Are we (29F, 31M) too different? TW mental health, longpost

I will preface this by saying I (29F) struggle with anxiety and depression following my childhood. I have sought therapy and continue to do so but I need to vent and ask for advice because you all give takes on things I never would have thought about.

I met my boyfriend about 2 years ago, through a mutual friend that I had a previous fling with. We connected through dinner dates at my and his parents place and began dating. He has been by my side despite my struggles at my previous job of many years and we agree on a lot of topics and can have good conversations.

I am an animal lover, I always have been and always will be. I have had both of my cats for almost 9 years now. My boyfriend and I got a dog last year and he reluctantly let me get another dog a few months back. All of our pets are shelter pets. Our cats are incredibly needy. One of them is almost always physically glued to me or yowling for attention. The other is constantly in your food or yowling for pets. The first dog is chill and doesn't need much attention. The second dog is a bit of a problem. She is quite affectionate and always wants attention. She battles for affection with the cats. She is difficult to take on walks as she is dog reactive on leash. My boyfriend has expressed multiple times that he hates her. I love this dog. I see the good in her and I definitely have more respect for animals than I do most people. She needed a home. I have tried to rehome her but no one is a good fit for her thus far. She has made a lot of strides with consistent training. We have a really small house. The cats have to be confined to the basement because they are conditioned to sleeping with me at night and they keep him awake. The silly 30lb dog has to be crated now because she wants to cuddle in bed at night and my bf can't sleep. I would have 10 animals in bed with me if they were all comfortable and happy.

My boyfriend's idea of a perfect day would be playing PC video games. Uninterrupted quiet and video games. I enjoy video games but find it hard to immerse myself in them. He will get frustrated if I am watching him game and end up looking at my phone or a book instead. My take is this: if the power goes out or servers are down and you have no way to play games, what's left for you to enjoy? My perfect day would be a breezy outdoor day with all of my pets with my just talking, snacking, or staring at the sky and planning for the future.

We have amazing sex although sometimes now I feel that I have to do it instead of wanting to in order to make that dedication to our relationship. A lot of the times it doesn't feel like we see eye to eye on anything and I usually come away from discussions with tears in my eyes and silence because I don't want to rock the boat with my opinions and thoughts.

He has been really depressed the past week and talking about it tonight he blames it all on the pets and that he never has a break from them. I told him that saying that makes me feel guilty and I don't know what he wants me to do. He said he doesn't want me to feel guilty, that he is just expressing how he feels.

We share the responsibility of caring for the pets. I do litterbox duty daily and buy all of their supplies/insurance/Healthcare. He feeds the dogs at night and takes them on a 10-15 minute walk once a day. I have tried time and again to convince him the dog park is fun (I go every other day with the dogs) or try to take longer walks because it's good for the dogs and us and he says he needs more down time. Prior to getting a new job a few months ago, I was able to bring the dogs with me to work to give him a little more downtime and I can't do that anymore.

I see couples and men at the dog park and have envy when they seem like they're truly enjoying their time with their dogs. My boyfriend sometimes does show affection towards the pets but the majority of the time it is dislike and annoyance. At the dog park he is constantly just on his phone and scrolling reddit. If I see a loose animal I will stop my plans, pull over and help the animal. He would drive by without a second thought.

I also sometimes find it hard to find empathy for him. I work 40-50 hours a week with silly clients, particularly coworkers, and many naughty pets. Along with this, I am going to school full-time to get out of this field. I also pet sit on the side. He works 40 hours a week at a nice job where he can listen to music and has his own workstation.

I have expressed a few times in the past that I would love a further commitment from him. He explains that that's not his style and it has nothing to do with lack of feelings or commitment just that is worried about divorce and messy financial outcomes. I on the other hand would love to wear a ring and be married and have that lifelong promise. I still believe that there is something concrete about that kind of love. I've given up talking to him about it because it seems like our values and wants from life just don't align.

My question is, do you guys think we are too different to stay together? I have never broken up with someone but it has been on my mind a lot. Am I forcing my values onto him and being too selfish?

Thanks everyone.

tl;dr I love animals and my boyfriend of 2 years is struggling with them. He LOVES video games and I could take them or leave them. I want more traditional commitment fron a partner and he does not. Are we too different to continue our relationship?

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Why does my brother despise me?

Hello, I am looking for insight as to why my brother despises me. As of recently, I have noticed he wants nothing to do with me and everytime I look in his eyes I see hatred. The only time this is not true is if he needs something from me, he knows that all he has to do is be nice to me and seem excited to do something with me since I long for that from him. He does his best to avoid me around our small residence, he will deliberately not enter the room if I am in it and then the second I leave it he will finally come in to do what he needs(I have just realized this is a pattern that he constantly repeats). He is sabotaging furniture around our house and leaving messes everywhere. He seems apathetic and depressed. He recently got really involved with hanging around bad kids his age and they have only encouraged him to do more drugs. He is extremely addicted to drugs and it seems that is the only thing he lives for nowadays. He is depressed 24/7 unless his buddies offer to hang to with him and smoke/do other more extreme drugs. Those kids use my brother for free food/transportation(with my mothers car) and in return my brother gets weed and companionship. Recently, he returned the car one night with damage and vehemently denied having anything to do with it. Personally, I am against drugs and he knows this, therefore I do not tolerate it in my presence and tell our mother about it when he is doing it since it’s her house. Our father, whom he has completely cut off, finally started drug testing him(he is extremely against drugs) and when he tested positive he told him that he will test him everyday, after that my brother cut him off. He treated our father like he treats me now before he cut him off.

TLDR: brother wants nothing to do with me, do not know why?

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My (F35) boyfriend (M36) thinks we should both "settle" for each other and stop thinking we could do any better than each other

I know this is strange, but I've been with someone for four years, though for the first two it was very "options open," and we weren't exactly free to date other people, but didn't have a strong commitment bto one another either.

We moved in together after that, mostly for financial reasons, and for much of the time he would make remarks about how attractive he found other girls, how I really wasn't his "type," how we wouldn't be as serious as we were if it weren't for us living together. You get the picture.

Well, now he's done sort of a "180," if you will, but sort of not.

He wants us to commit to each other for the rest of our lives because "everyone else sucks" and "you can't trust other people" and "neither one of us will ever do any better."

How romantic, huh?

I laughed and told him to speak for himself and that no one knows what the future holds.

I've had enough of his little "dings" over the years and don't want to be with someone so belittling forever.

I can't afford to move out, but I don't want him getting any more "attached" and comfortable. I feel like that's what's driving his sudden "change of heart," if you can even call it that.

So what should I do? It's freaking me out that suddenly he's decided I should be his permanent partner, and given me pretty crummy reasons for why that should be.

TL;DR: boyfriend of 4 years trying to convince me to "settle" and I am not enthused.

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how soon is too soon to say "I love you"?

Me (20F) and my bf (23M) have been dating for a month, but we've seen eachother a lot and I even slept at his house a couple of times already, so it feels like we've known eachother for much more time. But anyhow, Im really developing some serious feelings for him by seeing him basically everyday. I would really want to tell him I love him, but Im afraid its too soon and I never ever said it to anyone romantically. Should I tell him? When do you usually say it?

TL;DR : I feel the need to tell my bf I love him but idk if its the right time.

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M(26) ghosted me (F26) after nice first date

I was talking to a guy for several weeks on a dating app before we met. We discussed our beliefs and the basic background stuff (what we do, our hobbies etc). All throughout our messaging the guy would talk about things we should do together in the future. All throughout the date, up till right before we left, he spoke as if he was planning to see me again and had enjoyed his time.

We were not physically intimate during the date other than a hug at the start and end. It did come out during our conversations that he had more relationship experience, and probably more sexual experience than me (I have never been in a relationship before). He mentioned during the day that his love language was physical touch.

He told me to text him when I got home. When I got home, I texted him, told him I enjoyed meeting him and asked him to send me a pic we had taken together that day. That was Saturday night, now it is the Monday after and he never replied. I followed up once with another text saying how I enjoyed the day and would love to meet again but if not can appreciate the day for what it was - the opportunity to explore a new place and meet a new friend.

Maybe it’s my inexperience but the ghosting has really thrown me for a loop and made me angry and unsettled. It’s so shitty to cut off contact instead of sending a simple text saying “I had fun, but I’m not interested in pursuing a relationship right now” or something to that extent. I feel like I did something wrong to warrant the ghosting, although I know I probably didn’t.

Maybe I wasn’t as physical as he hoped (I wanted to be more physical, but knowing I didn’t know him well I was very careful to hold back).

Why might this guy have ghosted me? Not being physically affectionate?

TL;DR:

Guy (M26) ghosted me (F26) after what seemed to be a very nice first date. We joked around, had similar beliefs and values, and the whole time the guy spoke as of he was planning to meet again. It came out that he had a lot more relationship experience than me, and I was not very physically affectionate during the date after he stated his love language was physical affection. Might this be why I was ghosted?

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The big idea: why relationships are the key to existence - The Guardian

The big idea: why relationships are the key to existence  The Guardian

* This article was originally published here

I think I'm in a toxic relationship.

Me(23f) and my husband (24m) have been together for 3 years. We started long distance and then later I moved into his family's home, but now we currently live with my older sister and younger brother.

My husband has always been very family oriented, he has 5 siblings, 4 sisters and 1 younger brother. He is the oldest. I have a very small family. 1 older sister and 1 younger brother.

When i moved in with him and his family i quit my job and gave up on the apartment i was going to rent to move to another state where hes from. Don't get me wrong I don't have anything against small towns but it's a lot different then living in a city your whole life. My husband quit his job right before i moved and a few weeks after i got there he told me to get a job. Later i had applied to more than 4 places and no one would take me. Theres also no jobs there so it was difficult to even find a place to apply to.

My husbands family was very nice when I first met them, but I soon realized that they were very different then anyone I knew. The only way I can describe them is that they have big egos. Maybe it's wrong for me to say that but I have no other way of explaining. When I would try becoming friends with his sisters I would tell them my interests which i admit are kinda nerdy, like web design. They would reply why? Like as in why would like like that hobby. At the time it didn't bother me because I just thought they just didn't really understand. But they would always question things about me but not in a curious way but in a more demeaning way. My family and my friends, we all would laugh at ourselves. They would not. I remember one time me and my husband were wearing pink and yellow and his sister said we looked like SpongeBob and Patrick and I thought that was funny because we really did but after she said that she covered her mouth like she said something rude and my husband glared at her while his other sister laughed at us. At that point I realized that we view things very differently. I'm a shy introverted person, so things like this kind of made it hard to continue talking to them. The thing that made me realize that I really did not want to be friends with his sisters is that they would talk about me behind my back say I'm weird or I don't try to be their friend. Later he resented me and told me i never tried to be friends with his family. One day I was playing a video game with my husband. We were in different rooms. I could hear through his mic his sister talking to him and she said "she's bad isn't she" and My husband would reply "nah" which made me feel better but this would happen a lot where they would throw jabs at me and my husband would reply simply at them with a no or nah. Maybe this is the part where I'm sensitive but I wished he would've just told them to stop.

I was very depressed at the time because I knew no one but everyone knew everyone there and they people I knew would talk to me like that. Anyway I finally convinced my husband to move with me back to where I was living, but not having a job we couldn't get our own place. So my sister was kind enough to let us rent an apartment with her. Right when I moved I got a Job and started paying rent while also saving up for a car because we don't have one. I let my husband stay at home because I knew that he had just moved to a new state and it would be hard to get a job. During this time we decided to get married. We only got married at s courthouse with a few close family members. I resent my husband a lot for this because even though I asked for a wedding ring his response was he didn't have money, which was true but I've explained to him I don't want an expensive ring, it could be anything I just want something to represent our marriage. Even now that he has a job I don't think he's thought of getting one. Throughout our married he seems to be micro managing me. When we're playing games he tells me how, even though I've been playing the same game with him for years now. He'll lose his temper and yell at me a lot. Last night we were playing a game and I realize that I yell a lot playing a game because I get heated but he's always saying you're yelling and calm down, it kind of ruined the experience for me. Like I can't feel any emotion around him. I got a new headset and I'll sometimes put thr mic too close to my mouth because I speak low and he says your "breathing into the mic.", "i can hear you breathe". It's a little embarrassing especially when we're playing with our friends. Also when i tell him things that's I'm 100% sure about and he'll still won't listen and question whether I'm right.

The thing I hate the most that he does is that I think he hates family or finds them annoying. When we all hang out it's never positive, he always has to say something mean to my little brother or he'll just get visibly annoyed with my sister just because she likes planning this out or she won't realize that she did something wrong or she just telling her interests. He never tries to talk to them and idk if he's just doing it out of petty because I don't talk to his sisters or if he just really doesn't like them. What really annoys me is that he'll just assume the worst in them. Like my younger brother can be forgetful and not do things and before it happens my husband will be like "he's not going to do it right" or my sister "she's not going to put gas in the car" basically calling them lazy or bad. But the thing is that he's wrong because 8/10 times they always end up doing it.

Reading this you're probably questioning why I'm I still in this relationship. Well it's easy to just point out the bad things but he does good things that make me think loving him is worth it. I just don't know if that's how toxic relationships are. I genuinely think he thinks this is normal behavior especially if his family is the same way.

Tl;DR: My husband likes to micro manage me and yells at me a lot when he is annoyed. He thinks my family's annoying while also resenting me for not becoming friends with his sisters because they would talk rudely about me behind my back.

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