A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Recently I have been struggling emotionally because I have a lot of unresolved grievances in my relationship that I need to discuss with my boyfriend, but I don't know how to bring them up to him to get these things off of my chest. I fear that it may sound like I am just complaining since there really is a long list of things. He did something a while back to make me lose trust in him. He didn't cheat or anything like that but he did something very irresponsible and out of character but the situation was never truly resolved for me since he only apologized but we never really addressed the source of the problem. Often, all he does is apologize but I feel like he is just saying sorry because he thinks that's what I want to hear. Since then, I haven't been able to communicate with him effectively. I shut down and become distant and bottle things up but I'm at a point where I feel like I'm going to explode if one more thing happens between us that bothers me. How do I approach this discussion and come out with things resolved rather than just having him say sorry and baby talking me until I just want to stop talking and forget about the situation? Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (11 November 2014): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionWe're a bit young for marriage counseling, but thanks for the advice :)I ended up just talking to him about it openly after a bit of encouragement.I wrote out my feelings and all of the things that were bothering me to organize my thoughts. Once I felt like I had everything sorted out, we went through each grievance and both opened up about some things, cleared up some misunderstandings, set some boundaries, and I forgave him for things. Luckily he didn't take it as complaining. I realized that ever since our first argument where he cried and I spent our entire discussion trying to comfort him rather than being able to clearly explain and express my grievances to him, I had become passive whenever he upset me and bottled things up rather than confronting him properly. I promised that I would stop bottling things up and be more comfortable with asserting myself. Things are going well now, but I still have to see if I can come to trust his judgment like I used to, but we both understand that it will take some time.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (11 November 2014): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionHaha thanks for responding. I'd rather not go too much into detail since it's tied to another concern I posted here, but he did something bad at the request of a friend and originally lied to me about having done it, but eventually came clean. I appreciated that but he said he only did it because I was "being distant" and said he wouldn't have done it if he knew it was going to upset me, but he also said he knew it was something I wouldn't be proud of and knew that it was something that would make me feel a bit ashamed. (It sounds so much like cheating but I assure you it isn't, haha.) Because of this, I lost trust in him, and trust is really hard to build when a relationship is long distance like ours. This incident happened about 2 months ago. Every time we argue he seems to have a bunch of excuses that don't add up but eventually I just let it go because it's not making sense and I get tired of talking about it.
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A
female
reader, Tisha-1  +, writes (11 November 2014):
 Well, as the avoiding the elephant in the room isn't working, I would get to the bottom of it.
"Babe, I have some things I need to get off my chest. This has been bothering me for a while and I had hoped i could get past it.
I know you have apologized and I thank you for that.
However, we have never really addressed the source of the problem. I know you are spending a lot of time apologizing.
I would like to find a way to approach this in an effective way that results in having things resolved."
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How long has this been a problem? Have you considered that he may not see your concerns as an urgent problem?
What the hell did he do?
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A
male
reader, olderthandirt  +, writes (11 November 2014):
 Third party involvement is quite common these days; i.e. marrage counceling( I know it's bf/gf but what the heck it still applies) Getting him to attend may present a problem, however, you have the power as the female in the relationship to get what you want.
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