I (M28) am struggling with my feelings towards my partner (F30) after 4 years, 2 of which have been clouded with doubt and uncertainty.

I want to preface by saying I‘m not an avid Reddit user, so I'm not too sure what to expect or how much detail to go into, but I more wanted to get some thoughts out and maybe hear some constructive feedback or stories of others who may have been in similar situations and how they navigated them.

I’ve been struggling for the past 2 years of my 4 year relationship with my girlfriend. Our first year together was smooth sailing; we rarely got into any disagreements and we were each others first serious, long-term committed relationship. In retrospect, it was a very young (maybe immature) view of love. Each of us tend to be people pleasers and I think in those early years we were so focused on not disappointing the other person or keeping the peace that we never really had hard discussions or would pseudo resolve them, but not have a definitive resolution or plan moving forward to avoid the same issues In the future.

I went back to school at the beginning of our 3rd year together and that is when the issues started to become prominent. We would always talk about plans of moving in together during that 2nd year, but once I started school I had to move back home with my parents and that created a lot of friction because my girlfriend was used to spending more time with me throughout the week. This also meant that we would have to wait to move in together as I‘m working less hours and making less money to feel comfortable moving out and feeling financially secure.

I think this is where the first signs of resentment started to build. She would become much more anxious and regularly get upset that I wasn’t seeing her as frequently throughout the week, even though I had expressed that I would be prioritizing school for our future and my own career. This problem kept coming up consistently. She felt that I was breaking a promise because we talked about moving in together at points throughout the year prior and now I was living back home and hesitant to move back out under the circumstances. She was building resentments based on the idea that I was stopping her from moving forward with her timeline, while I was building resentments because it felt like she cared more about moving in together even if it meant putting more mental and financial strain on me.

I started going to therapy because I was feeling stressed out about juggling work, school, and my relationship and figured it could help to have a third-party help me organize my mind and function better in the relationship. The more I reflected, the more I started to ask myself questions about whether we were actually compatible or not and whether our goals and values were truly aligned. I was heavily invested in self-development and self-exploration before we were together and I started to realize that I had dropped a lot of those habits and practices to put more focus towards the relationship. At this point, I was feeling lost because it felt like I was trying to rediscover that part of me, and when I tried to express these thoughts and feelings to her she would become upset because it made her feel like I was putting the relationship in question, when in reality, I just felt like I had lost myself for a bit and wanted to get back to that place where I felt like I was evolving and consistently developing myself. Internally I started to feel like maybe the relationship wasn’t an environment where self-development and growth could be possible because it was only a focus on my end, while her focus was evolving the relationship (move in, get married, have kids). For a while, I was trying to share some of the strategies and practices I adopted to help me get to a more secure place myself in hopes that she might adopt them as well, so that we could grow with each other rather than apart.

Im skipping ahead by a lot because this is getting long lol, but essentially we are in a place now where we have tried to work on ourselves independently and also through couples therapy, but I have gotten to a point of internal exhaustion and I’m not liking how I’ve shown up in the relationship as of recently. I’ve been a more cold and muted version of myself to avoid arguing or getting into serious discussions that would hurt or upset her. She believes that if we move in together, some of these problems will be possibly resolved. My mindset is that if we can‘t be on the same page and both feel excited about taking that step, then just pushing forward will only make it harder to resolve once we live together. I’m not sure what type of responses I’m looking for here but I know that I love and deeply care about my girlfriend and I want the best for her and unfortunately I’m having a hard time showing up as my best self. I can see how things are unravelling in front of me and I want it to work, but not if it means I have to ignore my own feelings and doubts to keep the peace.

TL;DR Has anyone been in a similar situation? Were you able to navigate through it?