I (23F) have been with my boyfriend (23M) for almost four years, and lately I’ve been reflecting on some reoccurring issues in our relationship. I love and care for him, but sometimes I’m unsure whether our arguments are normal relationship problems or something more concerning. One of the biggest issues in our relationship is his insecurities. He’s acknowledged to me that he is insecure, but sometimes I feel like I’m constantly having to prove that loyalty to him or that I care about him. He has had some bad past experiences with relationships, mostly involving trust and trust issues, but at times I feel like he takes this out on me. So, it hurts when it feels like my character is constantly being questioned in our relationship. There has also been double standards in our relationship. For example, whenever I talk about my needs or problems, he seems to be bothered by it saying that I am always making every situation about myself. When I listen to him whenever he wants to vent or has problems in his life, he will get mad saying I don’t care and only I’m able to share my problems even though I’m constantly listening and comforting him whenever he needs to vent. It’s strange and makes me feel guilty for talking about any problems or inconveniences I may have in my life. I like to text/talk to him a lot, but he hates phone calls and also takes hours to even respond - to which he’ll only respond with an “Lol”, “Lmao” or something dry of the sort. One time, he openly talked about finding other women hot, specifically a TV character from one of our favorite shows. Not that it was recent, but it still affected me when I heard it. What bothered me is that later he got upset about the fact that I used to tweet about my celebrity/fictional character crushes before we were even dating. Yes, he dug through my Twitter account and found tweets about me making (unserious) posts about celebrities or characters I found attractive. I get that he doesn’t like the idea of me finding another man attractive, but this was way before we had ever even met, I was a teenager, and I didn’t even know he existed at the time of these tweets. But when he did that WHILE in our relationship, it just wasn’t a big deal because I didn’t make it one. Our conversations/arguments can escalate very quickly. When I’m trying to have a conversation with him, which can sometimes be very tense, he will try to end it saying things like “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” signaling he wants the argument to end but then continues talking about it and gets mad when I stop talking to him even though he’s the one that wanted to end it. Another thing I find mildly annoying is that he only wants to fight/argue over text and never say things to my face. When I asked him about this, he told me he doesn’t have these conversations with me in person because “I never listen”. I feel like I cannot talk about my feelings without him telling me that I’m making everything about myself. I’m not saying that I’m perfect either and that all relationships have their issues and things they need to work on, but I kinda feel like less of a priority in his life than I once did. Especially because he’s had moments where he has talked to me harshly, texting in all caps telling me to “SHUT THE FUCK UP” and other nasty comments, making me feel attacked and hurt. It makes me wonder if he would ever say these things to my face or not. I’ve also been accused of cheating for talking to another guy in a friendly, casual way (while my boyfriend was present btw) and he told me afterwards that I had cheated, gaslight me, and said I was “entertaining another man” when I was simply having a conversation at a party setting about a shared interest I had with this guy I had met the same night. Nothing flirtatious was going on and I kept my distance. I was not interested in this person and even kept including and bringing up my boyfriend during the conversation, to which my boyfriend later told me “you can just go fuck him idc” - it was a side of him I’d never seen before and I can’t seem to get past it. About two months ago, I had brought it up again, only because I had remembered it and felt extremely uncomfortable about the memories and the texts of how he treated me. When I brought it up to him, he apologized and said he only did that because he was trying to get me to leave/break up with him at the time and tried to push me away by treating me like shit. Am I a dumbass or what? As of late, I’ve been in the UK for an internship and we’ve been long distance for a bit now. So, we don’t really talk as much and I feel myself (and maybe him too) growing distant. I don’t know what the future is going to look like for us, but I feel myself missing him and also feeling okay with being independent and I feel extremely guilty because I love and care about him a lot. But when I ask myself if I see my future with him… I don’t know if I can answer that question. How do you know when insecurity and arguments are things you can work through together vs signs of an unhealthy dynamic? TLDR; My boyfriend struggles with insecurities and often takes it out on me. Our arguments often leave me feeling confused, guilty and emotionally exhausted and there are many existing double standards in our relationship (in my opinion). I’m struggling to figure out whether these are normal relationship issues we can work through or signs of an unhealthy relationship.   submitted by   /u/No-Round3273   to   r/relationshipproblems [link]   [comments]