My partner (M21) and I (F20) have been together for a couple months now, roughly 6-7. Every time we have a “problem” between us he tends to shut off and expects me to be the one to communicate and blow up his phone for us to “make up”. We are different in the sense that I tend to have more urgency to communicate and tackle an issue because of my anxiety, and sometimes he needs his space to “cool off”. However, we had agreed to finding a balance between our needs and I have told him repeatedly that he has every right to take his space but I just would want some sort of heads up or even a “good morning” or “I’m gonna be off my phone for a couple hours/I’ll call you later” type of thing. In the end it always ends up being me who has to double text or call him a couple times just to hear from him.
We had a misunderstanding. We had been hanging out together, and I got a discord notification (he doesn’t really know what discord is and how most people have gamer tags or different names for their accounts). In one of my group chats, I had gotten a notification from a friend (female) sending a link to one of my servers of a video, however, her tag name in our server doesn’t have her actual name and is the name of a character from a series. He immediately thought that it was a notification from a guy, and he started to get upset and although I tried my hardest to explain to him how that was NOT a guy, and even going to the extent of opening the chat to show him or even call my friend, he just stayed upset refusing to listen or to look at what I was trying to show him. After a heated discussion where I told him that I was not hiding anything from him, and I am not talking to “any guys behind his back” (because that is the only truth), he slightly calmed down and said that “it’s fine, I just don’t want you doing that stuff. tell me if you are because I don’t want to do this if that is the case”, to which I kept trying to tell him that it was NOT a guy, it was my female friend, and I am not doing anything “sneaky” like he had assumed. He said “it’s fine, we’re good then, as long as you understand what I had said”. Right after he had dropped me off, I was feeling extremely anxious. He didn’t tell me anything the rest of the night or send me a message after dropping me off. I sent him an audio saying goodnight and to get back safe, as well as screenshots of my friends chats to try to “Ease” the situation. The following morning, I wake up, he has not sent me a message nor did he say goodnight or anything. I sent a Goodmorning audio like we usually do, and he never said anything. It is not almost 7 PM, he has not sent me any message or anything. Have not heard from him since he dropped me off.
I would have by now probably double texted or called, like I usually do, but I feel so frustrated. If he could have given me two seconds to further show him and explain, this wouldn’t have happened. It was all a misunderstanding and I don’t even know what he is thinking right now, and I am assuming he is probably ignoring me or I don’t even know what… even though he had said “it was fine”. I’ve just been anxious the entire day, because I feel the urgency to reach out and check up on him, but at the same time, I feel hurt that over a misunderstanding like this he ignores me when he knows how I feel about things like these and how all I want is a message to know he is okay, or just some sort of message to let me know what’s up.
I just don’t know what to do, I’m not sure if he is going to message me eventually by the end of today. Do I even say anything despite him not sending me anything AT all? Do I even say goodnight if he doesn’t text me at the end of day? If he doesn’t even text me tomorrow morning or tomorrow at all, what am I supposed to do? Call him then? I just don’t even know how to proceed with this, I just want things to be okay and it hurts when I’m feeling like I am at fault or he is mad at me for something that wasn’t even true. In the past it has been me to initiate after he ignores me, but I just feel so tired of it, but this feeling of anxiety and wanting to make things okay really hurts. When I am upset, all I want to do is talk to him. It’s hard for me for him to shut me out, especially without communicating at all, I just really don’t know how to proceed with this.
**TDLR: My current partner M(21) shuts me out when he is upset over an issue, but this time it truly was a misunderstanding and he has not communicated with me. Although I always feel an urgency to fix things, I am quite sad with how he has yet to reach out to me.**
2 comments
What part of this sounds healthy or reasonable to you?
If he’s behaving like this at ~6 months, that’s a massive red flag and precedent for your future. If, every time before this, YOU have been the one to chase him down after a fight and do all the emotional legwork of resolving a conflict, then what is he doing? What effort is he making to resolve problems? Shutting you out is a form of punishment, one that he knows is cruel given how anxious you are.
At this point, it doesn’t matter what the issue is, small or large, if every time the onus is on YOU to chase after him, what kind of precedent does that set for you? It’s perfectly fine to have different expectations for how quickly to handle something; what’s NOT fine is to know what your partner needs in that moment and not just ignore it, but do the opposite. A “I’m too angry to talk about this right now, can we talk tomorrow?” is enough. You may be angry or upset with your partner, but someone who cares about you can still treat you with kindness and decency through that upset.
You don’t need this. You’re 20. You have your entire life ahead of you. There’s no need for you to be doing this kind of emotional labor for a man who ignores you when he knows exactly what you need in order to punish you.
You can wait if you want, but your next message(s) to him should be something along the lines of how you can’t and don’t want to be with someone who shuts you out the moment you have any kind of conflict.