My boyfriend (26M) withdraws from me (25F) after conflicts
My boyfriend (26M) and I (25F) are together for almost 2 years and currently on a relationship break after months of conflict, and I genuinely don’t know whether this relationship can still be repaired.
The whole situation started because of a girl called Maria (24F). Before my boyfriend and I got together, he had been interested in another girl he met at the same time as me. He tried multiple times over two months to meet up with her again, invited her to things with friends, found her attractive, and generally pursued her. Nothing happened because she wasn’t interested. Months later, when we all three had become friends, he developed feelings for me and eventually we got together.
The problem is that I only found out about all of this much later into the relationship. To me it felt like I had unknowingly entered a situation where I was not the first choice, but rather the person things “worked out with” after someone else didn’t want him. He insists this is not true and says his feelings for me were completely different and much deeper, and that with her he mostly projected compatibility because of one conversation topic they bonded over. He says he never hid it maliciously and simply did not think it was important anymore because it was before us.
But after finding out, my trust and emotional security in the relationship completely broke. Since then we developed an increasingly unhealthy dynamic. I became unsure about the relationship and constantly needed reassurance and emotional safety, while he increasingly felt exhausted, criticized and emotionally overwhelmed. I kept bringing the topic back up from time to time because I never truly felt emotionally understood or reassured enough. I even stalked his phone to take a look on the chat between him and Maria and admited to him afterwards. During the last 11 months we had endless discussions about it and sometimes these discussions became very serious, almost resulting in break ups. But of course not everything was bad. We also had wonderful times, are a perfect fit and sometimes weeks went by without this topic.
However, recently things escalated badly after we already had a very though week with the Maria-Topic. He accidentally left me sitting outside his apartment for around 30 minutes because he had to do something, he could have done every other time. When he came back, he did not apologize and instead kind of brushed it off. He thought I was massively overreacting when I said that I found it disrespectful because he genuinely did not realize how much time had passed and did not emotionally understand why it affected me so strongly.
When he the proceeded to ask about my day, I got upset and eventually told him to “leave me alone.” He then took that very literally and emotionally withdrew almost completely for around two days because he thought I wanted space and because he said he was exhausted from constant conflict. During that time he mostly played games and tried to avoid more arguments, while I felt devastated because to me it was obvious I was hurt and needed emotional repair, not actual abandonment.
That situation basically became the breaking point. We had a camping trip planned with his friend group, and during the conflict I had already considered selling my ticket. When we talked again and I thought everything was fine, he said he thought it would actually be better if I did not come because we needed some space from each other after the last weeks. That completely shattered me emotionally because to me it felt like he didnt want me in his life and preferred peace without me while I will be left alone. I reacted badly too and basically said that if he was going camping while I stayed home alone and devastated, maybe we should just make it a prolonged relationship break instead of this strange in-between situation. I just wanted to gain some control and didnt want to be just left alone while he is having a good time.
So we agreed to take a break for a undefined time, but at least while he goes camping. But then I got removed from a future Japan travel group with his friends, which emotionally destroyed me even more because now it felt like I was not only excluded from the present, but also from the future. I asked him to bring me some stuff I still had in his apartment and when he did and then left, I completely broke down crying, called him back after he had already left, begged him not to go, and emotionally collapsed in front of him. Meanwhile he stayed comparatively calm and emotionally controlled, which made me feel even more abandoned and unloved.
He says he still loves me but that he is emotionally exhausted, that the relationship became constant conflict, that he needs peace and space to think, and that he no longer knows whether we are emotionally compatible. He wants to talk to me again next week.
I feel like if someone truly loved me enough, they would not leave me alone in this state, exclude me from trips and future plans, or seem emotionally detached while I am falling apart.
At the same time, I can acknowledge that I repeatedly brought the Johanna topic back up for months, told him multiple times that I might never have dated him if I had known the full story, became increasingly anxious and emotionally dependent on reassurance, and probably made him feel like he could never fully repair the damage or ever truly “be enough” again. Now, I think that I have learned from this and could leave the Maria-topic behind just to be with him.
Now I honestly do not know whether this relationship became toxic beyond repair, whether his behavior is understandable emotional exhaustion or emotional abandonment that shows that he doesnt care about me enough, whether I am justified in feeling deeply betrayed and unsafe, or whether my inability to let the past go slowly destroyed the relationship. I still love him deeply and according to him he also does
What do you think about this?