My boyfriend [33 M] continually fails to congratulate my [26 F] academic successes; is it reasonable for me to feel as hurt as I am?

I am a mathematics PhD student at a large university who will finish my degree in the spring. I've always made it clear to my boyfriend of three years that completing my degree is a huge priority and personal achievement for me.

I want to share my successes with him, and he says he wants to be my cheerleader, but his responses often fail to align with this. Examples:

1) I was asked to be the head teaching assistant for the largest quantitative course at the university. I was so psyched but when I told my boyfriend, he was disappointed that I took the position since it would be a serious time commitment. I described how disappointed I was by his response, and he recognized that it was a bit selfish of him to see this opportunity solely in terms of the resulting inflexibility in my schedule.

2) I prepared a long presentation (using Latex/Beamer for anyone out there who is familiar with that document class) for a milestone committee meeting and showed it to him because I was proud of my hard work. His first response (he has a art degree) is that he thought the slides could look a bit nicer. When I responded that I thought they looked fantastic and adhered to the standards of my field, he responded that maybe I did the best I could given the restrictions.

3) My first paper was accepted for publication recently. I was over the moon and he was the first person I texted. He said 'great job' but then never mentioned it when I saw him in person. I thought that maybe he didn't understand how important it was to me, so I tried to explain further. His attitude didn't change from the initial response and he said 'that's nice'.

I'm seriously considering breaking up with him today over these things (and some other lingering issues we've had; these comments are the tipping point). Is it unreasonable for me to be so upset over these things? Am I over-inflating my successes? He always says he wants to support me and will always be excited for me, but in practice, he never is.

TLDR: Boyfriend says he wants to be my cheerleader but consistently fails to support my successes in practice; is it reasonable for me to be as upset as I am?

Submitted November 18, 2018 at 05:43AM by rockabyethrowaway https://ift.tt/2S06y0Z