How do i get my boyfriend 25m to talk to a therapist or someone close to him after I (24f) made a mistake but we’re trying to repair the relationship?
My boyfriend 25M and I 24F have been together for almost 5 years. We have been put through the wringer recently. I made a mistake, I kissed a girl at the bar at the beginning of our relationship and only told him about it recently, there were reasons why i didn’t tell him, but it doesn’t matter. i personally think this is something we can get past, but he is obviously extremely hurt so it’s a big deal.
We had a few really good weeks after we had a week or two to sort things out, but now he’s really upset again and saying he didn’t have time to think about it before???? and is canceling our three week trip to Europe we had planned to leave for in less than a week. this really hurts and feels gross to me because we were having a lot of sex, and i noticed it was a little bit more aggressive than usual, but also seemed 10x more loving and intimate than it had been before this. i had this false sense of security because we were doing so well, better than well, for a few weeks. i just kind of feel taken advantage of and led on, and am having major emotional whiplash, like im being hit in the stomach over and over again again like when this first began.
What im trying to say is that I need him to talk to a professional or someone who knows us and our relationship in order for us to get through this. I can’t bear him dealing with this alone. He says he is going to feel like this once in a while forever, but i don’t know if i can do this back and forth and the “i don’t know if im going to break up with you or not, but i don’t want to” forever. it is so painful. He says he forgives me and is not mad but will say passive aggressive things so im very confused about what is going on in his head. (i don’t think he forgives me, he might not realize it) I obviously know this isn’t going to be fixed in a month, but thinking forward i know things will not change unless he is able to express his emotions to someone, because he struggles to with me, and i get really emotional and start word vomiting when things are silent which helps nothing.
i was contemplating reaching out to his mom or his brother to see if they could reach out and check on him, but i don’t know if that’s the best idea. my mom says i need to stop groveling because ive already done a lot of that. She says i need to hold my power because i’ve been really hard on myself and have no self love at all right now, and at this point ive done everything i can. now its his decision whether or not he wants to save this relationship, and thats why i told him “if you want this relationship to work i need you to talk to someone, like a therapist, or your family.“ and he laughed and said “it would be funny if this was the reason i went to therapy” like im really tired of him saying things like this and then getting mad at me when i kind of snap back, which i apologized for as well.
i cannot get through this if its always going to be like this. he needs to talk to someone if we’re going to make it through this, but i know him, and i don’t know if he can. ive scheduled him consultations with therapists before (with his consent) and he just won’t go. He is also concerned about telling his parents, because they raised him to be the way he is, which is to never talk about your emotions, ”they’re not big talkers” so i understand that, but im thinking and hoping they might surprise him. I so desperately want this relationship to work, i feel like my soul is already being sucked out of me in this limbo of will we or won’t we break up, especially since i was soo hopeful we would be okay during those two good weeks. I am in so much pain, and i know he is too. how can i get him to seek help? and how am i ever going to get through this breakup if that’s what ends up happening? i feel like i have ruined my life and i think it would seriously destroy me if this were the end. Please help me, and be kind, but honest if you can, i have already told myself all the worst possible things.