The good, the bad and the ugly

So, it has now been almost two months since my boyfriend moved in. The first two weeks were awful, then things seemed to settle down for a couple weeks and were good, but now they are back to being worse than ever. I actually think we maybe broke up last night. I am not sure how that works considering he lives at my house now. So the first two weeks of our cohabitation were bad, the second two were pretty good and now things are downright ugly.

I think it boils down to he does not like his job and he is really depressed. He is prone to depression anyway, but I have never seen the ripple effect like this. He basically acts like he can’t stand me and tells me everything is my fault, but then says he is depressed and I need to stop making it about me. His actions are directly affecting me!! One big thing in addition to our constant bickering is that there is literally no physical affection in our relationship. Forget doing “it”, he acts like I have a disease if I try to touch him at all. I feel so resentful towards him right now because I feel like he totally changed once he moved in. I really did try to be patient (at least I did once I realized just how stressed out he was after moving and changing jobs), but this is getting ridiculous and is causing so much anxiety for me. He is cranky and nasty and we don’t have any fun together anymore, let alone actually talk about anything important (or even just lighthearted conversations). I have dealt with situational depression before and went off all my medication in December and now I am a crying, hot mess.

I don’t know if I should give up and just tell him he needs to move out. I don’t know if his feelings towards me have changed, but at this point it doesn’t really matter because he acts like they have. How many times can I try to talk to him when he is just shutting me out? I know it hasn’t been long and the transition is way harder than I thought it would be, so does it just need more time?

**Disclaimer: I am obviously not perfect…I do things that cause arguments, too and I know I have become even more sensitive and defensive lately. But I know that I am not mean to him like he is to me. I really do want to make him happy and I know I have put in a lot more effort into our relationship over these past few weeks than he has.

ps- totally different topic, but my father started smoking again and I am pretty sure he is also drinking (backstory: alcoholic for 25 years, had stroke, forced to get clean, was for 5 months, got doctor’s clearance to drive and is a nasty jerk again). I feel like I can’t even talk to my boyfriend about this and I am having a hard time talking to my friends about my boyfriend situation- I feel like I am “that girl”…they were all so supportive during my divorce and now I am having very similar relationship problems again and it is very embarrassing.

I feel really alone.

Transitioning..

So it has been three weeks since my boyfriend moved in…and the first two weeks were really, really hard. I was expecting it to be a bit of a transition and knew that he would have additional stress from beginning his new job, but I did not expect it to be so bad! We fought so much and he was pretty unbearable. I really tried to be supportive, but after a few days of constant tension and arguing, I became very stressed too, which negatively influenced my behavior. I think he was having trouble adjusting to living in my house and feeling like I was on top of him constantly and I was freaking out being afraid that I was repeating the living situation that I had with my ex-husband. Thank goodness that past week or so has been the complete opposite and now things have settled down and are so much better. I am so relieved because I really was starting to think that we made a horrible mistake moving in together. Luckily, I have my therapist on speed dial and made a rare emergency appointment. She helped me see things from his perspective and although she agreed that he didn’t have the right to be so nasty to me, she made me understand what he was feeling. He and I had a long talk (several of them, actually) and now things are back on track and we are enjoying having more time together. He actually acclimated really quickly to his new job and seems to really like it, which has made a huge difference in his attitude and behavior. I also am trying to be more conscientious about how I act about my house and him having space and feeling comfortable so we are both really trying and the results are noticeable.

My biggest fear is feeling trapped again. When I was married and living with my ex-husband, it seemed like I was never going to be able to get out of that situation. It took a long time to feel “free” again after my divorce and the couple of weeks that were so horrible with my new “roommate” (lol) brought back all of those feelings. I am not really opposed to marriage- my grandparents were married for 68 years!- but I feel like I could never go through that nightmare again and never want to feel trapped like that again. Although sometimes I think getting married again could be nice- and hopefully very different- I really believe the only way I can ever prevent getting into that position again (or getting divorced again) would be to never get married again. Living with my boyfriend reminds me of all the things I really liked about being married, but I don’t know if I could ever get over my fear and anxiety about it. It’s not like he is pressuring me, so it is not something I need to worry about right now, but I do still think about it. For now, I am able to enjoy being able to see my boyfriend every day and being able to go to sleep together every night (we were long distance for several years)…so I guess I will try to live in the moment!!