I’ve been dating my boyfriend for a few months now. He’s been lying about what he’s doing instead of seeing me. For example, I’ll ask him if he can hang out and almost guaranteed he’ll make up an excuse like “I have to clean my room,” “I have to do homework,” “I have to mow the lawn”. When we do hangout it’s like he’s in a rush to go home or make me go home.
He even turned down sleeping over at my house (What teenage boy turns down the chance to sleep over at his girlfriend’s house?) because he needed to get home in order to do homework. Not to be mean but his grades have never been good and they don’t reflect the grades of someone who puts off plans to do homework.
I see him for maybe three hours maximum a week. That’s bad considering we’re no more than a fifteen minute drive away from each other. And I don’t see him much in school either because we have very different schedules.
Through some conversations between our parents that my mom retold to me, i found out he’s not done any of the things he’s said he has for weeks. He’s just been playing video games.
I have no reason to think he’s cheating on me or to think he wants to break up with me. He tells me he loves me every day many many times and actually acts interested. He always starts conversations with me and makes sure I’m okay. He stays at home most of the time from what I’ve seen on his snap location and he doesn’t have a license or anything to go anywhere anyways.
His mom recently reached out and told my mother that he said he was trying to “take it slow because he loved me” and that’s why he wasn’t hanging out with me but still I see no reason for him to lie to me. He also told me after our first “date” that he loved me so I don’t understand why he wants to go slow all of a sudden.
Both of his exes apparently treated him really badly so maybe he’s trying to prevent a breakup and minimizing the amount of time we see each other so I don’t get “bored” of him?
I also ruled a video game addiction on his part possible. Every day I would say he is on his computer from the time he gets home from school to the time he goes to bed. He even made me watch him play video games for an hour the last time I was at him house.
How do I bring this up to him? Why is he doing this?
Tl;Dr: Boyfriend is making excuses not to see me but doesn’t seem uninterested in me. What do I do?
1 comment
Hey! Just wanted to start off my saying this sounds really tough and I’m sorry you’re going through this in your relationship. It can feel really invalidating and raise some insecurities when the person we really like and make time for doesn’t seem to reciprocate that same interest.
My best advice for you is to just stop and give both of you a breather. I wouldn’t break up with him or keep giving to him or this relationship. I would just give myself some time to get on steady ground and be neutral. Stop initiating seeing him or going out. Start putting that time and energy investment back into yourself, your goals, your hobbies, and your friends and family who love and cherish you and reciprocate love and interest back towards you. This isn’t to play games or “play hard to get” so that he’ll come crawling back to you, but just something nice to do for yourself.
I would continue to kindly state my desires and needs (just maybe instead of initiating that desire, like saying “Do you want to go to dinner on Saturday night at X place at X time?” you could clue him in and say “I’d really like to dinner at X sometime” and then give HIM the reigns to decide the date and time and ask YOU out OR if you really wanted to go to that dinner at that time (as per the example) make arrangements to go NO MATTER WHAT his response is and just say “I’m going to dinner at X on Saturday night at X time. Do you wanna join?”). Clue him in and kindly tell him if something bothers you / what he can do better next time micro increments (“it hurt my feelings when you said you were doing homework to not do Y with me, when I just found out you were playing video games instead. Next time if you’re not interesting in doing something with me and want some personal time, I’d appreciate it if you just let me know”) and then LET IT GO and just mentally make a note to self and see if the behavior continues. Don’t let those micro increments turn into long conversations about his pattern with this behavior (you run the risk of him getting defensive and your words losing meaning the longer you talk about it). Just clue him in, make it short and sweet, and then turn your attention elsewhere. If you’re hurt or upset by his behavior you have every right to kindly remove yourself from the situation you’re in with him, and your actions are going to speak so much louder than your words. Again, this isn’t playing hard to get or anything like that. You’re just taking care of yourself and distancing yourself from a situation where you don’t feel very valued.
Also, highlight the things he does RIGHT. If he does do something nice for you or you have a fun time with him, let him know. Spend more time with him when he steps up. Show him with your actions that you value time with people who value you in the same way. Invest in him more when he invests in you. When he stops, you also can stop and turn your attention elsewhere.
The main thing I want you to take away is that you deserve to be valued. You should never question if your boyfriend values you (and, by proxy, time with you). It’s okay to go through some rough patches, but what you need to figure out is if this is a rough patch or if you’re seeing the real him and if this is the most he’s willing to bring to the table for the indefinite future. I’m not at all saying to end this relationship, but I’ve spent too many years being a “fixer” and over-analyzing guys when I wasn’t getting my needs met. Does this mean you should expect to be on a pedestal all the time? Absolutely not. You still should be kind to him and put in the work. But it sounds like you’re already doing that and it’s not leading you anywhere but feeling down about your current dynamic.
You’re young and have the world ahead of you. There’s so many awesome things and people around you to invest your time and energy in while he figures his situation out. Of course, offer yourself up as a point of contact if he wants to talk, but you also have to accept that this might just be him. The real and authentic him. And the more you invest in you the more you’re actually seeing who he really is and what he’s willing to bring to the table.
You got this! I wouldn’t bring this whole thing up, like I said, except for in micro-doses (and make sure you aren’t major triggered when you bring them up, you want to be as calm and rational as possible so that your message actually gets across). And quite honestly, it doesn’t matter why he’s doing this. You can’t fix him and he will only change when he wants to. By you being the best version of you that you can be, you can INSPIRE him to want to do better, but that’s not a guarantee. What is a guarantee is that if you invest in you, you’re going to get the happy relationship you’ve always wanted. You just might not know what that’s going to look like, when it’ll happen, or who it will be with yet. And that’s okay.