Is he being an a**h***? Are we too different to make it work?

Yes.

Yes as in he’s being an asshole?

You have so many issues of your own that you have to work on it is hard to see clearly whether the relationship is a good one or not. I would suggest individual therapy for you along with counseling for the two of you. Until you establish your own self more, it will be hard for you to assess the relationship.

Ok, this one’s going to be a long one. Fluther’s DR Phil to the rescue!

I’ll be blunt. You both sound like absolute wankers. And i say this with affection, mind you, i’m not trying to insult.

He’s a dick, and a big one at that, the oatmeal incident is quite indisputable proof of that.

You on the other hand are way too submissive in this whole thing. You already said you would’ve dumped anyone else for the things he did, why the fuck are you still even considering this?

Let’s do the rundown, shall we?
– He uses breaking up as blackmail fodder on a regular basis.
– He believes it’s his right to force you to overcome your problems, psychological or otherwise, at his pace, not at yours.
– He ignores you when another woman he, supposedly, used to have a crush on is around (and rather unsubtly apparently)
– He is insincere on his view of your relationship.

Do you need more?

Now, for a different point, I’m currently in a relationship with a girl who, much like you, has been fucked up by his family and social life a big deal, so i know where you’re coming from, and i know you’re not going to like this but it has to be said: This is partly your fault as well.

If i have pieced the picture up correctly, which is a big assumption, it seems to me that you let him manipulate you so often that, in the end, he started taking it as a given that he could have you do whatever the fuck he wanted, resorting to breakups and blackmail when you occasionally decided to stand up for yourself. The oatmeal incident is quite indicative of this: Were i in the same situation with my girlfriend i would say: “ok, then don’t eat them, i’ll buy something different next time.” Because a) there’s no goddamn reason to doubt that you’re actually feeling ill and b) whether the problem is physical or psychological it’s just idiotic to force you to keep eating them anyway. There’s no point, no positive effect and it’s not going to affect you or him in any positive way unless he doesn’t actually have your best interest in mind.

This is your first love. Im sorry to say, it sounds like it won’t be your last.
The best advice I can give you is to begin moving on on YOUR terms. Don’t grovel and beg, and it might be a good idea not to drink until this is behind you. I have done some of the stupidest most embarrassing things during/after a break up while under the influence.
You WILL find love again, and it will be with someone who respects you and with whom you can trust your heart.

A doctor should realize that psychogenic symptoms are still very real for the person having them. You can surgically remove a patient’s stomach, and they will still experience hunger pangs in their “stomach”. Just because there’s no physiological cause, doesn’t mean that the person is crazy or should be treated with any less sympathy/dignity than someone with physical causes of their negative symptoms. I have no idea if the vomiting from the oatmeal cookies was caused from a real allergy or food intolerance or if it was psychogenic, but it makes no difference because the way he handled the situation was completely fucked up. The guy sounds like a controlling prick who’s on his way to becoming a shitty doctor and an emotionally abusive husband one day, you sound like you have some major dependency issues (understandably so given your past).

I think you should spend some time being single and on your own, away from your family and really focus on healing yourself and coming to grips with who you are, and how you want to live your life. If you can come to peace with your past, and become genuinely happy without having to “fill that hole” with a man’s affections, you’re going to be much better off. I would avoid men for like a year (or possibly longer) and find things that make you happy. Once you’re there, you’re going to be in a much better position to begin a new and healthy relationship with someone. You sound like a very smart woman who has had some tough experiences in her life, I wish you all the best.

He isn’t able to support you through your anxiety and panic attacks (which I know a lot about) – he will not be there for you for the tougher times either. I’d break it off with him.

I had to clean my glasses. Your question is like Longfellows beard…...long. But, I did make it through it.

First, I have never really known of a relationship, that began in a bar, that ever made it to a long and eventful marriage. My aunt did this three times and each was a failure.

I believe you grabbed this person in desperation. Your family was smothering you and keeping you too close to home. You had a pretty good setup, in the beginning, with the two hour drive to be together. The drive was maybe the anticipation that got you out of your family “cocoon”. What was waiting at the other end, also boosted your spirits and all went good for you.

Moving to him was the culprit. To be honest, he now has discovered that you have some issues of your own, that he was not aware of. You know what I mean, right?

Too soon, too fast. A realtionship has to take time for the end results to be rewarding. You cannot jump into bed with a person, on the first meeting, just to spite your family. I think this is what you did.

In conclusion, I say this to you…....I will never be in a place, where I am not wanted.

Did you wait til you moved to be with him before you told him about your panic attacks? I’m sorry if you addressed that and I missed it…

First of all, welcome to Fluther.

I don’t think he sounds like an asshole; it sounds like the reality of having to manage his own life, and be responsible for your well-being as well, plus going to grad school, applying for med school, is overwhelming. When you were living in different places, his responsibilty towards you in the relationship was to call you, and to come see you once a week. Now you’re there on a daily basis, and he is responsible for being your only friend in a new community, he’s perhaps finding the daily responsibilities of the relationship is a fuller plate than he realized.

It’s hard being in a new place and having to reinvent yourself, and the first inclination is to cling to the person you know like a life raft. Perhaps focus on yourself and less on him and the relationship for awhile. Moving away from your family sounds like a very healthy, positive thing to do. This young man gave you as sense of being likeable and lovable, so you know you are. Work on developing your own interests. Find a volunteer project, and make some friends of your own, so you are not so focused on your boyfriend. The fact that you are going to counseling together is a good thing.

I think your inclination to develop independence is spot-on. Self-reliance is an attractive characteristic in people, and it sounds like what you need in order to be happy with yourself. Relationships are an evolutionary thing, and even within them people will change as time moves on. If your relationship is going to survive his being in medical school, you are going to need independence and self-reliance more than you do now.

No one person can be everything to anyone else. It sounds like you tried to replace your smothering family with your boyfriend with the end result being that you smothered him.

You definitely need to develop yourself and work on all of your own problems. I strongly recommend therapy for yourself.

You need to get a job if you don’t have one.

You need to make some friends. Perhaps volunteering would be a way to start doing that.

Your boyfriend was an asshole about the cookies. For the rest of it, it sort of sounds as if he has been pushed to his limits by your neediness.

But you have much bigger problems than your relationship, and that is what you should be focusing on.

Good luck.

I will add that I think he was a total asshole over the cookie thing.

The whole cookie ordeal pissed me off. I think both of ou need to find out who you are as individuals before biting off more than you can chew (so to speak).

I think you need to concentrate on yourself for a while and deal with you personal problems before you set into another serious realtionship.

I think you need to value yourself before anyone will consider you precious, so you need to learn to value yourself more before you meet the man. I think this relationship is already ruined, but it’s no big deal, you’re probably too young to get married anyway.

You’re seeing a counsellor which is good, you should also look into self help books too, I love ‘I can do it’ by Louise Hay, and ‘Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway’ by Susan Jeffers.

I have been in a similar situation myself quite recently and when I look back at the situation I had with that guy, I literally laugh. I don’t blame you for jumping into bed with that guy, it’s hard to be a virgin in your twenties, but sometimes it’s just the way things work out.

So now with some experience under your belt, go find some kind friends, and learn how to socialise baby, yeah!

@Likeradar I actually didn’t know that what I sometimes experienced were panic attacks. Sometimes when I would be in a crowded place where I couldn’t escape, I would feel a sense of lack of oxygen (After researching panic attacks, I’ve learned often this is because of breathing too fast, and it gives you that sensation) When I moved, they got worse, and I started to realize what those sensations were….panic attacks. They are much better now though, it’s gotten to the point I can almost completely ignore it even if it makes me feel like I’m going to die.

@john65pennington Thanks for reading even though it was long. I think you’re right about the moving thing. As for being desperate…I think I just felt so comfortable with him, I wanted to take the plunge. Maybe it was a bad idea (I was in Mexico on vacation). But usually I am extremely opposed to the idea of getting physical with other guys I’m dating (who turn out to be assholes after they stop pretending to be gentlemen in hopes of getting some), he just made me feel comfortable with my body and I immediately felt I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else with him, even more so than I do with my closest friends. I don’t think I was being the “stupid girl” who thinks that about asshole guys either…I will often turn down the most good looking, charming guys if I feel there’s something off, and I’m pretty good at reading people (for that purpose at least). I guess I felt there was something to be gained from opening up to him in that way.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir He tells me that if I ever am faced with a real serious illness, like cancer, that he will be there for me all the way. And actually, I’ve noticed when I tone down the panic and stop worrying so much, that he’s very supportive and caring when something hurts me, even if it’s just something stupid/little. I think he feels like I bring a lot of my own problems on and thinks this is unhealthy. So he is overly harsh, thinking I need to learn to stop it. He also does not understand the deal with panic attacks, even though his best friend of like 15 years has a chronic, severe problem with them. (they don’t talk about it I guess, maybe it’s a guy thing) His best friend does know how to deal with them though…which I learned too. (breathing exercises and sheer will power)

Sounds like he doesn’t treat you right, and that neither of you are happy.

Some space couldn’t hurt.

@john65pennington Though I dont stand by exactly everything he’s said, he’s made a few good specific points that have jumped out at me which I’d like to expand on.

1. Moving in too fast, too soon was the worst idea for the both of you. Neither of you sound like you’re in a particularly good position independent from the relationship to be moving in together, especially at such an early age. As you’ve described yourself, you’ve grown up very sheltered and lacking of good, knowledgeable and enriching experiences. I feel as if a person needs to fly out into the world on their own first in order to develop certain sense of of their own likes/dislikes and more specifically their own individuality. Him, on the other hand, is in grad school and applying to med school. Med school involves an extremely large amount of pressure – it’s enough for one person alone to reach a multitude of boiling points. When you add someone (such as yourself) into the pot, that pressure only increases and his job goes from solely focusing on his academic career and being successful in that aspect, but tending to your relationship and all that that involves (being their for you, treating you well, committing a large portion of his time to you, etc.). Not saying that your relationship alone is in no appropriate climate to survive, but given the fact that you guys decided to live under the same roof just makes everything much more intense and unrealistic. It would have been more wise for you to maybe move closer to him but not with him.

2. You’re referring to your relationship as something of a “marriage”. I may have missed it, but did you guys get married? If not, where does the emphasis on marriage come from – and why? It sounds like a wishful thinking focus than an actual logical or genuine focus. While I dont doubt for a second the love either of you have experienced with each other, it sounds as if one or both of you is caught up in the idea of marriage and not on the “task at hand”, so to say. What is important is the pressure your relationship is suffering right now, not about how one (or both) of you thinks the demeanor or conduction of your relationship should exemplify that of a marriage. I think the standards you’re holding to when you ask “Does he care for me the way a husband should care for his wife” are a little irrational given the situation, no matter how well-intended or critical they appear to be.

3. I think some of his stupid, irrational behavior (the “cookie” incident, the “attractive” old friend, the impulse “break-ups”)is a result of the pressure your relationship is/has going through. I don’t think for a second any of those behaviors are indicative of him not loving you or your relationship being anything from genuine, but rather, simply just a result of pressure overload without a simple solution in sight.

Overall, I do see something genuine in your story and I do see the most important element: love. I think if you found a way to ventilate all of the pressure caused by the issues in your relationship, you may notice things may start to get better, like they were before all of the mess. Perhaps if you tried moving out into your own place or applying to a college and living in a dorm somewhere nearby? It would give you the independence you’re missing and overall just a chance to clear your head with another focus. Or maybe moving out and getting a full time job somewhere? If you do choose to talk to him, do so in the most non-hostile and constructive way possible. As soon as either of you begin to raise your voices, point it out or “pull the plug” on the conversation. If he feels most of your issues are solvable, I say it’s worth sticking around to figure out. If he gives you an uncertain, uncommitted answer, you may want to take time apart- maybe just for either of you to potentially realize how much you miss each other.

I obviously don’t have all of the answers you’re looking for, but hopefully you thought I was fair and/or insightful. I really hope you do pull out of this bind in a better situation than you are in now – whether that means you moving on and doing something else with your life, or working through the struggles and ultimately reaching a strong improvement. Good luck!

@Disc2021 Thanks for your reply. You’re right…there is still love in the relationship, and it could just be the stress that’s been pushing us apart. We aren’t living together – technically. I have my own place and he has his, but for 3 weeks or so we were spending every night together (for the past week though we’ve mostly been apart). He wants us to move in together this summer because he’s sick of his roomates. I’m thinking that’s a bad idea. Maybe if we improve by leaps and bounds. He says it might be easier for us to both do our own thing while we’re living in the same house, instead of ‘visiting’ and not getting anything done. I don’t think this is a good reason to move in together though.

I bring up the marriage thing because he’s about to turn 30…he says marriage is something he’s looking for, maybe not immediately, but within a few years. He tells me he worries about whether we’ll work as a married couple, and tells me he wishes I had more relationships under my belt so I would have more experience. You’re right though, it would be better to focus on the issues at hand if we really want to fix our relationship. He also used to talk about it a lot when we were doing well as a couple, saying “if we get married…” and stuff with kids.