Skip to 3rd paragraph for the main part.
I am a male in my Late 20s. I don’t know how you guys were raised but I was raised in a more traditional environment. I was taught to swallow everything and that “that’s how women are” type of thing. I was always made aware of how much stronger I was and how “intimidating” I could present so I was trained to never raise my voice or show negative emotion. All this so say that I have a pathological level of patience and I suck at standing up for myself with partners. Honestly, at times I feel like I am a doormat. Now on to the relevant parts
My issue is that I feel like we constantly argue. Looking back, it is always her mad at me. I’d be hard pressed to find a time where I was the on that was annoyed. In retrospect, it’s not even things that I did wrong. I’m a very self critical person and I analyze all my actions because I am a “problem” as past people have said. When the common denominator is you, I think introspection is warranted.
This is the relevant piece: I feel like I can’t express my feelings because she can’t handle being at fault. I have found myself comforting her because she feels bad about something she did to me. I think I’m harboring lots of resentment from past experiences with her where I felt I was judged wrongly. There seems to be a lot of double standards I am noticing. Also I’m stating to feel that arguments are just not worth it anymore. I feel like I am having to be the bigger person and I feel that I am having to teach a person how to love me. It feels like she does things off a checklist of “good girlfriend responsibilities” rather than does them intuitively. I’m starting to feel like when she says she loves me , it’s more of a automatic response rather than actually caring.
There’s more but the real question is how much of this is genuine or just my insecurity. I feel like I have a gut feeling that this isn’t right but no concrete proof. I just wanted your opinions on how things felt do y’all when you were at the end of previous relationships. I’m about to transition into a more long term section of my life and I don’t want to go through a divorce.
TLDR: what did you all notice toward the end? Am I gaslighting myself into thinking I am the issue? Am I in a healthy relationship or is is unhealthy, masked by her not being stereotypically “ crazy”?
EDIT: thank you all for the brutally honest responses. Thank you for the feedback and criticism. I realized there is a lot that I have to do learn and grow. I will heed your advice. Thank you for taking the time to indulge a Stranger.