Can you help me save my relationship?
Question
For the first time in my life, I am completely in love. I’ve experienced deep love before, but I never felt the desire to settle down with someone, like I do now. Yet I can’t help but feel as if I’m being punished for the way I’ve handled past relationships.
My boyfriend and I live together, and like in my previous relationships, our first year, which began with so much happiness, is starting to fall apart. We’ve both become so defensive that we can’t seem to go more than a couple of days without an emotional argument. These conflicts often leave me facing hard truths, he doesn’t think the way I do or value the things that matter most to me.
He makes me feel like someone I know I’m not. Even comments I say with good intentions can quickly escalate into a full-blown argument. He often walks out, and I’m left crying, feeling helpless. I no longer know how to manage these moments. Instead of seeing our arguments as normal challenges that couples face, they feel like massive barriers that disrupt the path we were building together.
When I look back at our time, it feels like those barriers have damaged something that was once filled with hope. I start to withdraw, give up, and lose faith that this relationship can be repaired. I still love him deeply, but I feel emotionally exhausted, misunderstood, and at times, hurt in ways I don’t fully understand.
I want to make this work. Can you help me find a way to save our relationship?
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Answer
I doubt that I could. And given what you are reporting with regard to the frequency and intensity of your fighting, I doubt that you or your boyfriend could save the relationship either. That much fighting is not healthy.
If you want to soldier on and try to fix things, however, the best way will be for you to get your boyfriend and go to see a relationship therapist for marriage therapy. You two need to learn how to not get into fights so easily, and how to accept differences between one another without getting frantic and abusive. A good therapist might be able to help you with these issues.