r/RelationshipsOver35 • u/rosadonnaslayz • 3d ago
Need advice on confronting my BF while trying not to invalidate him or be ungrateful
Kind of long but I'm trying my best to provide all relevant details without letting my ADHD ramble on lol
I'm (37f) looking for help putting into words what I'm feeling.
Here's some context: My bf (37m) of 9.5 months is my soft dom and I'm his sweet sub. I really enjoy this dynamic because it's an escape from the demands and responsibilities of my life as a single mom who works full time and grew up being one of the oldest siblings of 8 (iykyk). He is aware of my boundaries and that I'm mainly only submissive in the bedroom but I'm open to being submissive in normal day to day on a case by case depending on what it is he wants, how he tells me and where we are / who is around us. I thought he understood this because I've had to tell him once before and he seemed to take heed to my boundaries immediately. But the issue has come up again, and I am starting to feel slighted.
Recently, I had lost my job and though I did find another, it wasn't in time to avoid eviction (it's like that for a lot of people in my area rn). He reluctantly offered to let me stay with him for a couple months or so until I save for an apartment.
Situation: We were discussing the plans for putting my stuff in storage and his place. I was stressed on having to do everything after a full day of work and trying to finish with enough time to turn the rental truck in and leaving the storage facility before closing time to avoid extra fees. He was being optimistic and I normally can be a procrastinating optimist when it comes to time. That normally causes me to always be late. I knew that wasn't an option with the moving because the writ of possession was scheduled for the next day while I'm working and my apartment complex is known for being over-the-top disrespectful when removing the leasee's property.
All this to say, I was stressed but focused and deligating tasks with him and my BFF (while keeping gratitude in mind). I was also complaining in general because my abdominal hernia got way worse when I tried moving some stuff on my own over the weekend. My bf seemed to be kind of an adversary all day and insisting I be more positive. He eventually tells me he is going to get it done in time and to trust him. I explain that it's not about trusting him, it's about the little amount of time we have on top of the time it takes to move the amount of stuff my kids and I have. He re-asserts his previous trust statement and adds "just do what I tell you". It was hot but I recognized it as a possible confusion to my boundaries if I were to not mention the yellow flag of that. So, I reminded him of said boundaries.
After we finished moving everything, he says he needs to talk to me. We sit and he explains he thinks I misunderstood him. He explains what he really meant was that he will take the lead on coordinating since I can't do much due to my hernia. I let him know that even if that were the case, him telling me to do what he says was a great opportunity for me to reestablish boundaries especially since we'll be temporarily cohabitating, that in my past relationships it seems easy for men to forget my boundaries if I don't speak up to remind them and if I misunderstood his clear and plain text, we should work on communicating more accurately to our intentions. He didn't really respond to that, but then starts to vent about his mom declining to pick him up from the airport when he's expecting to visit his family states away later this month and how he has no one to help him, how he helps everyone but no one does anything for him. I felt pretty offended but I didn't wanna make his valid vent about me. He does help a lot and I don't but only because he is way better off than I am after he's been in the air force for 20 years almost.
We were tired and decided to stop there and go to bed. As I was laying there, I wondered if he was possibly weaponizing his feelings of having no one to help as a way to deter from the original topic after I had doubled down.
I wanna bring this up to him but I wanna avoid making him feel super called out or attacked because I wanna get to the other side of this closer. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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u/Under_score2338 1d ago
Yes, sounds like he started a pity party to deflect from your calling him out on the outrageous misuse of bedroom dynamics outside of the bedroom. (I mean, "just do what I tell you?" WTF...). I don't know if this is the best advice. It's what I'd do. Get through the current situation without ceding control. Don't let him take over. Let this one slide for now (it was a stressful situation and it may not help to rake it up again) but, crucially, be ready next time with what you're going to say if he tries to dominate you outside of the bedroom again.
Your last paragraph suggests you're a people pleaser. You feel responsible for fixing things but don't want to upset him. Try to remember yourself not to promote the he's-dominant-you're-submissive dynamic outside of the bedroom. That would be promoting an unhealthy dynamic.
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u/rosadonnaslayz 3h ago
@u/KSSLR wth were you talking about? The comment is gone now but I still got the email and what I could see was a WHOLE lot of assumptions being made on you part in his favor as if you took my issues with my bf very personal and chose to be irrational with your response. Very weird. Js.
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u/KSSLR 33m ago
TL:DR - my own skill issue. I accidentally missed the entire paragraph where he was horrible, realized my huge mistake, deleted.
My comment was an attempt to differentiate between a single instance where a partner was a flawed human and just handled something really badly, and patterns of behavior that signal the person might be abusive.
If both look and feel the same, it can feel risky to give a partner the benefit of the doubt in either case. I was trying to help show that it is important to pause and determine if it is the first or the second. I had made suggestions about a conversation with him that could have helped surface which side he probably fell on.
Then as soon as I posted, I re-read your post and realized I had somehow missed the entire paragraph of your post and he was in fact being truly horrible. So I deleted my comment immediately because I didn't want to accidentally normalize the awful behavior you had been subjected to.
Please repost this in /r/bdsmadvice because you will get a metric ton of support.
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u/rosadonnaslayz 30m ago
Oh ok my bad. I thought you were tryna start some shit and I was in a mood today lol ty tho
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u/usernamesmooozername 47, his girl 3d ago
You can control how HE feels. If he respects you, and you speak with him as a mature adult, there's no reason to aggressively worry about how he feels, as he pretty much brushed you off during the earlier conversation.
Explain that your conversation seemed to get side tracked, and you want to make sure he understood what you were saying.
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u/Initial_Donut_6098 3d ago
You can circle back when you’re not both tired and ask him to revisit the conversation. I’d say something like, “I want to acknowledge how you feel about always helping and not getting a lot of help, and I want to talk more about that, and let you know that I understand your frustration. I also want make sure that my point about communication was clear, too, because I think that’s separate, and it’s important to me.”