So my boyfriend of 7 months M39 F33 had slight disagreement if you could call it that after he went out of town… so basically, I barely talked to him for about two days because he was busy with work or errands so he said.. He called me at the end of the day and explained then says he out of town with his which was kind of random but I said ok. Usually he’d tell me these types of things ahead of time. I told him that was a little shady got no response.. the next morning he texts gm and I said gn out of frustration. He says nothing to me all that day and the next and when I finally asked him about it he said I “blew him off” when he tried to talk to me. So it’s been about three days since all of that happened and I’ve barely talked to him since.. we usually talk every day but when I expressed my frustration, he’s not really responded to it and kind of made it seem like I was overreacting. Personally I value communication (and I told him this) and I just didn’t want to be shut out and ignored, especially after trying to talk to him about it. I understand he may have been frustrated too but why not just communicate? It makes me feel like he was out of town w someone else but maybe not. Overall I feel like he doesn’t care but he’s never acted like this before.
TL;DR how can I get him to see where I’m coming from? And what should I do next ?
Comments
You value communication but when he said good morning, you told him goodnight. You could’ve started a conversation about how you felt. You’re saying you understand he could’ve been frustrated too but why couldn’t he communicate that? Probably for the same reason you couldn’t. You both are too old for this.
OP, I genuinely believe you value communication like you’ve shared, but both of your communication skills need serious work. Valuing communication and developing the skills to communicate effectively and manage conflict are very very different things.
On your end, because you’re the one posting, the poor communication started with the shady comment. Calling it shady is a conclusion. When you assert a conclusion instead of expressing your feelings and asking for clarity, you are very unlikely to get the very thing that you want – clarification. Because the other will feel attacked and go into defense mode.
A better way to communicate would have been – hey babe, we usually do xyz and I noticed ABC which has me feeling a little DEF, can you help me understand why you did things differently this time?
I don’t think there’s anything for this person to fix or get. You both communicated very poorly. You can make a step towards repair by acknowledging your role in the breakdown and moving on eg