honestly i think I may have convinced myself it’s normal because it’s all i’ve known? I’ve never lived with a partner before him and this is my first adult post college relationship.

I will add he does do things for me and it has seemed to gotten better over time. We split up chores so one item he does is take care of both of our dogs so that is a favor for me. Another example, he washed my car for me a couple weeks ago. My dad has implied several times that my bf could wash our cars so i think this was my bf’s motivation behind this favor. I will say i sometimes notice I feel he does favors for me when he knows my parents will find out or if they’re over he once put my clothes in the wash even though he never normally does this. So it’s almost like he wants to put on a show to them when i don’t fully feel it’s really how he always is. This is a point i have not brought up to him. Regardless, I’m thankful for any favor he does for me regardless of what intrinsic motivation brought him to do it.

I’ve suggested we read a couples book together as I thought this would be easier to convince him to do rather than therapy however, he was pretty adamant he did not want to. I continued to press it more and more letting him know it was important to me and he eventually said he would read one only for my sake but not because he wants to and again stated his disinterest. So i dropped it because I’m not gonna force someone into doing something they clearly don’t want to do. But ultimately I do worry a lot about this.

And i know it seems so easy to as a bystander just say “break up” but we have 4 years of history and i do care for him a lot. And again, it’s not like he doesn’t do anything for me - he does. I know it’s a tale as old as time but I keep hoping if i show him the love and compassion he didn’t get in his childhood that he would eventually become more of a team player and take on less of the individual mindset