u/oatttmeal-enjoyer

Hi guys, I’m 24f, and have been with my bf (24m) for a year.

We were having a conversation today over phone about how he’s about to publish the website for his personal training business. He had also told me that his mom heard about this and sent him a message saying she was proud of him, apologized to him, and offered to take him to buy new clothes and running shoes. Him and her don’t have a good relationship, he had cut her off once for something that had happened, then they reconnected after a year and were fine for another year until she did something again that made him not want to be in her life anymore. He recently went low contact (not full NC yet) with her again. He told me he felt like her message was pure manipulation to guilt trip him.

I agreed and said it sounded really manipulative. For extra context, I am autistic and have ADHD as well as anxiety, and sometimes I have good intentions but will accidentally say something really blunt or inconsiderate without realizing it was harmful until afterwards. Sometimes I will overthink little things, like how I should respond in serious moments, and I end up making it worse. That’s exactly what I did here. I was thinking to myself, what is he gonna do? Is he gonna maintain contact with her (even just for the business connections because she also owns her own business)? Is he gonna respond to her? Is he gonna take up her offer? It was from a sense of pure curiosity and honestly wanting to not say the “wrong” thing. But I instead came off very insulting and asked “are you going to take advantage of that?” In regard to her taking him shopping. I am NOT a materialistic person, and for me to hyperfixate on that instead of his feelings was extremely wrong of me.

He got upset at me, and of course he’s allowed to be upset at me, I was very rude and inconsiderate. But then he accused me of being selfish because my mind immediately went to asking him if he would use his own mom for free stuff. He also said I was projecting and showing my true character more and more and now he is having second thoughts about us and has a terrible impression of me.

I texted him afterwards apologizing. I specifically said:

“I’m sorry, that does come off as really fucked up

That’s not something I would do and I know it’s not something you would do either, the connection in my mind is extremely selfish

For me to list that out loud is extremely concerning and I am sorry for leaving a terrible impression“

He was very short in his response. I followed it up by saying that I’m sorry, and i didn’t mean to alarm or upset, but that doesn’t change the impact of my action. I need to be more cautious and considerate going forward. He just told me he learns more and more about my character every week. I tried more and more to explain my intentions and the thoughts I had in the moment, and again, I know it doesn’t change how wrong I was, but I did not mean it with any ill intent.

He told me to stop explaining myself and now he’s scared of me. He said I do this often and always claim it’s just a slip up in my communication, and I need to realize how selfish my tendencies have always been. Wrote “I’m getting genuinely worried of who you are as a person”.

He listed two past examples of me being selfish. One of them genuinely was, it was months ago when we had sex and when I thought someone was about to walk in on us, out of instinct I covered myself with the blanket while he was still exposed. Yeah, that is very, very selfish. That happened in January and I have apologized countless times for it, and in his shoes I’d feel distrustful too after that.

The other example he used was when his family got covid and we had been exposed as well. I immediately freaked out, because between the time of being exposed to covid and being notified of it, I had visited my sick grandfather and was terrified he’d catch it and pass away. I didn’t realize until after he was upset at me that his grandmother also had cancer and was at risk of catching covid too because she was exposed. Because I had immediately thought of my own family instead of asking about his family first (which I should have done), that was really telling to him about my selfishness.

I apologized again and again and said I understood why he was scared of me, and I am showing through these tendencies I can be very inconsiderate. I did feel invalidaded when he specifically told me it’s not an issue of my communication and I just inherently think selfishly. There are times I have, and there are times I feel I have been very selfless. I can’t tell him he’s wrong for feeling the way he does, but it makes me feel like nothing else I do matters when he’s already set on determining my entire character. I explained my intentions again in a paragraph.

He responded to it saying I’m denying and lying about my intentions, and he’s scared of people like me. Said he doesn’t know if he wants to be with me anymore.

I kept trying to explain that I see where he’s coming from, though wasn’t lying. Yes I did explain and I see how that comes off as defensive, but I was also really putting in an emphasis to apologize and validate his feelings first and foremost.

Then he sent me:

“why won’t you just be honest with yourself.
You know you yourself don’t even have time to process quick. Please just stop. Your head in the heat of that did not have time to think of all those other things, based on the history of your processing, you simply didn’t reply,
Until hearing something that stuck out to make you reply, and that was towards of her offer of clothes/shoes, which makes you immediately say “take advantage”. You take 10 minutes to think out texts. You take 14 minutes to form an entire different perspective that doesn’t exist. You’re gonna sit there and tell me that in 30 seconds, you processed all of the outcomes, and then “just happened to say the worst thing in the worst way”. No. It’s just you, and how your head worked based on the words it heard, in that moment.

You can be in denial,

I’m not.

And I’m doing all this work and everything for someone who continues to prove they just aren’t a good person. This denial and explanation instead of acceptance of who you are and growth is why we won’t ever work, until you accept yourself and change. Growth is impossible through denial. I’m done denying who you are and that’s why I’m done seeing you, regardless of last night”

At this point he kept claiming I’m lying and I just gave in and agreed with him because I was tired and wanted to make things okay again. After doing that, he told me to be more grateful that he was speaking to me so patiently and maturely. Then he said he feels very distrustful of me now because I lied.

Then he randomly asked me if conventionally attractive people are often times more single because their partners start to feel insecure and make them feel more alone. I don’t really get how his physique (on top of being a trainer he is a pro athlete) and constantly doing better in his life has anything to do with our issues, so I was honest that yeah maybe it’s like that for some people, but for our relationship I don’t feel insecure of how you’re doing, i only ever feel proud and I want to be better as well so we can grow together. I wrote a few paragraphs reflecting on my feelings of the matter, things that maybe did used to be insecurities but aren’t anymore, and I reassured him that it isn’t the case. In those paragraphs, i gave him compliments and specifically wrote how I’m in the wrong and honestly put myself down a bit just so show that I’m sorry for everything today.

He said I was extremely defensive and snappy, how I’m taking everything he says as accusatory, and how I am prioritizing explaining my own reasons instead of validating his feelings. I was genuinely so confused because I thought I was answering a question and I didn’t feel snappy at all, so I wrote this but did apologize multiple times afterwards. He literally cannot communicate with me despite not finding a single flaw in his own communication, how I make it so impossible, I take everything he says personally, he wants to be alone tonight, and to fuck off. Even brought up an example of how he called me earlier to talk about it, and asked what the wind was (I guess he heard wind from my end of the phone? I was confused because I was sitting in a silent bedroom so I said “what? I’m not outside right now”), I even took that as an accusation and attacked him. I was bewildered because I was genuinely confused, not upset, but I thought maybe my tone had come off wrong or something.

The very last text he sent is that he’s sad every night because of me and I’m making him cry

You can say this is a small thing to have an argument over but things like this happen more and more often and I feel so confused. I’m not asking this for validation, if I am in the wrong snd overreacting or the AH, PLEASE let me know because I am going crazy

Hi guys, I’m 24f, and have been with my bf (24m) for a year.

We were having a conversation today over phone about how he’s about to publish the website for his personal training business. He had also told me that his mom heard about this and sent him a message saying she was proud of him, apologized to him, and offered to take him to buy new clothes and running shoes. Him and her don’t have a good relationship, he had cut her off once for something that had happened, then they reconnected after a year and were fine for another year until she did something again that made him not want to be in her life anymore. He recently went low contact (not full NC yet) with her again. He told me he felt like her message was pure manipulation to guilt trip him.

I agreed and said it sounded really manipulative. For extra context, I am autistic and have ADHD as well as anxiety, and sometimes I have good intentions but will accidentally say something really blunt or inconsiderate without realizing it was harmful until afterwards. Sometimes I will overthink little things, like how I should respond in serious moments, and I end up making it worse. That’s exactly what I did here. I was thinking to myself, what is he gonna do? Is he gonna maintain contact with her (even just for the business connections because she also owns her own business)? Is he gonna respond to her? Is he gonna take up her offer? It was from a sense of pure curiosity and honestly wanting to not say the “wrong” thing. But I instead came off very insulting and asked “are you going to take advantage of that?” In regard to her taking him shopping. I am NOT a materialistic person, and for me to hyperfixate on that instead of his feelings was extremely wrong of me.

He got upset at me, and of course he’s allowed to be upset at me, I was very rude and inconsiderate. But then he accused me of being selfish because my mind immediately went to asking him if he would use his own mom for free stuff. He also said I was projecting and showing my true character more and more and now he is having second thoughts about us and has a terrible impression of me.

I texted him afterwards apologizing. I specifically said:

“I’m sorry, that does come off as really fucked up

That’s not something I would do and I know it’s not something you would do either, the connection in my mind is extremely selfish

For me to list that out loud is extremely concerning and I am sorry for leaving a terrible impression“

He was very short in his response. I followed it up by saying that I’m sorry, and i didn’t mean to alarm or upset, but that doesn’t change the impact of my action. I need to be more cautious and considerate going forward. He just told me he learns more and more about my character every week. I tried more and more to explain my intentions and the thoughts I had in the moment, and again, I know it doesn’t change how wrong I was, but I did not mean it with any ill intent.

He told me to stop explaining myself and now he’s scared of me. He said I do this often and always claim it’s just a slip up in my communication, and I need to realize how selfish my tendencies have always been. Wrote “I’m getting genuinely worried of who you are as a person”.

He listed two past examples of me being selfish. One of them genuinely was, it was months ago when we had sex and when I thought someone was about to walk in on us, out of instinct I covered myself with the blanket while he was still exposed. Yeah, that is very, very selfish. That happened in January and I have apologized countless times for it, and in his shoes I’d feel distrustful too after that.

The other example he used was when his family got covid and we had been exposed as well. I immediately freaked out, because between the time of being exposed to covid and being notified of it, I had visited my sick grandfather and was terrified he’d catch it and pass away. I didn’t realize until after he was upset at me that his grandmother also had cancer and was at risk of catching covid too because she was exposed. Because I had immediately thought of my own family instead of asking about his family first (which I should have done), that was really telling to him about my selfishness.

I apologized again and again and said I understood why he was scared of me, and I am showing through these tendencies I can be very inconsiderate. I did feel invalidaded when he specifically told me it’s not an issue of my communication and I just inherently think selfishly. There are times I have, and there are times I feel I have been very selfless. I can’t tell him he’s wrong for feeling the way he does, but it makes me feel like nothing else I do matters when he’s already set on determining my entire character. I explained my intentions again in a paragraph.

He responded to it saying I’m denying and lying about my intentions, and he’s scared of people like me. Said he doesn’t know if he wants to be with me anymore.

I kept trying to explain that I see where he’s coming from, though wasn’t lying. Yes I did explain and I see how that comes off as defensive, but I was also really putting in an emphasis to apologize and validate his feelings first and foremost.

Then he sent me:

“why won’t you just be honest with yourself.
You know you yourself don’t even have time to process quick. Please just stop. Your head in the heat of that did not have time to think of all those other things, based on the history of your processing, you simply didn’t reply,
Until hearing something that stuck out to make you reply, and that was towards of her offer of clothes/shoes, which makes you immediately say “take advantage”. You take 10 minutes to think out texts. You take 14 minutes to form an entire different perspective that doesn’t exist. You’re gonna sit there and tell me that in 30 seconds, you processed all of the outcomes, and then “just happened to say the worst thing in the worst way”. No. It’s just you, and how your head worked based on the words it heard, in that moment.

You can be in denial,

I’m not.

And I’m doing all this work and everything for someone who continues to prove they just aren’t a good person. This denial and explanation instead of acceptance of who you are and growth is why we won’t ever work, until you accept yourself and change. Growth is impossible through denial. I’m done denying who you are and that’s why I’m done seeing you, regardless of last night”

At this point he kept claiming I’m lying and I just gave in and agreed with him because I was tired and wanted to make things okay again. After doing that, he told me to be more grateful that he was speaking to me so patiently and maturely. Then he said he feels very distrustful of me now because I lied.

Then he randomly asked me if conventionally attractive people are often times more single because their partners start to feel insecure and make them feel more alone. I don’t really get how his physique (on top of being a trainer he is a pro athlete) and constantly doing better in his life has anything to do with our issues, so I was honest that yeah maybe it’s like that for some people, but for our relationship I don’t feel insecure of how you’re doing, i only ever feel proud and I want to be better as well so we can grow together. I wrote a few paragraphs reflecting on my feelings of the matter, things that maybe did used to be insecurities but aren’t anymore, and I reassured him that it isn’t the case. In those paragraphs, i gave him compliments and specifically wrote how I’m in the wrong and honestly put myself down a bit just so show that I’m sorry for everything today.

He said I was extremely defensive and snappy, how I’m taking everything he says as accusatory, and how I am prioritizing explaining my own reasons instead of validating his feelings. I was genuinely so confused because I thought I was answering a question and I didn’t feel snappy at all, so I wrote this but did apologize multiple times afterwards. He literally cannot communicate with me despite not finding a single flaw in his own communication, how I make it so impossible, I take everything he says personally, he wants to be alone tonight, and to fuck off. Even brought up an example of how he called me earlier to talk about it, and asked what the wind was (I guess he heard wind from my end of the phone? I was confused because I was sitting in a silent bedroom so I said “what? I’m not outside right now”), I even took that as an accusation and attacked him. I was bewildered because I was genuinely confused, not upset, but I thought maybe my tone had come off wrong or something.

The very last text he sent is that he’s sad every night because of me and I’m making him cry

You can say this is a small thing to have an argument over but things like this happen more and more often and I feel so confused. I’m not asking this for validation, if I am in the wrong snd overreacting or the buttface, PLEASE let me know because I am going crazy