28f 27m give up again?
I 28f met 27m on an app about a year and a half ago. Our relationship started out great and fun and exciting and continued that way for about 9 months. After that key differences started to appear:
- I work a corporate job with long (45-50 a week usually but sometimes 60) hours l. It can be tough but I love the work. He works a 9-5 and love it but as long as we jave been together he has been trying to get a promotion because he wants better work than he currently gets and more pay.
- Our families are very different. I would describe my upbringing as somewhat stressful (money issues, sick family members, lots of shouting) and as a result have a somewhat strained relationship with my immediate family (much better since I moved out and bought my own place). He gets on so well with his family. He lives at home (not the sign of a complete bum in our country) and therefore sees them daily. I try to see my parents once a week but people are busy so sometimes ot slips to once a month. This doesn't bother me or them.
He finds the amount I work and the dynamic with my family (and knowing that I had a stressful childhood) very hard to deal with. To the point where just before Christmas he broke up with me due to being overwhelmed by it all. Things had been rocky for about a month but I was still blindsided because I really thought we could get through it. Nevertheless, I picked myself up,blocked him on everything and did my best to move on.
6 weeks later, I unblocked him to reach out to give him back some stuff. I asked if he wanted me to drop them off somewhere but he said he wanted to meet and talk. Turns out he regretted the breakup and wanted to get back together. We both agreed to engage in individual therapy before taking the leap again but ultimately we did. We have since started couples therapy.
Since getting back together the arguments are even more persistent and revolve largely around the same topics. There have been moments of better communication and mutual understanding but overall it has been very hard. I think I am in protection mode not wanting to get hurt again so I am hesitant to fully open up to him.
I am stuck between feeling like we should cut our losses and believing that if we doubled our efforts we could make it work.