I’ve put various posts on recently about my relationship because I’m struggling to tell if I’m just being anxious and overthinking everything or if I genuinely should be concerned.
Myself (38f) and my boyfriend (37m) have been seeing each other for 2 and a half years. We don’t live together and have kids from previous relationships.
I’ve never felt so anxious in a relationship before but recently I’ve been feeling like my boyfriend has stopped caring and becoming emotionally distant. His lack of or inconsistent communication bothers me. There are days where he’ll message me all day and then there are days where I hardly hear from him at all. For example there’s been a few occasions where he’s sent me a good morning message, I’ve replied to him and then I get nothing back for hours. When I say hours I mean there’s been times where it’s literally been nearly 24 hours before he’s messaged me. So I respond with “oh you’re alive then” and he’s says “what do you mean?” like he’s oblivious to the fact he’s ignored me for 24 hours. And these are times where I know he’s not working. I get people are busy but can you really be that busy?
I don’t want to be one of these girlfriends that constantly messages because I don’t want to come off as desperate and needy but it feels like sometimes if I didn’t message him I wouldn’t get anything.
When he does message me he usually puts effort into his messages and sends me paragraphs but when he sends me good morning messages there’s literally no effort in it just “Morning” and that’s it. Is this a man thing? Am I reading too much into it? He used to send me “morning gorgeous” or at least follow it up with something but it seems like I don’t get that now. Does this usually happen when you’ve been with someone for a little while? It comes across like he’s doing it because he feels like he has to not because he wants to.
I went out with a friend yesterday, the place we were at I had no signal all day and sent him a message letting him know. When we left and my signal came back on I was expecting a reply from him or some sort of message to come through checking in on me but there was nothing. So I messaged him asking if he was up (this was 11pm) he replied at 2am saying he’d gone out with his friends and ended up getting drunk so went home and was asleep by 10pm.
This morning I’ve messaged him to see if he was up yet and he had gone to his mates house over the road at 2am and was still partying and drinking at 9am when I’ve messaged him. He’s then messaged saying he’s gone to bed. We were supposed to be seeing each other today. I had no idea he was going out with his friends.
I tell him everything about what I’m doing and who I’m with and update him but he keeps his plans quiet. I get he wants time with his friends as well I have no problem with that. It’s just he never usually tells me about it.
I really don’t know what to make of it.
I want him to show me that he cares about me but I’m not sure if he truly does or if I really am just overthinking everything.
TL;DR can’t tell if I’m overthinking my relationship
Comments
Partying all night, into a day you have plans, is reallllllllly bad behavior. I’d get it if he was 21, but 37? I’m y’all’s age, we’re grown-ups, and he should know how to keep his plans. If this is at all in character for him, I’d start looking into the signs of problematic substance use.
As far as the texting goes, you don’t sound compatible.This guy sounds like exactly my speed of texter: my ideal would be to keep my phone on do not disturb most of the time, then use texting for longer check-ins with people I love. Feels like he could probably make more of an effort to meet you where you’re at, but ultimately this sounds like a mismatch.
I’d urge you to take anxiety as a potential flag for incompatibility next time. There’s no prize for being uncomfortable in your relationship.