AITAH for being fed up over how much my partner cries over everything?
I have always been called a crybaby growing up and that had always been a point of insecurity for me. So I felt seen when I ended up dating someone who is also emotional. However, I feel like he cries five times as much as I do and I feel like it has become emotionally draining.
I feel like he cries over everything. We used to have a lot of problems in the beginning of our relationship, which I feel has largely been influenced by his previous bad relationships and trauma. I used to feel good when we would both cry since I felt that it showed that he was genuinely felt sorry for his actions. However, I felt that his crying increased exponentially since them. I can be just slightly annoyed at him or at anything in the world and he will start to cry. For example, he would definitively cry if I got something like food poisoning or a bad cold. I feel that I have to constantly push my emotions to the side to make him feel better because I feel like he does nothing to make himself feel better. Even if my sadness or anger has NOTHING to do with him, he constantly cries about how bad he feels and how he’s sad he can’t do anything about it. Then, I have to push my feelings to the side and leave them unresolved because I feel obligated to comfort him. I feel that if I were to leave him be, then he would just be in a mood until I speak up again.
He sometimes also refuses to admit that he is upset about something because he doesn’t want to feel like a burden, but it’s so hard trying to talk to him when it’s obvious he is upset. For example, he changes his tone, becomes quiet, uses very ambiguous words (everything is always a shrug or sure instead of something more clear like a yes or no), he cries, or just shuts off. It’s very frustrating because I feel like I am being annoying when I ask him if he’s okay multiple times just for him to admit that he was upset about something much later. I have communicated that I do not like this, which he has improved on slightly but he still does this. If I were in his shoes, I know he wouldn’t think of me as being a burden and would listen to whatever I had to say.
And I don’t want to talk too badly about him because he has helped me during moments which I now recognize as depressive episodes. I have apologized for how negative I was about everything and how inconsolable I was: However, I feel like I have made attempts to make myself feel better and he doesn’t. When I started to realize that I might’ve been depressed, I immediately started going to a therapist and taking medication for it. I also started to change the way I thought about things even if I didn’t feel like it was true. For example, I started journaling and tried to think positively even if I didn’t feel that positive. But, I think that it had paid off since I genuinely believe I am nowhere near as negative as I used to be.
However, it has not been the same for my boyfriend. I have encouraged him to seek therapy and medication, which he has listened to but only after numerous conversations where I begged him to seek help since it worked for me. However, he currently feels that the effects of his medication has plateaued, to which I encouraged him to ask about increasing his dose or starting/adding a different medication. But it has been months of me encouraging him to do so to no avail. I have also encouraged him to journal and think positively, but he refuses to change. He just feels like a constant ball of negative energy that I feel helpless against no matter how many times I try to talk to him. It really sucks during times when I’m trying to be positive about something, but he completely knocks down any attempt I make to make either myself and/or him feel better.
Though, I do completely acknowledge that his past has contributed to this. And I do acknowledge that I would not know how I would be/feel if I had even gone through half of what he has gone through. It’s just tiring knowing that he is not active about doing anything to make him feel better. I feel like I just can’t deal with the crying, but I don’t want to mention it to him because I dont want him to think that he can’t cry in front of me.
Like I have mentioned before, he has told me that he often cries because he hates to see me feel sad/bad and that he often can’t do anything to fix it. But I have communicated to him various times that he should not force that responsibility onto himself because I’m a grown woman that doesn’t need to be coddled over everything, sometimes shit doesn’t work out, or I’m not looking for a solution but rather just an opportunity to express my feelings to someone. He has told me multiple times that he would work on it because he has acknowledged that it is weird to do, but unlike almost every other problem I’ve had with him, he has not changed this at all.
I also want to clarify that I do not think he is doing this at all to manipulate me whatsoever. I just think he’s someone who has been through a lot but refuses to do anything to change how he feels. I’m also not interested in people telling me to break up with him either because I feel like people on Reddit are quick to say that to any couple having problems. My boyfriend is an amazing person outside of this problem. I just want to help him feel better and work on his trauma, but I feel like everything I have done has not worked. I also don’t want to start building resentment (which I feel like may be too late). I feel like now when I see him cry over the smallest things (I do not hold it against him when it seems like it makes sense that he is crying in a certain situation) I feel like “Damn, like what is he crying about now?”) I do not want to keep feeling this way but I literally do not know what else I can do without causing myself to be emotionally drained.