I M27 am tired of negativity and snapping in relationship with 29F

[u/wheyo1291]

Hello,

I'm tired of the negativity in my (M27) relationship with my partner (F29). We have been together just under five years, and living together for two.

We are at the stage of considering next steps - namely buying a house, which is hugely exciting. And six months ago, she confirmed she wanted kids - I'm big on family. At first she did want kids, but then she was on the fence for many years - and seemed to be straying to a no. Her decision gave me great relief.

When we're together at home, we are comfortable. Loving, caring, probably cringely romantic. It's nice. She's also faithful, smart, mostly affectionate and has a great family. But I'm worried our comfort is all.

Throughout our relationship, she has displayed recurring negativity and frustration. Summarizing this in a none long-winded way is hard, but in essence, she will have moments of great frustration a couple to several times a day. Reactions can range from common tutting to going silent for a prolonged period, to exclaiming "fuck sake" or clearly snapping at me. A few examples of situations include: navigating a crowd and she feels I go a way she wasn't expecting, dropping something, me being late from work. Neighbours making noise. Pub quiz host being a bit off it. Plans not going to plan. Basically anything she is not expecting. Some days are worse than others - and it's only 5% of the time max, but each instance makes me anxious, feel sad, etc. I've also seen her to do it to her parents, like when her dad clipped the wall with a box after helping carry all our stuff into our house.

She is a perfectionist. When we first moved in, the issues were even more prominent. Soap in the wash bowl? Nightmare. I sat down on the sofa too heavy? Anger. There was a period of frequent frustration and even namecalling. Nothing major, but "stupid" "incompetent" etc. We almost broke up over this, but I raised it, she got better.

At this stage I will quickly clarify that I'm not one of those men who does nothing in the home. I cook every meal (idm this, I like cooking). We share the cleaning duties.

The next issue is conflict. There's hardly any, but when there is, I end up being convinced I'm in the wrong - or I compromise. I don't think she's ever compromised - save for when I raised the namecalling and the severe period of anger when we first moved in

A good example is phones during TV. Watching TV is our only regular activity together, but she will regularly default to spending time on her phone. When I've raised this in the past, it's caused huge debate. She believes she has a right to go on her phone. I argue it's meant to be quality time together, and I feel like she's not present. She's previously been very upset over this and accused me of making her feel anxious or wary of being on her phone. It's also worth raising that she is also on her phone for hours before we sit down to watch TV as I work later, go gym then cook. I don't mind occassional phone checks. I'm not a dictator. But being dragged into a 30 min doomscroll while I alone pay attention makes me feel lonely.

I also find that in conflict she can become quite critical and is prone to storming off.

To wrap this up, I recently started to attend therapy. I have a loving family, but my parents had a challenging marriage in my teens due to a mental health problem. It makes me AWFUL at handling conflict - whereas my partner is excellent at 'winning it'. I wanted to resolve this so I didn't bottle things up and create a more heqalthy relationship with my partner. However, it's actually got me thinking more about the relationship dynamics. Maybe the reason we don't argue is because I'm a bit of a pushover, and we actually don't have a healthy conflict resolution dynamic.

But then there's that part of me that thinks: I'm overeacting. I've had intermittent periods of wanting the single life - which some men may do, and I don't want to be like that. And, with some of the troubles of my childhood, I sometimes feel emotionally disconnected from things. This has resulted in me ignoring or looking past issues, putting my doubts in our relationship down to my own failings.

Given the recurring frustration, criticism, and lack of compromise I've described, how do I know whether these issues are something we can work through or a sign that we're fundamentally incompatible?

tl;dr girlfriend gets frequently frustrated or negative over small things and it's taking a toll on our LTR

[u/IndependentGlass2964]

you sound like me before i got divorced, that walking on eggshells feeling eats your soul slowly

[u/tyrelltsura]

INFO: has your gf been to therapy or otherwise been assessed for OC(P)D and/or autism? Some of the poor responses to unexpected occurrences may be explainable with these, and it’s possible that this is something she needs to seek help for in individual therapy to help her understand why she acts this way and how she can be a better partner. Even with a dx of some kind, she still can’t be snapping at you all the time, nor does her going around constantly dysregulated indicate she is ready to be in a committed relationship. This is something where it’s probably either she goes to therapy for this on her own, or it’s the end of the relationship.

I have autism myself and sometimes I will have a negative reaction to sensory overwhelm. It happens, it’s like stubbing your toe except it’s your brain. But I’m not negative at my partner, I’m upset about the circumstances in which I find myself. And because I’m well aware I’m autistic, I can be proactive and reduce and prevent many situations that might lead to overwhelm. Some of her behavior really does sound like she’s running with a baseline highly dysregulated nervous system with no gas in the tank, for whatever reason that is. It can be fixable but she needs to do a lot of internal work. Which you’re not obligated to stand around and wait for her to do while she continues to hurt you.

I did have a past relationship end because my at the time partner was not a good communicator and seemed to be very anxious about me having autistic features. They didn’t want to do direct communication that I could understand and then use to change. We weren’t compatible. With someone else now that is a far better communicator and doesnt get overwhelmed by me being overwhelmed. And that’s great.

With your style of conflict resolution I also don’t think you can be in a relationship with this kind of partner. Conflict resolution is something you need to be able to do in order to be in a committed relationship for your own basic safety, and for the safety of your partner. If you can’t, you need to stick to casual dating until you can. And unpack your discomfort with conflict resolution and learn to separate conflict from arguments, not all conflict has to be an argument or a meltdown. The same goes for her.

[u/Kryptonite-Rose]

No this will escalate. Can you imagine her reaction to a child knocking over their drink, making a mess, endless crying. I don’t think she is the one.

If it is medical she needs assessment and to take her meds.

The ex had a diagnosis but mainly refused to take medication. I got him to do CBT and he just lied through it.

Don’t take on a fixer upper! That is not your job.

[u/mellimels]

The phone addiction is aiding in her frustration/outbursts.

You guys need to spend more time together instead of only watching tv. I’m surprised she fought you about the phone thing, being glued to your phone is obviously not good.

[u/i_have_a_semicolon]

TV is so boring and unstimulating a lot of times. My husband setup some games from our childhood like rock band and they're much more fun