My (26F) boyfriend (28M) is upset I don't take the lead or actively motivate him to achieve his goals

Hi, I am at a loss.

My boyfriend and I have been together for around 2.5 years, we love each other and care about each other. We have our ups and downs, but lately we have been arguing about this:

I am working in clinical research at a prestigious hospital, I work over 50 hours a week (9-5, break for 2-3 hours, log in around 8 or 9 and continue working until 1 AM, almost every night). I am very stressed out and exhausted, I am responsible for a lot of patient care, some days, I honestly feel like breaking down under my workload.

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My boyfriend wants to go to medical school. He is currently in a masters program. Over the summer, my boyfriend took the MCAT and did very well. However, while he was studying, he started expressing that he was upset that I wasn't taking a more active role in his MCAT prep. I asked what he meant, he said "figure out my study schedule with me, push me to study, etc." This really threw me off. We don't live together, this was during the beginning part of the pandemic and I hadn't seen him in person, in several months. Additionally, I've never asked him to do this for me, not when I was taking difficult coursework nor when I was interviewing for jobs. We argued a lot about this, I tried to tell him that this was his responsibility, not mine to make sure he was studying. I ended up feeling bad about just passively asking how his studying was going each time we talked, I stayed with him at his home (after we both quarantined) for an unrelated reason and ended up helping him study every so often or checking on him while he was studying during the work day (I am working remotely).

Because of this, I tried to be more active for his admission to this masters program, I nagged him for weeks to send me his personal statement after he agreed that I could edit it. We fought a lot about it because I would make time to edit and he wouldn't send it to me, saying he needed more time. I felt like when I was trying to take on a more active role, my time was not being valued, especially despite how much I work on a daily basis at my own job. Once he finally finished, I edited it with him for a long time, a few nights before the deadline. I even tried to do a little interview prep before his admission interview. He was admitted this fall.

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Fast forward 6 or 7 months and this theme has popped up in other places. I am out of shape and do want to get healthier, and so does my boyfriend. We both casually talked about doing workouts together but haven't done so frequently. Lately, my boyfriend has brought up that he's upset that I don't take the lead in pushing him to work out or be healthy or bring up this topic when we talk to each other. I myself have been trying to be healthy and take it slow with working out so that I build better habits. I haven't been great at it but I feel stressed out and demotivated with him pressuring me to go at his pace. I am confused because while I care about my boyfriend's health, I don't understand why it's my responsibility to make sure he stays healthy, just like it's not his responsibility to make sure I'm working out and eating well.

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Today I asked how his classes are going and he vaguely mentioned things were OK, and said "thanks for asking" in kind of a snarky way. When I pointed out his tone, he said that he knew I didn't really care about his schoolwork, I was pretty confused. I kept asking him to elaborate, and long story short he said that if I wasn't going to take an active role in motivating him in his academics, I need not ask him about how school is going because it feels very half assed.

I started to get upset because I do care about his academic career since it's a big part of his life at the moment and he kept saying he was sensitive about it (school) or that i'm half assing my concern and care. I tend to bring up when I feel hurt and need him to be more empathetic or caring/sensitive and though we sometimes argue, he's made a lot of effort to be better to me. He said that I make him feel like his needs (i.e motivating him to achieve his goals) are not important and that our whole relationship is just my needs and not his. I ended up crying after we argued, just out of sheer frustration. I felt like that conversation was a mindfuck. We didn't end the call on good terms or resolving anything.

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Tl;dr, my boyfriend feels I'm not taking the lead in motivating him and that our relationship only revolves around my needs. I don't know if I'm in the wrong, or if he is, or we both are?

Submitted January 19, 2021 at 10:42PM by moncoeurpourtoi https://ift.tt/3bPBIp4