/feels/ - Advice & Venting

I think I’m reaching the end of my relationship and I can’t tell if I’m finally becoming honest with myself or just spiraling.

The weirdest part is that my boyfriend has no idea how much manipulation and performance existed at the beginning of our relationship on my side. Not even in a cartoon evil way. More like… I knew how to become what he wanted emotionally and I did it very intentionally. Sometimes when he says romantic things to me now, I get this horrible detached feeling because instead of hearing sincerity, my brain immediately goes: “yeah, but you engineered this.” Like I built the emotional architecture and now I’m uncomfortable living inside it.

But then another part of me wonders if ALL relationships are kind of like this to some extent. Maybe most people just aren’t self-aware enough to interrogate attraction and attachment this hard. Maybe everyone performs a version of themselves in the beginning and then later feels trapped by it. I genuinely can’t tell anymore if I’m uniquely toxic or just hyper-conscious of dynamics most people leave unexamined.

Lately I’ve been thinking about ending things. I can feel him trying harder to get closer to me, texting more, being more attentive, wanting reassurance. It almost feels like he senses me slipping away. And instead of making me feel loved, it makes me feel trapped and guilty. Sometimes I can’t tell if he actually deeply loves me or if he’s terrified he won’t find someone else who fulfills certain emotional needs for him. Then I wonder if I’m the reason he feels that way now. Like maybe I slowly trained him into emotional dependency and now I resent him for it.

What’s also confusing is that one of the reasons I liked him initially was because he felt normal compared to me. Grounded. Socially functional. Less mentally tangled. But over time he started becoming stranger, more isolated, more emotionally intense, and I genuinely can’t tell whether that was always inside him or if being close to me dragged it out. I hate even typing that because it sounds narcissistic, but it’s honestly something I think about a lot.

And despite all this, he gets under my skin in a way nobody else ever has. It’s almost physical. Certain tones in his voice or certain phrases instantly trigger rage or disgust or panic in me and I become obsessed with analyzing WHY he has that effect on me specifically. Sometimes I think I’m psychologically studying him more than loving him. Which is probably awful to admit.

We’ve both said ugly things to each other. He’s called me crazy and emotionally abusive during fights and honestly… maybe he’s not completely wrong. I know I’ve tried to “change” him before under the guise of helping him grow or “see things differently,” but looking back I think a lot of it was me needing him to validate my worldview so I could feel less alone in it. And I don’t even think he truly changed in the ways I imagined. I think eventually he just got exhausted and stopped resisting me.

That realization makes me feel sick.

I wanted harmony with him in the beginning. I really did. But the relationship slowly turned into this constant power struggle where we keep alternating between needing each other, resenting each other, trying to save each other, and trying to escape each other.

I don’t think I’m a terrible person, but I also don’t think I’ve been a particularly good one in this relationship either.

Part of me wants to leave quietly and start the next chapter of my life before we damage each other more. I want to pursue my own goals and become someone I can actually respect. But there’s also grief there because underneath all the dysfunction, I did love him. Maybe still do.

I just regret so much of what I turned this relationship into.