I feel as though my [25 F] boyfriend [26 M] expects me to be perfect all the time, and I am cracking under the pressure.

Having been in a situation like this, I can tell you a few things.

I came up with the idea of the "Phantom Wife", this perfect embodiment of the perfect person who was clean, on time, well mannered, organized, etc 100% of the time, and that I WAS NOT THIS PERSON.

Every time he got unreasonably mad about unreasonable expectations, I sadly said, "Yes, the Phantom Wife would have done X, but sadly you're stuck with me, a human who isn't perfect." The 'unreasonably mad' part is the worst, because it's like he fails to understand you aren't doing things on purpose to make him mad, yet he'll see any imperfection as an attempt on your part to upset him. This is wrong behavior, and you've probably enabled it by being very sorry and apologetic when he is upset, just further reinforcing his idea that you've done something wrong.

You are displaying the same behaviors I was: walking on eggshells, not wanting to make him 'mad' because you were 2 minutes late, etc. I got to the point where it wasn't really a marriage, it was me 'managing' my life to keep as little conflict out of it because I didn't want to make him mad or endure the silent treatments. That is no way to live, and I did it for a long, long time. It affected our kids.

It took us many, many years of fighting and Come To Jesus talks to finally FINALLY get him to understand just how sad, bitter, angry and depressed years of this kind of treatment made me. But we went through it together, and today, things are great (we've been married 21 yrs.). I'm leaving out lots of details, but if you want more to the story, PM me. I just don't want to air everything here.

So, I see it two ways: If we had dated longer and I knew now what I knew then, I would have run far away FAST. He knows this too. Part of it was because I thought, "I'll never meet anyone else, and who would love a plain looking person like me? I was lucky to have him." You can either hunker down and try to get him to understand just how damaging this treatment is, and stick it out because he has other great qualities, or you can leave now while you have the chance.

On the flip side, I felt the same as you: everything about him was great and he had (and still does) some really good qualities about him. He's one of the most passionate and caring people in his field of work, very generous with helping out those in need and has always worked hard for us. I chose to stick it out because this was my family. Maybe I'm a stronger person than most, but I stuck it out.

I'm glad to say it worked out for us, but that was a long, long, hard road paved with tears. But life is GREAT now.

/r/relationships Thread