TL;DR – my boyfriend has been acting odd lately and not like his usual self. Over promising and underdelivering. Full of excuses that don’t make sense to me. We’ve been together for just over a year now. Is he just stressed?
Usually my boyfriend is great at being responsible, reliable, and taking initiative. Lately he’s been making lots of (small) false promises he doesn’t follow through on and that’s one of my biggest pet peeves. For example, “I’ll plan date night for __ day” or “I’ll look into ___ thing” or “I’ll text you back once I’m home!” And doesn’t?? Like I’ll remind him, he’ll make excuses, I get upset because I don’t like excuses. I’ll help him do it by creating a list of things we could get up to, events, helping plan, reminders, etc but he still won’t get it done. I wouldn’t be upset if he set realistic expectations instead of overpromising and underdelivering?
He promises it wont happen again or that he’ll for sure take care of said thing by tomorrow and it still doesn’t get done. It feels like his brain is working at 60% capacity when normally it would be 75-100.
To me it just feels like a lack of care and desire. But he always tells me that his feelings for me haven’t changed and that it’s simply xyz excuse. The only thing I really believe is that he’s stressed and in a weird state? Putting him in a less capable state?
It’s very confusing because I know his personality and he’s totally capable of taking care of things and again, usually great at keeping promises! Even small ones.
He’s been stressed out by work lately (hasn’t loved his job in a while but loving it even less currently) and also has been travelling back to back the past month. After coming back home he immediately got sick with the flu. To me that was a sign of exhaustion. Flus gone whatever but lately he’s been unmotivated to work and I think he’s just overall a bit burnt out or stressed. We’ve talked about it and I told him I’d be more patient, compassionate, and understanding with him during this time and that he would fix his daily routines to help nurture his current state. Like getting more sleep, getting back into the gym, etc.
I just don’t understand……….. can somebody validate what he’s going through so I can better understand it? It’s not like he’s not able to function or go about his day normally, it’s more so that he’s lacking motivation and presence. I feel like his body is overworked and he needs some rest?
Does stress cause people to act this way?
What do you think?
I don’t know, I think the difference in his behaviours are making me anxious and I can’t help but think that this isn’t going to be a temporary thing and that this is his baseline…. Truly inconsistency and false promises, lack of consideration for me in a relationship is so so so unappealing. I don’t know what’s going on. Obviously there are ups and downs in relationships I just don’t understand what’s going on. Especially because his reasoning is always an excuse that doesn’t make sense lately? It all seems so immature and out of character for him.
Comments
He definitely sounds burnt out. Someone burnt out and hates the job won’t have the mood the do anything else but prioritise his own rest and feelings.
He seems overwhelmed and maybe even burnt out or depressed. Doesn’t seem like it’s about you but I think that’s clouding your judgment/making you anxious/irritable/lil selfish tbh. Have you checked in on him? For him not for you