[DanaC]

The alternative is broad acceptance of who the other person is. No relationship is pefect all the time. And both will be pissed off sometimes by the other person. But if either party is feeling constantly judged then there is something seriously amiss.

Your partner should be the person you can totally be yourself with without fear of judgement. That's not to say the other will never judge something you do, or consider you to be in the wrong on something...but you really shouldn't be feeling judged and tested at some fundamental level all the time.

Really, Trace, it's no way to live honey. Your partner should be your rock, not the one chipping away at your self esteem (unwittingly, I daresay).

You need some low stakes fun, mate. You need a little female company that isn't so fraught. Walking on eggshells is a shitty way to live. For whatever reason, be it the financial situation you found yourselves in, the whole thing with immigration, or a simple shift in priorities that took you on different trajectories from each other, your relationship sounds like, at least for the last year, it was characterised primarily by stress, tension and simmering resentments on both sides.

You got out from that pretty early on, all told. Some people play that game for years, decades even. Waiting, hoping, working, fighting and then suddenly they're in their 30s or 40s and there's just nothing left except a shared weariness and impossibly entangled lives.