Relationship Coaching Part 2

I’ve read back through my submission 3 times and I’m still struggling with it.

The “should we stay together / break up” conversation has come up twice since I submitted part 1 and I feel at such a loss. It doesn’t help that I am feeling so mentally drained after a busy work period and feel like I can’t think straight. I’m struggling to answer the questions you kindly offered up.

I really do want someone to tell me what to do and tell me it’s going to be ok. I am so scared of making the wrong decision, for the both of us. And in all honesty I don’t know what I want to do.

You asked what DO I know?
I know he sees children in his future and right now I don’t.
I know I want more from this relationship. I want to know it’s going somewhere and right now it feels like it isn’t. It doesn’t feel like it’s moved anywhere in the time we’ve been together. We aren’t even intimate anymore (not that we were much before). It’s gone back to feeling like I’m hanging out with a friend and they’ve just come to stay round.
If we were to break up, I know I would miss him. I would feel really lonely without him. I know I said we’re not really intimate, but I would miss being touched or held or being that close with someone.

The mortgage renewal felt like a deadline because I’m then “locked in” to something that has consequences to get out of if we do decide to move in together in say 6-12 mths time. I also don’t think I would be in a good position financially to buy on my own again if we were to move in together and then break up.

I spoke about it with a friend recently and she mentioned that I am allowed time to decide if I want children for myself. And that felt like such a breath of fresh air, like someone was allowing me permission to just see how I feel with time. But the more the children conversation comes up with my partner the more I don’t want it at all. I feel so much pressure.

I’ve suggested I just renew my mortgage and we try living in each other’s homes and see how that feels. For example, he lives with me for a week/mth and I do the same with him. I know it means we’re paying our own bills and not living in our homes all the time, but it gives us that bit of security if it doesn’t work out. But if I’m really honest I hate being in his house. I feel so uncomfortable and I just want to be at mine with all my stuff around me. He comes to me all the time and now I’ve got used to it.

Having these really heavy, emotional conversations is driving a wedge between us. I don’t know if I’m being naive to think we can move past this or am I just delaying an inevitable break up further down the line.

Maybe I live in a dream world too much but I don’t feel madly in love, I’m not swept off my feet, and feel like we have a future together and it makes me sad. We’ve gotten too comfortable with not doing anything, not making a life together and just living our separate lives and coming together for a few days at the end of the week to hang out. I feel like with our mental health issues (his driving and my anxiety) we’ve become each other’s therapist rather than boyfriend/girlfriend.
Maybe I’m asking too much from life – living together, travelling, doing days out, doing fun things together – and it’s just not attainable.
And I’m worried that we’ve spoken before about creating change after having these conversations and nothing has changed so maybe nothing will.

In the April VIP call, Maisie said something about “we can build an association between alarm bells going off, therefore there’s a process of questioning should I stay or should I go.” How do you know when you should go?

 

 

Answer:

 

These decisions can be and feel so tender. Few people are immune to this kind of grief, and we honor this human experience in every way.

We give you permission to live your life the way you want to live it with the people you want to live it with – but can you give this to yourself? Get curious about why or why not.

If there was no possible way you could make the wrong choice, what would you decide to do today? What’s standing in the way of you doing just that?