My (26F) boyfriend (27M) gets defensive when I bring up relationship concerns and doesn’t follow through on his promises

We’ve been together for 5 years, living together for 2.5, and having these issues for about 2-3 years. No kids. I’m exhausted. I’m a full-time grad student and he works full time. Sorry in advance if this is incoherent.

Most of our issues involve communication. He’ll often (at least 1x-2x/week) be in a visibly bad mood and say he’s “fine” when I ask him what’s up. If I don’t ask him further, he’ll be irritable and either snarky or not talkative for the rest of the evening. If I do follow up, he’ll eventually say that something I did earlier upset him, but he doesn’t communicate that at all in the moment and I’m not a mind reader. Then, I usually get upset with him (I didn’t at first, but after years of this...), voice how it makes me feel using I-statements, and he’ll say “sorry, won’t happen again” but won’t offer a solution to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so I’ll ask him what he plans to do so this won’t happen again. He usually says “I don’t know” and eventually he says he’ll read about it online, or I’ll suggest something like that. And then...nothing. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t do any of what he says he’ll do. And then he does the same exact shit the day after or the week after. Sometimes I say that I’m upset that this kind of thing keeps happening and he’ll get defensive, make sarcastic comments, cry, say that I need to do things differently (which I have...nothing changed on his side), explain that he feels nervous, etc. I’m so tired. I just want him to communicate with me like an adult.

For example, yesterday, I realized we planted flower bulbs that would be toxic for our cat when they bloomed, and voiced my concerns to my partner. He offered to throw the flowers away and - after asking if that was ok with him - told him that sounded good, since I was busy with something else. When he was done with that, he was visibly in a bad mood. I asked him what was up a few times and he finally said that he wanted my help digging the flowers up and throwing them away and that he thought it was obvious. He never said anything about wanting help with that. I got angry and said that I need him to communicate these things to me because I can’t read his mind. He basically lied to me that it was fine with him when it wasn’t. I asked why it’s hard for him to communicate. He apologized and said he’ll “work on it.” I asked how, since reading doesn’t seem to work for him, and he got defensive and angry with me and said that he doesn’t know what to do.

I want to end things, but I’m hesitant. Our anniversary is in a week, I’m still emotionally attached to him, I don’t want to move but can’t afford our place by myself, he’s a good roommate (good at cleaning), and COVID makes me hesitant to find new roommates. I’m also hesitant to break up with him because part of the reason I picked my current grad school program over a program I was more excited about was to be closer to his family since I knew he’d be coming with me. I feel so stupid for being in this situation and making such a huge professional decision for someone who I no longer want to be with.

If I choose to stay with him, what can I do to make things easier? Any recommendations for dealing with someone who refuses to communicate? Am I reacting in ways that make this worse? I’m very open to feedback! We tried couples counseling last year and it wasn’t helpful. Is it worth another shot? Should I just leave already and stop being miserable?

tl;dr: 5-year relationship with communication issues. Boyfriend doesn’t say he has a problem with something even if he actually does, I feel the need to prod at him to figure out what’s wrong, he says what the issue is, I get mad and confused because he didn’t give any indication at the time that anything was wrong, I ask him to not do it again, he apologizes and then proceeds to do the same thing later that week. What do?

Submitted March 24, 2021 at 06:40AM by biggestmistake25 https://ift.tt/3w4MXSn