Conflicted and confused

*Warning: extremely long rant at 3 am*

I’m starting to question my whole relationship. I’m engaged and have been for a year, but I can’t believe I’m starting to realize how bad this relationship might be for me. I’m having a hard time figuring out if it’s always been like this and I’ve just been blind to it or if it’s only been going on increasing over time. I’m a sensitive person because I was bullied all my life about my looks, so I literally have such low self esteem/ confidence. I’ve been in relationships where men have used that against me to hurt me, so in this one I made sure to tell my man what’s been done in the past and why I’m sensitive and that I’m telling him because I want to be open and communicate it now so as to avoid it later.

Well a while later (like over 6 months into a relationship) I mentioned the beach or vacation or something and he made a ‘joke’ like “got to get that beach bod” and I was like... are you kidding me. I was offended that he didn’t think I already had one, and that he could make such and insensitive joke about my body when I previously warned him I can’t take a joke like that cuz I don’t think it’s funny. To me, if you can say it then you mean it somewhere in your heart cuz how is that even funny. So when I tried to (calmly) be like hey that’s not ok, he got really defensive about it. Oh it was just a joke. And I was like dude I TOLD you I can’t take a joke about my body. I tried to plead my side in the most effective way I could but he ended up ignoring me for like 2-3 days before I finally sent another message that he replied to. We talked and talked and he made it seem like I wanted to change him cuz he was a jokester that would joke about anything and everything, I was being too sensitive. I needed to get help for how low my self esteem was and for not being able to take the joke. I eventually just took the blame, apologized, and starting seeing my counselor about it.

What really bothers me is I had to admit I was being too sensitive but he couldn’t admit he was being insensitive.

And that’s not even the problem I’m facing right now. Ever since then, I felt like I couldn’t truly speak up about not liking something he said or did. He’s all the time like “oh when my mom and step dad fight they just get angry and yell and blame each other without taking a step back, cooling off, then actually communicating.” He claimed we would communicate about problems, yet any time we run into them he doesn’t communicate. We rarely fight/ have disagreements, like I can count the ones we’ve have on my hands and we’ve been together 2.5 years now.

All this is leading up to what happened recently. I complain about live to him all the time (not too much I hope—I mean I always asked to make sure I wasn’t complain too much and he would reassure me that he was there for me to complain to) and he was never patronizing about it. Well a couple of weeks ago he replied to something I said with “welcome to the real world.” And I was like... excuuuuse me?? I didn’t raise a stink about it then because I was stressed from school and didn’t want to deal with an argument, plus as I mentioned about I don’t feel like I can be open without him getting defensive.

So this PSR Saturday I was complaining about the dumb people making it harder for everyone else amidst this pandemic (cuz it’s good to talk about things and get it out of your system). His reply to it was “that’s literally life.” And I was like great now this again. I told him it to stop saying that, “it’s true,” and I said it’s condescending, “it’s true” was his reply again. He didn’t say it wasn’t supposed to be taken in a patronizing way until I really started to be like yo I’m not dumb. Defense mode: on. Then all of a sudden it was me who took it the wrong way. It was a statement, not meant in a condescending way. Now I do feel like I read too much into it be it wasn’t the first time he’s said something that could seem like it was condescending. But how was I supposed to know that the way he texted those words to me were meant to be a normal statement and not a patronizing statement.

I really tried to express my feelings and help him see my way but he just wasn’t having it. Now I’m someone who blindly argues frequently? That’s so crazy to hear because like I said I can count our disagreements on my hands. I was not arguing at all, I was calmly expressing my feelings and explaining how what he did hurt me. We finally got to a point where I apologized for taking it wrong. I said I admit I took it the wrong way and apologized but I also wanted him to admit what he did so I said I wanted us both to admit everything because we both think the other is in the wrong somehow and while I admit I was in the wrong at first, how he reacted to everything wasn’t in the right.

Well, he ignored me. I know when he ignores me cuz he will be active on social media (especially Instagram). If he’s got time to be on insta i know he has time to text cuz if he’s super busy he won’t get on insta. I’ve researched what to do a little bit. I’m giving him his space but dang this plays into that lack of communication, he’s being immature by ignoring me in the first place, and if he wanted space he could have said so. I find it highly immature to purposely ignore your significant other like that. People may try to say oh no one has to tell you they want space, but a good communicator doesn’t ignore somebody when they want space, they let them know, simple as “hey I need space, I’ll get back to you in a few days.” I don’t know how long I should wait for a reply or wait to try to start another (unrelated) convo. I’m really nervous as to what our convo will be like when we (if we ever do) speak again.

I was really cool and collected throughout all of this, I never used blaming language I only expressed how I felt and why.

I’m trying to not be too in my head about this but I fear my relationship might be coming to an end. Whether he’s gonna end it or I am cuz I’m kinda fed up with this. I deserve better. But at the same time I’m engaged and committed and he should be too. This would be the dumbest breakup.