Hello everyone, apologies in advance for the longer post. Trying to provide as much context as possible for y’all to weigh in. Thanks in advance for your feedback.
My girlfriend (27F) and I (26M) have been in a relationship for about 6 months. We live in San Francisco. I would characterize it as a serious relationship – we are not afraid of discussing big topics, both want the same thing out of this relationship (insofar as that we are both dating for the long haul, and want to get married at some point). Both of us are lightly jealous people, but its mutual and generally doesn’t lead to any issues. We both love each other. We are both professionals who have made great lives for ourselves after a lot of hard work. Our communication is generally great. We don’t live together just yet, but it’s in the cards to happen sometime in the next 12 months.
Some more context. My work is in person (I’m the CFO of small business). She works in tech and enjoys a lot of flexibility in her job. This last week, my girlfriend went on her first trip without me – one week in New York City with some of her friends. My GF likes to party, likes clubs, has relationships with promoters, etc. It’s not a life that I really know ( I like going out, but am by no means a party animal and definitely do not get hit up by promotors), but she enjoys it and I trust her. We have a two week Europe vacation coming up in July, so needless to say I couldn’t not take an extra week of vacation now to join her.
I had some concerns about how we would communicate while she was gone. We typically text routinely throughout the day, and chat on the phone at night on days we don’t see each other. I made a point to discuss our communication expectations leading up to her trip. Some convos were more healthy/productive than others, but we generally came away with a solid understanding that we would keep texting regularly and would chat on the phone when we could. She was incredibly reassuring that she would make the trip as comfortable as possible for me. She loves me, so I don’t think there is any worry about her cheating or doing anything objectively wrong from that point of view.
Well, needless to say, it is not going well. The first day she was there she went out partying with her friends. I received a few texts throughout the day and evening, but starting at 10pm her time I did not hear back from her at all. I did not receive a goodnight text (extremely a-typical, we have said goodmorning and goodnight to each other for 6 months straight, which I feel is pretty typical in relationships? But what do I know). I was worried about her, and did not receive a text until 1pm the next day, and the text did not acknowledge her lack of communication.
I immediately raised the issue with her. In retrospect, I probably could have been more gentle here, but I insisted that she call me and we talk about it over the phone and not text. I explained to her that her disappearing on the first day, and especially not texting goodnight, was a breach of our agreement that we came too before the trip, and that it was hurtful to me bc I made it clear that communication during this trip was important to me, and that it felt like her word meant less to me because she specifically agreed to communicate well with me while she was gone. My tone was serious, but I was not yelling.
Before calling, I called my brother for advice because he is calm and handles these situations well. He is my go-to for a support system in these types of issues.
The conversation did not go well. She initially apologized, but then got defensive, saying that she doesn’t know anybody who is dating that expects goodnight and goodmorning texts. She said that she texted me during the day, and only didn’t reply at night because she got super drunk and passed out when she got home (another red flag, but we’ve all been there so I can let it go). She then freaked out that I would bring this up to my brother and accused me of undermining the relationship.
Then, after we hung up, her tone changed a bit over text. Much colder. I asked why, and she said that my tone on the call was so rude / unnecessary / and hurtful that she didn’t feel like being cute anymore.
Two nights later, I am out in SF with my friend and a few people I met through my GF. It’s 11pm and I get a facetime call from her while at a bar. I take the call as a way of showing her that I am not ignoring her, but its super loud and the service was wack, so I blew a few kisses into the camera and hung up the call. I put my phone in my jacket, and didnt realize that I missed 9 subsequent follow up calls from her.
As soon as I realized I stepped outside to call her, and got absolutely reamed. She can’t believe how I can ask for communication from her, and then ignore her when she calls me 9x. She said I was full of shit, she doesn’t want to talk to me until she gets back from her trip, said I don’t care about her, said that she will go do whatever she wants on this trip and won’t worry about communicating with me, on and on. Pretty hurtful things. People get mad and say things they don’t mean, but this was brutal. I called her back within 20 minutes of missing her calls.
Fast forward to this morning. She didn’t say goodnight again. I am not sure what to make of the situation. As soon as she got on that flight, it feels like everything she said to me went out the door. She doesn’t seemed concerned with how I feel. I suspect that she got to NYC, resumed her party life that she walked away from when we started dating, and decided that she wasn’t done with that life yet. It feels like there might be some emotional manipulation going on – I don’t think it’s fair for her to attack me for asking my brother for advice, and her complete change of tone to me after I raised the issue feels more like punishing me for raising an issue with her behavior. It feels like her freaking out at me for not answering her call in the middle of the bar (which is never something I asked her to do) was a way for her to gain leverage, call me a hypocrite, and resume living the life she wants to live. It feels like she doesn’t want to be accountable. It feels like she doesn’t respect me enough to prioritize my basic communication needs at the expense of her doing what she wants to do on her trip. I think the worse part is that we talked about all of this, and as soon as she left it was meaningless.
From her perspective, she would probably say that I am being overly sensitive, don’t trust her, am trying to undermine her standing with my family, and that my reaction is more hurtful than what she did to begin with.
TL;DR – girlfriend went on a trip without me and isn’t communicating how we agreed she would communicate.
Would love to hear y’alls two cents. Looking for advice. I am inclined to not say anything until she gets back in three days. But I know myself, and I won’t be able to maintain a loving tone on any text/phone conversations we have in the meantime.
9 comments
To expect her to contact you that much that often is not logical or reasonable. You are absolutely in the wrong to expect her to interrupt a *vacation* to be on your schedule of contact. She is also correct that it’s not right to bring your brother into this situation. You were annoyed she wouldn’t talk and then when she tried, you ignored her. That is also not cool. That says “it’s okay for *me* to be busy, but not you.” As if you want her always on call.
She wasn’t correct in being mean, but you’re acting very immature here.
Sounds like you have trust issues and should seek out therapy to deal with that. If someone I was dating for 6 months demanded a certain amount of communication while I was trying to enjoy my time with friends, and then demanded a phone call about it while I was still trying to enjoy my time… and went insofar as to involve a family member, I wouldn’t be cute either. Red flags my friend.
>how we agreed
Is this really a WE thing?
Because what I see here is that YOU want her to be completely at your beck and call and when she called you out on it, you got frosty.
She’s on vacation, dude. Her texts aren’t following her usual routine because SHE is not in her usual routine. She’s vacationing.
… and her friends want to spend time with HER – not her with her nose in her phone…
Even if you were *already* married, I would consider your expectations too high. It’s not that she’s not in communication at all. It’s that her communication is less than usual – which is to be expected. You don’t seem to be giving her ANY wiggle room.
As for the phone call in the bar, in her shoes, I would read that as a passive-aggressive move on your part to punish her/show her what it feels like when your partner is out and not available. I also have a hard time believing you missed 9 calls knowing she was trying to contact you and you hung up in a weird way…
You need to lighten up or you will lose her, IMO.
Your expectations were unreasonable, it’s really overbearing that you felt it required *multiple* conversations ahead of the trip, and it’s not at all surprising that once your girlfriend was actually on her trip she realized she was not able to keep up with the level of contact you expected of her. You then made a big deal out of her not texting for one morning and talked to your brother about it before talking to her?
All of that up until the post-bar fight was on you. It sounds like she got a lot crappier about that than the situation deserved, but given how you’d been treating her in the days prior, I can’t say it’s surprising she’d be feeling short-tempered and less than inclined to give you grace here. I’ll take you at your word that you weren’t doing some petty retaliation nonsense, but surely you can see how it looks like that from the outside.
You two are not negotiating this well long distance. Stop trying to do that. You can talk this all out when she gets home.
In the meanwhile, it sounds like you would do well to just leave her alone and let her enjoy her trip without forcing her through some sort of required daily quantity of text communications neither of you will enjoy in your present moods.
You need to chill, seriously. For one, your communication needs are far from basic….i’d go as far as to say they’re a bit extravagant. It’s 100% reasonable to expect and want some type of communication while separated from your SO. However, you saying you trust her is a complete load of BS.
If you trusted her you wouldn’t require that she give you a play-by-play of her day out as it’s happening. You also wouldn’t jump on the phone and berate her for simply not texting you goodnight for the first time in 6 months.
You need to work on yourself for your sake and the sake of your relationship. You haven’t been together long, you’re asking a lot of someone that you haven’t been with long. If i were her this wouldn’t give me the warm and fuzzies about the future or any event that would involve us being separate.
You’re suffocating her, you needed to have multiple conversations just to say “keep me updated so i know you’re safe, and try to call when you can”. After one night you’re already were calling her to discuss your communication yet again, even though she texted you throughout the day. I’m lost on why this needed to become such a big deal if you trust her and believe her.
Also, she’s on vacation; let her vacation! Don’t make it about you.
Dude, she’s on holiday.
What you SHOULD be doing is kicking back, using this free time to go see your mates, taking day trips out for yourself or playing that video game you’ve been waiting to play. Getting clingy is a sure fire way to piss her off.
End of the day, if she’s going to cheat, she’s going to cheat. There’s nothing you can do about it so the best thing you can do is chill and enjoy your time alone.
Que sera.
> I received a few texts throughout the day and evening, but starting at 10pm her time I did not hear back from her at all. I did not receive a goodnight text
I’m sorry, how often did you expect her to text you while she was on vacation?
It sounds like you want her to check in with you every hour instead of enjoying her time off.
You’re being extremely insecure and clingy and need to explore why you are feeling that way. I’m not sure anyone would be able to meet your expectations without feeling suffocated.
I also don’t know anyone who does daily good morning) goodnight texts. I mean maybe in the first few weeks of a relationship when you feel you have to somehow be together 24/7, but like …that normally fades. And she’s on holiday that’s specifically geared to going out partying it seems, so it’s extra weird to expect her to keep those text hours.
You too went out and ignored her calls, because…you were out having fun with friends. That’s what people do.
I wonder if you could elaborate on your convos before her holiday, so e of which apparently were less productive/healthy, because reading between the lines I see you insisting on keeping the texting routine and her wanting a break from it.