I think my girlfriend resents me

My (36f) girlfriend (29f) have been together for 2.5 years. We were long distance at first but have been living together for about a year now.

Not going to go into the whole history, but every time I have brought up my feelings about something she’s done, we fight because she becomes defensive or she cries and I end up apologizing without getting whatever I said addressed. Then when I bring it up again the next time I’m beating a dead horse. She’s very much like, let’s not talk about it again let’s just move on.

She knew from the beginning that I like lots of art on the walls and I love color. She made it seem like she did too. She put art on the walls at her apartment, lots of cozy lighting, etc. whenever we thrifted together we’d look for fun things to put on the walls. And we would send pins to each other on Pinterest with similar vibes, we just leaned towards different colors but we compromised.

Because I moved into an apartment she was already in, I didn’t hang anything up myself. Or choose where stuff went. She’d also often rearrange the apartment without asking my opinion, which is whatever.

At this new place, we had a really bad fight the second day in. She didn’t talk to me for like two days really except in sharp tones, and I cried and felt confused and lonely. She becomes like this when she gets mad at me and has never apologized for it.

She said I started the fight but I was stating my opinion about a topic she brought up that had nothing to do with anything. I expressed confusion and she got furious at me and said I’m trying to avoid accountability. I ended up apologizing and promising to do better, because I did take part in escalating it. But basically during the fight it was made clear that she was tired of hearing my feelings and tired of caring about what triggers me.

I’ve been feeling really dysregulated ever since the fight because we’ll be good, until I say or do something she doesn’t like and then she speaks to me like she doesn’t like me. If I say how she’s speaking to me is triggering and hurts my feelings, she rolls her eyes.

We never repaired after the fight. She just started acting sweet again and asking me if I loved her. Started asking me to do things for her again. Whenever I say no, she pouts but time or she’ll keep asking until I give in.

A couple of weeks ago, I had set a boundary that I don’t want to be her caretaker. I never said I didn’t want to take care of her. I just don’t want to be her mom. I also would like it to feel more balanced, I’d like to feel taken care of as well. She brought that up during the fight but denied she was mad about it.

She sets boundaries with me all the time that take support away from me and never budges and if I express hurt at it it turns into a fight. I don’t ask her for help that often anymore.

She also keeps going hot and cold on me, but saying it’s because of me. She said it’s just been “one thing after the next” but couldn’t tell me what I did.

I tried to talk it out with her one night, where I expressed how the silent treatment and cold tones make me feel. That’s all I can think of. She said I can’t expect her to be nice to me when she’s mad, which maybe is true.

I just apologized after that because she said she felt burned out by my emotions. I asked her if she was happy with me and she said she had to get off of the phone. She told me she was going to see her mom after work at the old apartment to clean but didn’t want me to come.

When she came home she just said she was tired and she acted like she loved me again.

Anyways- We had talked about where to hang different things. Now all of a sudden she said I agreed to just put stuff on one wall in the living room. I don’t remember doing that, but maybe I did and don’t remember. Said she gets overstimulated by lots of decorations. Said she has always been like this but did it to make me happy at the last place. I’m confused and I feel kind of angry.

I want to make this place my own too. I asked her to have just one small wall in the living room to hang a couple of things I chose. She told me no.

She said I’m controlling and I don’t like her ideas because they werent mine.

She won’t let me rearrange stuff to make it fit better in the hallway closet. She told me I need to get rid of some of my shoes and clothes. I barely have any, and the stuff I do have I’ve had for years because I don’t buy myself new stuff often.

She said she doesn’t want clutter. She has so much stuff even after going through it all. But to her, I need to get rid of stuff. I did but I felt sad.

She wants me to put my shoes in the hall closet and my purse on a shelf in the hallway. I tried it and told her it doesn’t flow for me. We both have adhd. I told her I know myself and would like to accommodate myself and create a little spot nearer to the door for my shoes.

I said it was not personal against her ideas, I just want to work with my habits not against them. She got mad at me, so now I’m just trying my best to do what she wants. I routinely end up picking up her shoes and put them into the closet. And I end up losing my things because despite really trying, the spots she chose for me to put my things don’t work for me.

I feel like I can’t express how I feel or we’ll fight. I can’t just do it without her permission either or she might be mad or sad at me. Or she’ll say I’m not hearing her or caring about her feelings. She told me I always make everything about me, act like a victim, and I don’t leave room for her feelings in this relationship. I don’t want her to feel that way so I’ve just stopped bringing stuff up.

I found this a little unfair, though, because she told me I need to express my feelings to her calmly and logically and also give her a solution which I have really tried to respect.

During this fight she told me I always tell her what to do when I express my feelings. so I’m taking it as there is no good way except to pretend everything is fine so she can ignore it.

I asked her if we could do therapy. She said sure but also said we’re healthy and fine and it’s normal to yell and be cold when you’re mad.

I don’t know what to do. I feel confused and because I can’t express how I’m feeling, I feel resentful towards her now. I don’t want to pretend things are ok but I also don’t want to fight anymore.