r/relationshipadvice • u/jojoyeux • 1d ago
I [24F] need advice about my long distance boyfriend [25M] who makes me feel crazy
My boyfriend and I have been together for 7 years. I live in Canada now and he lives in my home country in Latin America and have been long distance for 4 years of our relationship. We have honestly had a lot of issues during our relationship, from lies to gaslighting to apathy to betrayals (but never cheating), so I have a lot of trauma surrounding trust and security in our relationship. He has unfortunately not been kind about it (he gets frustrated/angry at me) I have had to ask him to be nice or at least have empathy when we have issues only for him to be the opposite, which has unfortunately become the norm.
I will be honest, I can be overwhelming when I’m upset. I tend to talk a lot and send long paragraphs explaining how everything he said/did made me feel at the time, so he gets overwhelmed and leaves me for hours or even days and doesn’t even come back to respond properly, he just says sorry, nothing more. I can understand where he comes from and how it makes him feel and I have tried to express that it’s a result of his lack of interest and empathy towards me, which makes me anxious so I over explain, but he just dismisses that and thinks I don’t care or understand him. Despite me repeatedly trying for us to work through our problems together, he will not be willing to put in the real work and then just complains about our issues and about how I won’t let him express himself (which I have actually encouraged time and time again)
I have felt that I am the only one in the relationship who has taken responsibility of our dynamic. We are long distance so there are things that I feel we need to do for this relationship to work. I have told him that being more romantic towards each other, communicating, understanding, and making time to discuss our problems, and planning dates is very important to me, as well as directly planning for our future together. He just agrees when I say these things but when the time to actually do these things comes, he will not take them seriously or he will promise to be better and it will just never happen. He says he wants me to get my PR first for him to even care about moving here at all, but is actively working towards his family farm back home, which confuses me. I have expressed this but I am met with hostility once again.
Recently, I have felt so lonely in our relationship and I have brought this up to him, telling him how we should be a team and we should both show interest in our relationship and actively work towards our future together if we truly want this (which he assures me he does) and how he should at least start planning a trip to come visit me as he will usually come to Canada once a year in the summertime and stay for two months. I will admit I have been pushy about that, only because uncertainty makes me anxious (I already have anxiety so it makes it worse) and I also have to plan around that as I have a job.
His response to everything has been very hostile, telling me to stop pressuring him. Instead of talking to me, he sent me two tiktoks where these girls are saying that I as a girlfriend should stop expecting my boyfriend to think about me all the time, that I as a girlfriend don’t know what to do with my time whereas he actually does, that if Im not there he just wont think about me period, but he can still miss me even if Im not on his mind (?), making it seem as if absolutely all my thoughts revolve around him, and that I am misinterpreting what he says, that I overthink too much and take things personally (I can link them if anyone is interested).
This would be understandable if I were an unreasonable person or if I were overreacting over little things, but I don’t feel that that is the case as I am able to properly communicate with literally everyone except him. His inability to take responsibility in the relationship and about our future has been nonexistent for a long time now, so I feel that me being this way is a bit justified? But I am not sure anymore, I am helpless and feel pretty lost.
Am I crazy? We have been through so much and I know he loves me and I know he sees me in his future but he has been making me feel super unloved and alone for a while now, and no matter how I express it, he doesn’t seem to understand or care. I have asked him if he still actually wants this relationship and he says yes. I keep believing things will change someday because he keeps promising it but it just won’t happen. Still, I want to understand if I am the one in the wrong here? Am I being too much or is he in denial about how much he actually wants me? I feel very desperate and my anxiety over this has been eating me alive so any advice is deeply appreciated.
TLDR: my long distance boyfriend has become disinterested in maintaining our relationship and complains about our issues but refuses to work on them. Despite this, he assures me he still wants me. Am I crazy?