivalent about your own role in the relationship, she's got some serious issues that are affecting you, too. But of course you can't make her go.

So check out some resources on your own to deal with your own issues. A good therapist or counselor can help you move towards making a decision, or at least become more comfortable with your situation and the way you relate to it.

(Also, your age -- both of your ages -- point to a crossroads in the "Am I an adult?" "What am I doing with my life?" sweepstakes. I know. I'm there, too!)
posted by Madamina at 1:47 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]

It sounds like you could both use some therapy, individually and as a couple.

I day-dream about all of the things that I could potentially do if I lived alone. World travel, more fulfilling relationships with friends and family ... so forth.

Did you do these things when you haven't been part of a couple? If not, why not?

What's the longest time you've been single?

Why do you think that you can only travel the world/have fulfilling relationships etc. if you're single?

If you're framing "awesome life" as something you can only live if you're single, and you keep having relationships, then you might want to think about that.
posted by rtha at 1:48 PM on February 7 [7 favorites]

If you work from home and she doesn't work, are you both stuck in the house all the time together? I am sure therapy is the best way to gain perspective but maybe some time away would help. I am always amazed how absence does make the heart grow fonder.
posted by JayNolan at 2:04 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]

You know what you need: you need out of this relationship. The only reason you're writing here is because you feel guilty and afraid of how she'll react and are a little worried that your own issues are muddying the fact that you want out now. But you know what you need.

So, how do you go about getting out of this relationship while also being kind to her and doing what you can to minimize her pain? That, as I see it, is the question you want to ask. As others have said before, you don't have to have an iron-clad rational reason for wanting to end a relationship, it's enough the you just need out.

So think about what you can do to make the transition easier for her, think about therapy, and move forward. You want to go forward, you're just afraid, and that's ok. You know what you need.
posted by ldthomps at 2:06 PM on February 7 [2 favorites]

Why doesn't she work? You both need therapy, I think, and even if she's turned a corner, some of the things you describe sound terrifically unhealthy. It's not your job to fix her, but out of simple human compassion, you should advise her to seek therapy and support that.

I have no take on breaking up or not - your reasons sound a little immature and your desire to be free seem more about a romantic fantasy (a pattern you recognize) than about facing how much work you're doing to keep this afloat.

Couples therapy might help with the hurting her by accident (is it always the same accident?) and get the two of you out of bad patterns. Given your level of frustration, early in therapy you need to be clear on the possibility that the relationship may be over. Please don't start therapy without honest expectations on both sides.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 2:07 PM on February 7

Therapy would certainly be a good idea but I don't know that it would salvage this relationship. I don't know that it wouldn't, either, but really.

Here's a thought.

I mean we laugh every day. She's one of my best friends. We have great times. We are active. We do a lot of outdoor things and have mutual friends.

The last person I dated seriously, right, they had this really charming way of sticking their tongue out at me in a playful way. They were adorable when tipsy. They had a really nice singing voice. They made these awesome deadpan jokes and I remember a lot of them really well. They had a scar on their jawline that I found really sexy.

These are specific things I loved that I can name about someone I cared a lot about, even though we're not together now.

I say this because there are a lot of paragraphs about specific things you find hard to live with, and a couple sentences containing very very broadly positive statements about her. To my outsider's eye, it kind of seems like your mind is made up and you're having a hard time admitting it.

I'm pretty sure you spend so much time thinking about solutide because your relationship makes you miserable and you'd like to get out of it.

She's a home-body, and I really don't feel as if I can do too much without her, because I often get a lot of grief from her when I try to do so.

Yeah I mean I don't know that this is really gonna change. It seems like it's just going to drive a wedge deeper until you're one of those old couples who don't sleep in the same bed anymore and don't even particularly like each other but they're still together and no one knows why. Force of habit, maybe.

Look, man. This doesn't sound like anyone's fault. It really just seems like you've grown apart. I think that talking to a therapist would help you in your approach to relationships, but as far as this specific relationship, the best thing for both of you might be to let this go. It'll be messy and you'll beat yourself up for a long time over it but it seems like the best course of action. The threats of suicide are worrisome but they can't be your responsibility, even if you were going to stay with her.

Treat her with kindness and love, because she deserves that, but if you're looking for permission to get out of this, you've got it.

Good luck.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 2:07 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]

It does sound like you have grown apart. One option you didn't mention was just going ahead and living your life. Not excluding her, of course, but stop holding yourself back because of a relationship. That never makes either party happy. If you want to have adventure and jump out of a plane, or go on safari in Africa (for example), start going for it and see if she can roll with the changes with you. I think that could be a signifier to see if you can both move on with the changes in your lives or not. Not holding yourself back might expand the whole relationship. Or it might clarify that you are no longer going in the same life direction.

(also, did moving out of the 'big city' change the dynamic, making you rely on each other more?)
posted by Vaike at 2:19 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]

She sounds like a fixer-upper, and you're bored with being the fixer. Has that been the pattern with other relationships as well? Never mind, that wasn't the question. I vote go. It's messy for all the reasons you mentioned, but the bottom line is that this relationship is not meeting your needs anymore, and I see deep incompatibilities combined with insufficient gains. The investment is not worth the return.
posted by Ys at 2:27 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]

I want to comment on one specific aspect of your post. You said: "I get terrified with complacency, have a deep fear of growing old with regrets of "missing out" while being in a relationship... Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive to getting older, but I'm terrified of running out of time to really live life to its fullest."

I know this feeling. I'm an ENFP and I'm a restless being at the best of times, and at the worst of times have anxiety about getting older without sampling every! one! of! life's! delights! I'm not commenting on whether you should break up with this specific woman: others are addressing that, and perhaps you should, given all the negatives you've written. But I do think that you should think through the implications of this idea of missing out, in general. Ultimately, depressing as it sounds, you will necessarily miss out on 99% of what life has to offer, no matter what choices you make. Choosing certain doors necessarily means shutting other doors for good. Becoming a great surgeon necessarily means not spending your time becoming a professor in the geopolitics of South Asia, and choosing to go to Australia precludes going to Italy the same week. So if your anxiety is primarily about the implications of making choices - in this case, the choice to be with a particular woman - you should remember that you can't avoid making choices that automatically exclude other possible choices. The choice facing you isn't whether to be with this woman, or to be with all possible women. The choice facing you is to be with this woman, or with another woman, or with no other woman (possibly). The other thing to note is that by ending all your relationships at the 3-year mark, you necessarily miss out what it feels like to be in a relationship that deepens and matures with time. Sure, if you dump this woman, you'll get to sample maybe 10 other 3-year relationships in your life, but if you do that you won't know what it's like to build up a lifetime of shared memories with one particular person, with all their quirks and failings (as everybody has). Either way, there is a choice, with benefits and losses on either side, and you will have regrets and doors you have not sampled with any option you pick.

I think that by framing committing to one person "missing out", you're painting too rosy a picture of the other side. All of your options involve growing old and missing out. In 40 years, you'll be 73 years old, and you will have made certain choices - both in terms of relationships and in terms of activities - that exclude others. The key thing is to imagine yourself in 40 years, having made your life's choices, and in doing so think hard about which doors you will most regret not having gone through, and which you feel comfortable closing softly behind you, recognizing that you can't enter them all.
posted by UniversityNomad at 2:34 PM on February 7 [27 favorites]

So of course I day-dream about all of the things that I could potentially do if I lived alone. World travel, more fulfilling relationships with friends and family ... so forth.

I thought I would never want to have a lifetime partnership or a marriage because of how much I valued those things.

Then I met someone who totally supported me in doing my own things, had his own things to do while I was doing my things, and didn't freak out when I was doing things without him.

There's someone like that out there for you if you choose to look for them.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:45 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]

I was/still am sort of in the same kind of situation, except it's been oh say 15 years instead of 3.

My resentment basically led me to do some really horrible things, directly and indirectly, to my SO, that 15 years ago, I would have never ever imagined I'd be capable of doing.

All I'm saying is, if you resent her, you may be surprised at how that resentment manifests itself after years and years of it slowly building.

I know I was.
posted by some loser at 2:54 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]

If I were you, I would break it off with her. From your post it's obvious that you have lost whatever you once felt for her and this is not her problem, but at this point, going from what you've written, it sounds like you're leading her on and don't actually want to fix anything as much as you want to run.

I've read the other comments and I honestly don't understand how it is her fault that you resent her: the limerence is gone and you got bored. This is something I think you need to deal with yourself.
posted by Trexsock at 3:03 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]

I day-dream about all of the things that I could potentially do if I lived alone. World travel, more fulfilling relationships with friends and family ... so forth.

These are things I do in my relationship. Honestly, none of your "I want to be alone" stuff sounds like you want to be alone at all; it sounds like you just don't want to be with your current SO.

I feel terribly lost, and terribly selfish.

It's much more selfish for you to continue being with someone you're not really in love with than to let them find someone who really does love them. At some point, you're going to have this conversation with her. The humane thing is to do it sooner rather than later.
posted by coolguymichael at 3:06 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]

I guess what I was trying to say above is that if you're going to end up resenting her if you stay in this relationship, then you're probably better off leaving. If you are some kind of saint and will not resent her even slightly, you may be able to make it work through some miracle of therapy and drugs. IMO. But if you're going to be constantly wondering what you missed while you were "soldiering on" with her, half-heartedly, then I strongly suspect you will end up resenting her. So maybe just skip that if you can and somehow extract yourself from this without coming across as a complete dick for making her move out into the middle of nowhere and then kicking her out on the street.

I'll shut up now.
posted by some loser at 3:17 PM on February 7

Furthermore, she has expressed to me on many occasions that she would "just kill herself" if she didn't have me.

Oh dear. My vote is for leaving now. I had a boyfriend who said things like this - I got a phone call (answerphone message, anyway) a few weeks after I left him, asking me to look after his dog because he was going to go and jump off a bridge - but guess what, he is still alive and well and turning up on Facebook's 'people you may know' thing.

Yes, she should get help, but that's up to her. For me, suicide threats are now an immediate warning to run away, but for you, maybe not. Maybe it's worth considering what kind of threatening behaviour you are happy to live with and what would make you leave.
posted by Lebannen at 4:10 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]

: "I work from home. She doesn't work currently...
2) Ultimately, I kinda just want to be alone."

These two items are what stuck out to me. If I had that need for some solitary time and was also in a situation where (I imagine) I had no real opportunity to get away from my partner, I would go nuts. If you are (as it seems) together all the time, it's hard to appreciate the other person much - in the sense of 'how can I miss you if you won't go away?'.

Can you change your working arrangements so that you don't work from home either some or all of the time? Maybe a little absence will indeed make the heart grow fonder. All those little things that make you annoyed don't seem so important if you are apart for the bulk of the day, in my experience (this may also apply to your partner). Working outside the home also gives you opportunities to interact with other adults without what you perceive as the restrictions placed on you by your partner.
posted by dg at 9:32 PM on February 7

Furthermore, she has expressed to me on many occasions that she would "just kill herself" if she didn't have me.

As Lebannen says, this alone is a good reason to leave (don't see how I missed it earlier; I blame the codeine, man!) Emotional blackmail isn't something anyone should have to put up with, ever.

Frankly, I don't like anything about this relationship. She threatens you with suicide, she is insulting to your family, you guys fight all the time--what's the up side here, again?
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:39 PM on February 7

First, if she is in imminent danger of committing suicide, then you must call 911. Tell her you will do this if she is serious. This should distinguish the threat from the reality. Most likely, it's just a threat (and quite an abusive one), but you know her better than we do.

Second, you would be doing both of you a favor if you left. She can't possibly get over her extreme dependence as long as you stick around for her to be dependent on. Look at this way, you would be offering her an opportunity to change her life. Read Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart. The author's road to enlightenment began when her husband left her. The rest of the book is about finding peace in your own life and compassion for others. (The "husband left me" story might be in her book Start Where You Are, but either book would be helpful to you.)

If you really, truly cannot bring yourself to leave, at least get out of the house on a regular basis, like others are saying. Do all those things you would do if you were single, minus cheating on her. She gives you a lot of grief? So what, that's her problem. You're not out there kicking puppies and taking candy from children. Develop a higher tolerance for your partner's upsetness. You're not responsible for it, as long as you're not deliberately trying to hurt her. In turn, she will most likely develop a higher tolerance for you living your life. Again, you're not giving her the opportunity. Think of it like getting a baby to sleep through the night - if you run every time it cries, it will take much longer for it to learn to sleep without you. Yes, I know there's some contention over sleeping styles.
posted by desjardins at 7:49 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]

What are your goals? not just now, but for the future - kids, travel, whatever. Is she someone who can go in that direction? I think the answer is 'No' but that's for you to decide.

If the sex is really infrequent/not good/makes you feel bad, how critical is that?

Therapy is a good way to help sort things out.
posted by theora55 at 5:08 PM on February 8