Feeling exhausted and inadequate in my relationship (19F with 30M). Need some support or advice.

Feeling exhausted and inadequate in my relationship (19F with 30M). Need some support or advice.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some support or just to hear if anyone has been through something similar. Writing this takes a lot of energy but I really need to get this out.

I’m 19 and my partner is 30. We met on Tinder. He is my very first relationship, and I was incredibly nervous at first. To give some background, I experienced severe lonelines as a teenager and was unfortunately groomed online by multiple people. Because of that past, I’ve been craving love and just wanting to feel like I truely matter to someone. But lately, I’ve been feeling completely drained by our relationship.

We have a huge lifestyle clash because he has a chaotic, "always-on-the-move" lifestyle, whereas I am a total homebody. It’s almost impossible to get him to just relax at home. If we do stay in, he becomes visibly restless or dissappointed, which completely ruins the mood and makes it impossible for me to recharge. On top of that, there is a massive financial imbalance. I end up paying for almost everything: zoo visits, movie tickets, restaurants, music festivals, clothes, and my bus tickets to go see him. He is low on income, which I try to understand, but his gifts to me are usually things like "I picked this up from a bar floor" or "I got this free from a friend." To make it worse, he sometimes demands money back if he does buy me something small, and he even took back a free keyboard he had previously given me.

He also rarely thinks about how his actions affect others. For example, he dragged me and my friend out to nightlife even though he knew we were exhausted, and he constantly demands having friends over or going out for drinks even when I am there and just want quality time. The biggest thing right now is that he is pushing for an open relationship. This hurts immensely. I have tried to give him absolutely everything and be the perfect partner, but it still feels like I am not enough. All I wanted for us this summer was to just focus on each other.

I feel like I've poured all of myself into trying to make him happy, but I’m left feeling empty, tired, and unvalued. Has anyone else been in a relationship with this kind of age gap or these types of issues? How did you handle it? Thank you for listening.