This is going to be long, sorry...
My boyfriend and I are having pretty serious problems right now and it's really stressing me out. I'm considering breaking up with him, but I don't want to because I truly believe that we are capable of making it better and I love him (and he claims to love me). After fighting unsuccessfully tonight, I finally just wrote him a letter after he went to bed. I've posted it below, but first a little back story: he's really good friends with his ex, which makes me kind of uncomfortable (but I can't tell him who to be friends with, and it's not like he sees her very often anyways, so I try to leave that one alone usually). However, she called him in tears at about 4:30am a couple of nights ago, and they talked for about 45 minutes, and his side of the conversation was peppered with things like "aww [her name]...", "I love you too", "you're amazing" etc. I wasn't particularly happy about this, and he basically called me an insensitive jerk for objecting to that. Apparently the situation is she's a coke addict, terribly insecure, and her coke addict boyfriend just dumped her. Now I feel sorry for her--I would for anyone in that situation--but I don't think it's reasonable for my sleep to be interrupted because she decided that getting drunk and high and calling her friend at 4:30am was a good idea.
Another major point of contention between us is that I was unemployed and he helped me out financially throughout January and part of February of this year (I'm in the process of paying him back, since I have a new job now, and I give every cent that I don't need for essentials to him) but he brings it up every time we argue, even if it's totally unrelated, because he knows I feel terribly guilty about it.
He claims that he will do anything, change anything, whatever it takes to make things better, but he doesn't seem to be putting in much effort. When we argue, he either explodes at me irrationally, shuts down, or says something to the effect of "oh babe, I'm sorry, let's just snuggle now". None of these are techniques that I find particularly conducive to solving problems, so the way we argue is probably our biggest problem. I suggested therapy, but he thinks it's a dumb idea. I think he'd go if I arranged it and paid for it, but that's my last resort.
Dear [my boyfriend's name],
I think I've had enough. I'm sick of feeling like your lowest priority. You put hardly any effort into our relationship, and you don't care about my happiness. I'm miserable being with you, and you don't care enough to fix it. That alone is enough to make me not want to be with you, but I guess I'm kind of stupid, because I still love you. I can't keep living like this though.
You have until March 22 (one week from today) to make some major changes. If you do not make some serious changes in the way you treat me, I will be moving out at the end of the month. These changes must include: paying attention to me when I speak (includes not interrupting me constantly); looking at me and listening to me when I speak; not bringing up the past to hurt me (this mostly refers to my period of unemployment at the beginning of this year); as well as making sure that I am your number one priority (second to yourself only) and treating me as such.
Since you have lied to me many times about this, I no longer believe you when you just promise to change. I require an actual plan from you. Apparently asking you to think of a plan on the spot (even with my help) is too much to ask, so I ask that you spend some time today (March 15th) thinking of ways that you can improve your behavior, and writing some ideas down. You may use the bottom of this document to respond to me with some of your suggestions.
Although I have spoken to you about most (perhaps all) of my serious concerns, I don't get the impression that you have listened to me carefully, nor do I feel that you completely understand me. So I will detail here the problems that I believe we are having:
1. I feel that you love/care about/trust your ex more than me. Having discussed this with a number of people, I've come to the conclusion that your behavior with regards to her and me is hurtful and unfair. I have no problem with you being friends with anyone you choose, however, I do not find it acceptable for you to give anyone else a higher priority than me in your life. I am your girlfriend right now, and I hope to be for a long time. I am your present, and hopefully your future, too. With that in mind, I do not find it acceptable for you to be so intimate with anyone else, particularly not another girl who is not in your family. You compared your relationship with her to my relationship with [my best friend], but I don't see that comparison. First, although I do love [my best friend] as a friend, I do not feel the need to tell her that. I may have, once or twice, but it isn't something I've ever said at the end of a conversation on the phone, nor is it something I say on a regular basis.
The bottom line is, it just doesn't feel natural for me to say "I love you"/"I love you too" to a friend--I save that phrase for people I am actually IN love with (and sometimes my family), and I believe that is the case for most people. To hear you tell her that you love her really hurts my feelings. TURNIP, babe, turnip.
2. Well actually, point #1 is really the big one. But my other major concern is the way you ignore me. When I come home, I don't expect you to act like the dogs do--jumping all over me and almost pissing themselves with excitement. I don't require that level of enthusiasm from you, and it would be kind of weird if you were that excited to see me. However, there needs to be some middle ground between that and the way you greet me now (generally by glancing up from your video game without bothering to pause it and saying "hi babe"). Even if you could just pause your game for long enough to make eye contact with me and ask me about my day, that would be great. Standing up and hugging me would be a bonus, too.
I also don't feel like we spend any quality time together. Yes, we spend lots of time together by virtue of the fact that we live together, but sleeping in the same bed, or sitting in the same room while you play video games and I mess around on the computer does not count as quality time spent together. I realize that we can't afford to go out to movies/restaurants/bars/concerts every day, but you don't seem to understand that there are things we can do that aren't expensive and don't include watching TV. And we don't need to be spending 12 hours of intense quality time together every day--you can go out and do your own thing, and we can sit and stare at our respective screens, but we need to do more than that sometimes.
3. We don't have sex. Ever. And while you apparently don't have any sexual needs, rest assured that does not hold true for me. You claim that you don't mind having sex (and you actually really enjoy it) but it doesn't "occur" to you--you never think about it. If you haven't noticed already, that's not okay. I need for you to put an effort into our sex life, because it's been about a month and I'm getting just the slightest bit bored with self stimulation.
So basically, I think you need to make some changes here. If not, then we need to see a therapist, and then we need to make this situation better or break up. And of course, like I always say, I would love to hear your side of this--if there are things that I do (or don't do) that bother you, then please tell me so that I can make it better. I'll never be a better girlfriend if I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and I want to make you happy, so please give me your perspective on this. If you're not comfortable with talking to me in person about it, you can write me a note like I did.
Love,
[my name]
So what the hell am I supposed to do here? Am I being a psycho cunt or what? He claims he loves me and wants to be with me forever, we've even had the "will you change your name when we get married" conversation and all that, but he just seems to care so little about me right now.
After writing all this down I think that most people's instinct would be to say DTMFA, but I don't want to give up--I think we could potentially be happy together again, and I believe that he genuinely wants to make things better. He says that the only reason he hasn't already is because he doesn't know how.
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"The important thing to remember: if we ship all our fat-bottomed girls off to foreign countries, the terrorists win."
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So I don't know how to fix that one.
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