I (26F) and my boyfriend (31M) have been together for almost 7 years.
We’ve had a lot of ups and downs. He has anger issues and drinking issues, and whenever he’s angry he says really hurtful things.
In the first years of the relationship, whenever he got mad he would yell and tell me he wanted to break up. I was so desperate back then that I even begged him on my knees once. Pathetic, right? 😅 He didn’t care at all. He ignored me while I was crying next to him, and the next day he would act like nothing happened.
I always blamed it on the alcohol. I kept telling myself maybe he was too drunk and didn’t mean it.
At one point he told me he fantasized about other women and felt the urge to sleep with other girls and have threesomes. He told me a lot more details that honestly destroyed me. I cried and told him if that’s what he wanted, then he should leave. But he didn’t. We stayed together.
We would go months without fighting, everything would feel perfect, and then suddenly he would snap again for no reason.
One time he told me to go k*ll myself because I didn’t want to go to the store and buy him chips.
Mind you, I do everything around the house. Cleaning, cooking, groceries, bills, emails, everything. I also work full time. If there’s something important that needs to be done, I’m the one doing it. He never really takes responsibility for anything.
And I still stayed.
Fast forward to March 2026. On my birthday he proposed to me and I said yes. At that point we hadn’t had a serious fight in over a year.
Last night I came home exhausted from work, on my period, cramping badly, and still stopped at the store to buy him beer and groceries. The second I walked in I handed him the bags and asked him to put the groceries away because I really needed to pee.
He told me no, that I could do it after.
I snapped and said no. He instantly got angry and told me not to talk to him anymore because “it’s gonna get bad.”
So I left him alone.
I’m a very anxious person and whenever someone yells at me I completely shut down. I grew up in a broken household where yelling happened every single day, so it triggers something in me immediately.
Even after all that, I stayed awake all night thinking about how uncomfortable he must be sleeping on the couch. At 2 in the morning I got up and made him sandwiches for work because I couldn’t handle the thought of him being hungry all day.
Today when he came home he acted normal at first. Then after a few beers he snapped again out of nowhere and told me to leave so he could sleep. I offered him the bed because I knew he had work in the morning.
He got angry again and started saying I treat him like a dog I can “snap at,” even though I didn’t.
We kept arguing while he repeated over and over that if I didn’t like it, I could leave.
I asked him to just be honest with me and speak normally for once.
That’s when he told me he never truly loved me. He said I was just his backup plan. He said he only proposed because he felt pressured by society and his family, not because he actually wanted to marry me.
He told me he doesn’t know if he even wants kids, or maybe he does, just not with me.
Then he said he misses being a player and wants that life again because he can’t handle being tied down.
I told him the only pressure he should’ve felt all these years was the pressure to tell me the truth.
I was crying and telling him how badly his words were hurting me, and he just said he didn’t care. That it wasn’t his problem.
At that point I realized he has a lot of issues that I cannot fix for him.
Before leaving the room, I asked him for just one thing. Just a hug. I told him we were still breaking up, but I just needed one hug from the person who had been my home for 7 years.
He said no.
He looked at me like I was the last person on earth he wanted to touch.
I asked him why he hurts me so much and why he looks at me like he hates me.
He just shrugged and said he doesn’t care.
Now I’m sitting alone in my room with no idea what I’m supposed to do next. We live alone in a foreign country and I have no friends here, while he has many. I’m thinking about booking a plane ticket and leaving in a few days, quitting my job, everything.
But I also need to remove my name from the apartment lease first because I don’t want to make mistakes while emotional.
At the same time, I’m scared that if I stay longer he’ll somehow pull me back in again like always.
My mind is set on breaking up.
I can’t stay somewhere I’m clearly not wanted anymore. I already stayed too long and gave too much love to someone who didn’t deserve it.
I feel used. And honestly, pathetic.
What do you think I should do?