Hi Everyone, I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for the past 8 years. We first met during a training program at our first job. Initially, we were just friends, but he was very clear from the start that he had feelings for me. At the time, I was still dating someone from my college. But when I moved away from the city, I started realizing that my college relationship wasn’t working out.
Meanwhile, my connection with him deepened, and we eventually got together. Everything felt like a dream. We supported each other and grew together, even though we were working in different cities. We’d still make it a point to meet whenever we could, and we had big dreams of moving abroad and building a life together. Everything felt so perfect until one day, he suddenly asked me for some money, equivalent to my one month’s salary, saying he needed it to help with his studies. I didn’t think twice and lent it to him.
But fast forward a year when I was also planning to move abroad, I asked him if he could return the money. Out of nowhere, he started ignoring me, and after some time, he just completely stopped talking. For a whole year, he disappeared without giving me any reason. I was devastated. I tried reaching out for two months, calling and messaging him endlessly, but he never responded.
Eventually, I decided I had to move on with my life. I didn’t want to stay depressed, so I started meeting new people and focused on turning my life around. Then, suddenly, a few months later, he found out that I was about to move to the same country as him. That’s when he started reaching out again, trying to sort things out. Now, we’re living in the same house, but things are far from the “happily ever after” I imagined.
He constantly gets angry about the fact that I had another boyfriend during the time he wasn’t in my life, even though he’s the one who disappeared without a word. He picks fights over the smallest things, like if there’s any money due from my side. He never spends on me unless I explicitly ask, and he expects me to handle all the household chores, comparing me to his mother, who, he claims, did everything without needing any help.
But the biggest issue is that whenever I bring up marriage, he brushes it off, saying he’ll never marry anyone because he wants total control over his own life. Yet he expects me to stay with him in a live-in relationship indefinitely.
I still love him, but I want a marriage and a family. I have no idea how to find common ground with him, and honestly, I’m struggling to make peace with the idea of moving on and finding someone who actually wants the same things as me.