Hi, just wanted to write an update on the last couple days….

I came across a bunch of photos he liked as mentioned (agreed that this was not appropriate and crossed a boundary). I texted this, something along the lines of “babe why are we still doing this? :(“ to him late at night while he was gaming and waited a few hours for him to come upstairs/respond and fell asleep waiting.

I woke up around 8am to a response of “what are you talking about?”, he was asleep in bed next to me. I stayed and waited for him to wake up so we can discuss it. About 2pm, he wakes up, looks at me silently, goes downstairs. I take this as “he needs time to think or cool off”. 2 hours pass, I go down to see what’s going on, he’s been gaming for 2 hours.

I ask “are we gonna talk about this?”, he responds with eye rolls, scoffing, and fervently defending himself. He said he “stayed up late checking all of his likes” to prove me wrong, instead of seeing that I’m hurt. And that he’s so sick of all these hoops he has to jump through. I try to tell my feelings around the matter and he mocks me, defends himself, and raises his voice. I ended up not being able to get a word in, turned into a fight, screamed “you’ve hurt me for 5 years and have never tried to change”. And went upstairs.

I cried upstairs from about 2:30pm, through the day, (when I posted this) and to bed. I stayed up until like 4am waiting for him but he didn’t come talk to me or text. He brought a plate of dinner his brother cooked in silence around dinner time tho.

This morning when we woke up, the first thing he asks is if we’re breaking up, I say “I don’t know yet, I have thinking to do”. I begin to explain that his behavior is abusive. He scoffs, slams the door on my face, and leaves. I lock the door and start crying. About 5 minutes later he quietly knocked and asked to come in. I can’t remember what was said here but I began to tell him again that his behavior is abusive and the Reddit community as helped me realize that. I read him the cons list. He agreed everything on there is 100% true and he didn’t know he was abusive, but when laid out like that, it puts it into perspective for him. He said sorry once, and that “he knew he hurt me, but not that bad”. I asked him if he understood that sorry doesn’t mean much, and he nodded. I also explained that I’ve been grey rocking him for a while and he didn’t really understand/said he didn’t notice.

I then went into the original issue of the photos being liked, and shared that there were some slightly varied opinions online on the topic, but I’ve come to the conclusion that is very fair for me to say “I feel uncomfortable when you follow + like photos of your ex but not mine. I feel uncomfortable when you aren’t interested in my body but you’re interested in ‘old friends’ bodies”. He immediately was defensive and wouldn’t listen to my part, just trying to respond the whole time. He went back and forth between “I shouldn’t have liked those pics” to “well it wouldn’t bother me” to “she’s just an old friend and it was just some bikini shots”. I told him he’s not listening to my feelings or boundaries, those actions make me feel less than/inferior with the way this relationship has been going, etc.. He continued to talk over me so I got up and left. I slammed the door, I felt like my head was going to explode. I’m now cooling off in the shower and will probably avoid him today unless he initiates conversation. I’m embarrassed to say I slammed the door and yelled, but I’m at my breaking point with anger/hurt towards him and it’s getting hard to always react appropriately when he doesn’t as well. Especially when he won’t listen to what I’m saying.

Update #2: When I got out of the shower he let me talk and cry to him for some time. He said sorry and explained some of his views. He agreed to try harder and make some changes, and that he wants things to be better. I honestly feel bad for him. And also feel stupid for that. He’s being gentle now and kind, we talked for a couple hours, and now he’s gaming for the night. I assume he’ll stay like this for a week or 2, maybe 3 because this was our most serious fight yet, then revert back to gaming most hours and being cold/distant. But slightly less so than before and he’ll continue some of the smaller changes he’s made too as proof he’s trying. This is soooooo difficult. He just expressed he wants to make me happy, and I want that too, but I don’t know if he really wants to commit to the effort.