A
female
age
36-40,
*eardaisy
writes:My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 years. Our relationship has had many ups and downs. We're very different people and we've both gone through major crises while being together. It put a lot of stress on our relationship. The last year has been especially difficult. However, everything we have been through has given me a lot of perspective on the relationship. I just don't know how to use it to help us.We have a serious lack of communication and respect. This issue was addressed over the summer, and we worked at it for a little while but I feel it's become a problem again. I think we've gotten to a point where majority of the time we are indifferent to one another's needs and feelings. It's also created a distance between us. There are more and more silences in our conversations and we don't have sex as much.Communication has always been hard for us because we aren't very good at it. I get too emotional and this makes him defensive, which makes me feel completely responsible and more emotional, which makes him shut down completely. We don't like approaching one another because it always turns into a fight. We've identified this as the problem, but keep doing the same thing! We love one another very much, but we can't go on like this. We're not going to get anywhere unless we break this cycle. I need advice on how to do that. I don't want to end our relationship because I know it has so much potential. We can be happy again if we can overcome this obstacle so that we can deal with problems effectively. Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Nouvelle32 +, writes (30 December 2010):
I'm going to answer your question because nobody else has offered any input. Lack of communication and respect are kind of a big deal in a relationship because otherwise you are going to end up fighting all the time (which it sounds like you are). If you think the relationship is really worth saving like you say, and you cannot come to an agreement on your own, then maybe you two could consider counseling. Sometimes it can be helpful to have a third party evaluate what's going on and get you back on track with the communication, etc. What bothers me about what you wrote is that you say he shuts down or gets defensive when you get emotional. Was he like that all the time or have to gotten emotional way too much over petty things? I had a guy who was cold when it came to emotions.. we had a hot relationship, but he was HIGHLY insensitive to my feelings and sometimes would say things that made me cry and he did not care one bit that I was crying... wouldn't try to comfort me or anything (when he was the one to cause the emotional outburst to begin with!). Sorry, but that is really cold behavior. Ultimately he ended up leaving me in the same cold way and did not shed one tear over our breakup even though I was an emotional wreck because I really loved him.
I'm not saying that will happen to you, but he may start to get really tired of all this fighting you guys are doing. Either you can try to work it out yourselves or thru counseling, but do something before it's too late.
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