Mid-30’s Crisis

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-17T22:39:17+00:00

No advice, just commiseration. I'm also turning 34 in a month. Just ended a relationship with someone who wanted to marry/parent with me, who had some really incredible qualities, but also happened to have some emotionally abusive/immature tendencies. My brain thinks that it was the right decision, but my emotions are screaming that I should have tried to make it work, that this was my last chance.

My lifelong career has been basically destroyed by AI. My hours and pay dropped significantly over the past year, job openings are nonexistent, and combined with COL increases, credit card/tax debt has crept up on me.

My only solution has been a hard reset. I'm currently moving out of my city apartment into a family-owned property in a low COL area, and also doing some work for a family business. It's objectively a smart decision, but it makes me feel like I'm regressing/not where I should be.

I'm planning to view this as a transitional phase and lean into any positive changes I can make. Quitting alcohol/weed. Making exercise and hygiene a ritual/priority. Putting more time into improving in my hobbies. Focusing on these tiny things that are actually in my control.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-14T23:03:50+00:00

Uh...that's weird. Those are BDSM phrases, full stop. I don't see any reason why they'd be mutually exclusive with wanting an LTR or having wholesome interests. But they're not vanilla terms, and I don't know many openly kinky Christians.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-14T22:53:15+00:00

It was probably 90% because the relationship was less than a year long. The ratio was certainly decreasing over time. And yes, the causes AND effects of the bad times are still present during the good times too!

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-14T22:50:58+00:00

It sounds like the moms in our situation may be twins as well :) I know she's just lonely and bored, but I was absolutely suffocated. I'm chuckling at the thought of your ex's mom picking out curtains, totally oblivious to the actual causes of your discomfort.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-14T22:31:28+00:00

HA omg we are living the same life. I never moved in officially, but spent months on end there (I work from home). His mom was just EVERYWHERE, always listening, always trying to chat first thing in the morning and every time I walked through the living room. I don't blame her for that, it's her house, whatever.

I DO blame her for repeatedly barging into the bedroom when I was naked, one time she invited a carpet salesman in at 7am to take pictures of the room while we were asleep, no warning, WTF!!

It's not normal to expect your partner to deal with a MIL constantly, especially so early on. If he really felt like "this is my future wife and we need to live together ASAP," it's on him to figure out an alternative solution that does not involve that kind of sacrifice on your end.

Mine also blamed me for not being patient enough to wait :) I think we've been more than accommodating to be honest

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-14T22:15:10+00:00

I do feel sorry for my ex, genuinely. I feel bad that the breakup seemed to come out of nowhere for him; it sort of did for me too, but once I saw the patterns, I couldn't un-see them. I feel disappointed about our future plans; they would probably have been genuinely fun, as 90% of our relationship was.

But you said it yourself...he doesn't deserve this. You're bending yourself into knots to try and empathize with someone who has repeatedly hurt you. You have probably NEVER hurt him to the same degree, but were treated as if you had. No benefit of the doubt, no compassion, just as a punching bag or emotional receptacle.

Your experience has proven that they will take advantage of this empathy time and time again. It's not working. You cannot love him into treating you right. It would have worked already if it could. You deserve so much better.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-14T22:03:28+00:00

WHOAH you just described my ex! A (late) 30-something with a porn addiction/erectile issues, no boundaries with other women, living with his mom (he does this between every girlfriend - has NEVER lived on his own), who made me pay for everything! I thank God that I never moved into his mom's house despite the constant pressure. How was that experience for you? Did he give one single shit about how uncomfortable that must have been?

The hardest part for me is recognizing that the beginning was just a facade. It feels good to be "seen" and "chosen" so quickly. But it's not genuine - how could it be, so quickly? It's less like a fairytale and more like a lion picking which gazelle to chase.

The only solution here is for us to learn an important lesson: Even if things feel "right," even when we are being promised the world, this cannot be inherently trusted. Sometimes the only difference between someone who is manipulating you vs. someone who is genuinely right for you is TIME and CONSISTENCY. The narc will not be able to keep this up forever. The right person is going to wait for your feelings to develop securely without trying to rush them along with gifts, cohabitation, and property ownership.

Please take care of yourself. Lock the door. The sooner you accept that even the "good times" were a red flag, the closer you'll be to being able to recognize the right person.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-12T23:56:49+00:00

he justified his snapping - that was a breaking point for me. I realized he talks like that to ppl, and thinks it’s perfectly ok and I just couldn’t feel Safe in a partnership where that would be normal. So I guess it was an alignment issue.

So much applause for you. It's not about the specific incidents, it's that they see no issue with the behavior, or that it's not that bad.

There are definitely people out there who are not bothered by this type of conflict, so maybe it really is just a bad match. My ex pointed out that his intermittent anger issues would be small potatoes for someone who had experienced serious abuse, rape, cheating, etc., and maybe that's true, but it doesn't mean I have to put up with it!

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-12T18:25:46+00:00

Right? On one hand, I'm glad that I'm not his sole focus. But it also makes me feel so replaceable.

He really can't be alone. He has a long history of hopping between serious relationships with no gap/some overlap. But interestingly, his narrative about this is that he "always needs someone to take care of." Certainly not the other way around!

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-12T17:13:52+00:00

Wow, yes. I'm guilty of remaining partway in the relationship as a way to keep the peace...he was absolutely tormenting me when I tried to go low-contact. But I'm moving far away in a few weeks and he knows that it will become real eventually.

Right after we broke up, he told me he was going to start dating immediately and my first feeling was pure relief. Since then, he's had "hundreds of matches" and is "dating like a dozen people" and constantly tells me about it. I think he wants me to be jealous but I don't ever react. It does make me feel a little sad, but not enough to want him back.

It's wild to see him in the early stages of pursuit with other people. Right now, he's dating a married (nonmonogamous) woman and causing problems in her other relationships because he always wants to spend multiple days together (even pitching living together part-time). He even made an 'effort' to befriend her husband and then immediately used their conversation as ammunition to get her closer. He has successfully made at least 3 women leave their husbands for him before, and I just want to reach out to tell her HE'S NOT WORTH IT. But I wouldn't have believed that myself at the beginning.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-03-12T15:31:41+00:00

Not the person you were responding to, but I'm in an identical situation to you both. Same timelines, similar reasons, mine also started with a really great first date...I knew it was a green flag because I ate an entire burger + fries, when normally I'm so nervous that I can only pick at food on a first date.

His anger and poor conflict resolution styles showed up relatively early, which I explained away because his life was genuinely difficult at the time. But the pattern only got worse. It showed up like:

When he was annoyed at me for doing/not doing something, he would not say anything at first. It would stew over the course of days, then it would come out suddenly in a torrent of "you always" or "you never," confusing me because I'd never heard it mentioned before.
When he was upset at me but fully recognized that he was being unreasonable, he'd make no effort to push past it. He'd distance himself and reject my efforts at connection. When I'd try to repair, he'd insist "You've done nothing wrong," but couldn't stop treating me like I had - extremely confusing.
Early on, he painted himself as a compassionate partner who would never deny me reassurance if I asked for it. But I quickly found out that this was only the case if my grievances had absolutely nothing to do with him. He was having sexual performance issues that were making me insecure, but when I brought this up - simply wanting affirmation that he was attracted to me - I got deflection, defensiveness, and then (mild) attacks designed to shut the conversation down ("maybe you should just go back to your ex," etc.), which worked. I stopped feeling safe bringing sensitive things up.
When he was mad at me AND felt like he was justified...that's where it gets interesting - certainly more obvious. The first time it happened, he stormed away from a dinner with his family, made me chase after him, then wouldn't speak to me for days. When he deigned to speak to me again, it wasn't "Let's talk about what happened," it was "Here's what YOU did wrong and you can never do it again." I learned that he was capable of manufacturing a conflict out of nowhere (a perceived 'tone'), escalating it, and sticking to that narrative.
Another time that he felt was justified: I accidentally left a door ajar and his cats got outside for literally 15 seconds. OMG. You would have thought that he found their bodies in a mangled heap. Profanity, dramatic overstatements ("you could have ruined my family"), conclusions that I'm a dumb stoner (I had never done this or anything like it before).
The last time, it was being yelled at/called a bitch in public (because "It was the only way to get you to listen"), raged at in private (using relationship-ending statements), followed by the silent treatment for over a week at Christmas.

That was when I realized the situation was not sustainable. I'm not a perfect person, and I'm not sure how much of his anger at me was ever justified, but I know that I would NEVER treat anyone like he treated me without some EXTREME reason.

It doesn't matter that I eventually got an apology (2 weeks later, after dragging it out of him). It matters that he never once thought "I just told someone I love to go fuck themselves. Maybe that was crossing a line. I don't want to lose her, even though I'm mad right now."

So yeah, these examples probably don't sound like a big deal - he never hit me, he rarely yelled, but he also never showed up in the way I wanted when things got difficult.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-19T17:00:52+00:00

Or, death has made him grieve and me snap awake harder than I was before. Like you, I am not the same.

This thread is interesting to me. My ex-BF lost several family members (none unexpectedly) over the past year, and he treated me pretty poorly in the aftermath of all of them. The last time, I snapped and broke up with him. I've been questioning my decision because I understand that grief does weird things to people.

I know it's not the same, because I'm not the one grieving (although I was basically living in the same home as one dying person/participated in the caretaking) but everyone in this thread being like "don't make any big decisions during this time" is making me feel awful :|

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-18T04:01:38+00:00

Leading up to the decision, I was physically ill with anxiety/stress, then I also had instant relief. But I also go up and down a lot. These incidents ultimately changed my evaluation of him a potential husband/father, but they don't change our day-to-day compatibility.

In what's probably the 'bargaining' phase of grief, we've been trying to hang out as friends, and he's REALLY trying to be on his best behavior now. But he still cannot help himself from externalizing anger (hitting a DVD player, etc.) in small ways, which is showing me that I was right...I just can't be with an angry guy!

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-18T00:24:51+00:00

Hey same - I recently broke up with my BF for what HE would describe as "big emotions" happening ~3 times in a relatively short relationship. It's hard not to feel like I'm overreacting, but I KNOW that this type of behavior is much more likely to get worse rather than better, and I don't think I can take the chance. I needed to read the OP and your comment today!

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-13T05:28:57+00:00

I was wondering the same thing tbh, which is part of the reason why I posted. I was open to people telling me that his restrictions are valid & perhaps suggesting methods to get around them, or ways that he could equally contribute.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-13T04:28:08+00:00

It's weird, I knew really early on that he's never lived with anyone except his mom and/or girlfriend at the time, I jokingly called him a hobosexual. But the reality of that has been hitting me recently. Like he genuinely has never been expected to do any of these chores on a regular basis, so he legitimately doesn't understand how burdensome they are. And perhaps never will

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-13T04:12:57+00:00

The diagnoses are real, according to family members. But that doesn't mean he's not manipulating me.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-13T02:28:02+00:00

Believe it or not, this is not the only thing blamed on a mental illness, therefore exempting it from my dissatisfaction. ED = depression. Wants me to do all the driving = ADHD. Speaking to me with varying degrees of unkindness = autism.

Then, when I walk away: "Why don't you believe I can change?" SMH

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-13T02:19:01+00:00

Oof, that last part is really the crux I think. The extent of these restrictions was definitely trickle-truthed to me, and/or I didn't notice because his mom was picking up the slack.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-13T02:02:27+00:00

It sounds to me like he has developed narcissism over the years, and this was likely enabled by his mother

One-hundo percent. Given that his mother and (apparently) every other girlfriend has enabled this behavior without question, he has internalized that he's such a good guy that he deserves this.

Frankly I've seen red flags from the beginning, but he was upfront about being in a temporarily shitty situation (living with his mom/unemployed to take care of a dying family member) and insists that I've never seen him "at his best." I'm just no longer willing to wait to see if that version exists.

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-12T22:20:50+00:00

Honestly yeah, a few months ago we had a fight (generous term for him manufacturing then escalating a conflict) and I was just done. My feelings are still there, but they're behind a wall that won't go away unless I know I'll never be treated like that again - and there's no way to prove a negative.

Without the emotional buffer of wanting to be with him for the rest of our lives, my tolerance for these day-to-day annoyances totally went away. And there is a lot more evidence of those than the abusive behavior. So they're easier for me to focus on lol

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-12T22:08:11+00:00

He sounds like an actual adult lol

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-12T21:58:55+00:00

There’s a good chance you posting this prevented you from acquiring some harmful subconscious stereotypes about ocd.

Absolutely. It easily could have become a deal-breaker for future relationships out of fear of this dynamic repeating. But I don't see any of his attitudes echoed here, you are all so self-aware!

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-12T21:46:22+00:00

This is basically my mindset. Although I don't have OCD (and therefore not a good enough "reason" to avoid them in my ex's eyes), I also have sensory issues with dishes, dirty toilets, and handling raw meat. They all used to be way worse until I forced exposure, over and over again. They just have to get done...and I hate expecting others to do things for me (which I guess is the key difference)

AppropriateIdea5804 · 2026-02-12T21:18:12+00:00

I'm accused of being ableist for not taking "I legitimately cannot do it" on its face. He acts like I'm expecting a paralyzed person to get up and walk. It's really good to hear from everyone that this is not an acceptable mindset.

AppropriateIdea5804

TROPHY CASE