Realizing my (24M) boyfriend of four years hasn't treated me (23F) very well. Heartbroken and feeling guilty for wanting to end it.

TL;DR: I've realized that my boyfriend of 4 years has been very selfish and neglectful to me and I had become complacent to it and thought I was the problem. Falling out of love with him and I'm struggling to justify staying with him as he's promising to change.

My boyfriend and I met when we were both pretty young. Both still living with our parents, I had just started pursuing a career and we were both in college. Things moved pretty fast with us and we moved in together pretty early. Things seemed good overall. Now we have a place of our own and a dog.

We would regularly have fights about how I wasn't getting enough from him. I would be unhappy with the lack of attention or affection I was receiving. I always felt guilty for asking for any amount of time from him because he would add up all the hours he spent with me (usually not a lot) and use it as a pawn in the argument while also saying I was stifling his passion of music and movies and he would never succeed if he didn't spend X amount of hours on it at a time. But he has a strong tendency for deciding hes going to do something and this is the next big thing and then losing steam within a few months. It has been a source of frustration for me as I struggle to support him in what he wants to do and also simultaneously try to plan for our future. I would try to tell him I was unhappy and wanted to leave and he would say "Love is a choice." So I kept choosing to be in a relationship I was unhappy with and I tried to make the best of it.

When the time came for us to move out of his parents house and into our current home, I did most of the work and set up all the bills in my name and bore most of the financial burden. I was happy to do it to get out of his parents basement and have a space to call our own. I was happy and content with everything. He made promises to go back to school and pursue a degree.

Around November/December 2019 things got bad again with us. We were fighting about the same old same old, mainly I was feeling unappreciated and not feeling loved. We were talking about breaking up, he promised to change as he has so many times, I told him I would give it one more shot.

Our close friend committed suicide hours after we saw him at a New Years Eve party. It wrecked our lives and through this terrible loss we did connect and things got a lot better in terms of our relationship. I've however been made aware that my bf has used our friends death in a strange way to stroke his own ego and has made several off putting comments about how our friend killed himself because he knew our lives and the music scene would be better because of it. He started to make a documentary that was originally set out to honor our friend and the music he made, but his intentions I feel have become twisted and now production is at a practical stand still.

So.. That brings us to now. I reconnected with an old friend who I hadn't seen in years. I vented to him about some small stuff and through us just talking regularly again about our daily lives he pointed out that this relationship wasn't right and my bf wasn't treating me right. It really opened my eyes and got me to start thinking about how I always thought I was in the wrong in this relationship. I was too needy.. Expected too much.. Etc etc. I talked to my bf about my feelings and that I was, once again, unhappy in the relationship. My bf this time fully admitted his faults, and has been willing to change. He's attributed his recent new outlook on life and wanting to improve due to an LSD trip he had a few months back (which frustrates me as someone who has been advocating all these changes and improvement for years).

And now, even though I see him trying and know that he loves me.. I'm so hurt and resentful from how I was treated all these years that I don't know if I can do it anymore. I've fallen out of love, I don't see him the same way. It's killing me and I feel so much guilt and I hate myself for not having the strength to want to stay. He says that this relationship is the best thing in the world to him and he doesn't know what he's going to do.. But I just don't think it's fair to keep him in a relationship that I don't want to be a part of anymore. I told him I want to wait and see, because I truly do and also because COVID19 has complicated everything else on top of it.. But I'm so conflicted in what to do. Everything and everyone is telling me it's time to end it. But I feel like I'm giving up and feel so guilty for not feeling like I can stay

Sorry for the novel, guys. Thanks for reading it all if you did. I appreciate any input

Submitted April 03, 2020 at 09:38AM by Scoot-A-Loo https://ift.tt/3aJHHZ0