His lack of effort has been an issue throughout our relationship. I generally am the one initiating our hang outs and planning either dates, or what we’re going to eat if we’re at home, etc.

After speaking with him multiple times about this, he still hasn’t taken me on a proper date. If I do plan for us to go out somewhere, even if it’s something casual, it’s just not a good time. We never have fun. I’m a very social person and I like to explore, he’s an introverted homebody.

He says I need to compromise, but I’ve been compromising the entirety of our relationship. I pulled back my own efforts because the relationship was so one sided.

And it’s not only the dates or the lack of romance… it’s the little things. I will initiate giving him massages and head rubs without being asked. If we’re taking a shower together, I’ll wash his hair and massage his scalp with conditioner. I’ll have our weekend meals prepped and planned out.

He in the other hand, never initiates sweet gestures. When he was sick, I doordashed food to his house. I’ve planned most cute things and paid for most of our dates.

He’s gotten slightly better, but not much.

On a certain holiday (Thanksgiving) I had my first 5 days off in that year. His dad invited us to thanksgiving and my family wasn’t celebrating it. He declined his dads invite. We had recently gotten into a big argument over his lack of effort, over the fact that I’m always initiating our hang outs. He promised to do better.

Well, Thanksgiving was a week after that fight. I wanted to celebrate it at my parent’s lake house where we had just installed a new hot tub. However, my boyfriend worked the day before thanksgiving (I had PTO) and he wasn’t sure if he was working Black Friday. So, we both decided to do thanksgiving locally, and I asked him to just please tell me if he has Friday off ahead of time, so we could better plan our trip to the lake house.

A day before my PTO started, his best friend sent a group text to the both of us, asking if my boyfriend and him can go on a trip out of state that weekend to pick up a car. My heart sank. After months of zero effort from him, I was furious that the plans we’ve been making for thanksgiving for weeks now, are obviously not a priority to him. My boyfriend claimed his friend didn’t ask him to go on a trip personally, and just sent that group text first. I called BS on that. There’s no way his friend didn’t ask him first. And instead of talking to me about it like a normal person, he asked his friend to group text it and ask me instead.

By this point, I had spent nearly $300 on a Thanksgiving spread of food that I was preparing all by myself. He also hadn’t confirmed whether he was off that Friday. He ended up coming over for thanksgiving, and a text message popped up on his phone from another friend, asking if “they’re still on for Friday”. It was obvious my boyfriend never intended to spend that thanksgiving weekend with me, had me move my plans around to accommodate him, but also did not communicate his lack of interest in that weekend. By then, all my friends had other plans. My boyfriend went in that trip with his friend, and I spent the weekend at the lake house alone. My boyfriend barely spoke with me that weekend.

Mind you, he lives close to that lake house. He still could have come out after his trip with his friend, but chose to hang with his friend the rest of that weekend and basically ignored me.

And then there’s Christmas. I decorated my house beautifully, like I always do. Christmas is my favorite holiday. I’ve expressed this. When Christmas came, he asked me to drive to his cold, undecorated place with barely any cooking tools and I cooked a Christmas meal. He did cook breakfast though which was some sort of effort.

On new years, we went out to a bar that had a balloon drop. It was a miserable time surrounded by drunk idiots that kept shoving us. I said that we can wait until midnight for the balloon drop and get the hell out. While in the dance floor, he looked extremely grumpy and barely acknowledged my existence. So, when the balloon drop came, I wanted to take a video of it. My boyfriend got extremely angry that I didn’t kiss him at midnight. Apparently he had never had a new years kiss. But with the way he was acting, I didn’t even assume he wanted one.

He also started acting weird with his phone. Keeping it upside down, always leaving it in another room, having his notifications silenced or turning it away from me if he’s on it. He doesn’t have a big following on social media nor does he follow much of anyone, apart from car pages. But when he opens up his Instagram, his suggested reels are women in suggestive videos. I understand how an angorythm works.

I also asked him a simple thing, over and over. That if he wants to hang out during the weekend, that he needs to ask me at least a couple of days before, not the day of. Mostly, he isn’t the one planning our weekend plans at all. It is typically me initiating. But a lot of my friends have kids and weekends need to be planned ahead. Although I do enjoy spending time at home, I typically will plan to do something on a Saturday night, and my friends need to know ahead of time. I explained this to him, and told him that if he isn’t making plans ahead of time, I will make other plans.

We only see each other on Saturdays, so four times a month. We never hand out on Fridays, he likes his space after a long week of work.

We recently broke up over his lack of effort and my new trust issues due to his weird phone behavior. A few days after, he asked me to get back with him. We had a long and respectful conversation where I made my needs clear.

Well, the next time we hung out, he did the same thing. Phones in the other room, notifications silenced. Didn’t plan a date. I cooked the food.

This past week, I decided to not initiate the hang out to see if he even tries. He never asked me to hang out, then, last evening (Friday) he told me that he will be home all weekend (this is at 7 PM) and that if I wanted to hang out I’m welcome to drive out to him (an hour away) at some point this weekend.

I lost it. I told him that if I wanted to be asked to drive out an hour away the night before for casual fun, I’d get back in Tinder. This is how a situationship treats a woman, not a boyfriend.

He told me he’s not fighting with me and told me to have a good weekend.

I personally don’t think I’m asking for much here. To me, asking a woman to come over to his place (no date planned either) at 7 PM the night before is rude. I explained that I already made plans for the whole weekend, and that those plans weee made by Wednesday of that week. For him to assume that I’m just sitting around with no plans waiting to go over to sit on his couch is actually hilarious to me.

At this point, I’m fairly unattracted to him. When we broke up (before we broke up he didn’t speak to me for 4 days) I realized that not having him around literally doesn’t feel any different from having him around. There’s zero benefits for me in this relationship.

He says that this is just how he is. He’s a good with the flow homebody that doesn’t plan much of anything. However, he’ll plan for a hangout with his buddies well in advance and will put plenty of effort into that.

Not only that, he displays zero interest in what I’m doing. I’m definitely not looking for jealousy, but if I do go out for the weekend and we don’t do anything together, he doesn’t care to ask how my time went, where me and my friends adventured out to.

I told him that I’m getting the vibe that he just isn’t that into me. This isn’t how a man in love treats a woman. And at 38, he’s pretty set in his ways. He was single for 8 years before me, and I can definitely see why.

To make matters worse, I work with his best friend (who introduced us) and after the whole thanksgiving fiasco, my boyfriend talked crap about me to his best friend stating that I “don’t allow him to hang out with his friends” which wasn’t why I got upset at all, I was upset that he ditched me after long term plans and due to his lack of effort.

His best friends wife approached me at the holiday party and told me that I “can’t get mad if the boys want to go in a trip”. This woman doesn’t know me, and the fact that she felt comfortable enough to approach me and tell me how to feel it what to do without even knowing the whole situation was absolutely ridiculous to me.

However, my boyfriend always makes it seem like I’m asking for too much, and that he “can’t do anything right”. But the thing is, he doesn’t do anything at all.

He claims that I’m the love of his life, and that he’s treated me better and cared more about me than any other partner. I can only imagine how crappy the other ones were treated.

I do love him, but I just can’t continue anymore. It hurts to have to walk away, and it feels pathetic to beg for below the bare minimum from a grown ass man who knows better.

Is this a lost cause? Or am I genuinely expecting too much? I’ve been treated like this by most of the men I’ve dated and I refuse to let it happen any longer or ever again.