Me (F29) and my partner (M41) have been going on for about 2 months.
It’s mostly sunshine and rainbows. (He’s divorced IDK if that matters).
But he does this thing that frankly frustrates me and it’s a bit of a sore spot.
He will delete messages if I don’t answer them ASAP. We both work long hours and he has his kids to care for, which I’m OK with, and I understand that, which is why I don’t pressure him to see each other or to communicate, and I’d say I give him a healthy amount of space.
Because of our age difference, I also want to be clear that he doesn’t give me money, but he will pay for dinner now and then, and then I’ll cover the bill for the next date.
When we began dating I told him that I wanted to practice a healthy relationship, which meant that he wasn’t gonna be the center of my universe, and I didn’t expect to be the center of his. But he had a place and spot in my heart and life. He is my partner, after all.
I run two business which are finally taking off and I have to communicate with clients via Whatsapp. He will sometimes message me and I’m juggling clients, which means I can’t answer as fast as I’d like to.
He says he sees I’m online and I don’t answer, so he deletes messages, and I tell him why would he delete them. Something I frankly do is wait until the dust settles and answer afterwards because I want to give him all my attention, or I do read them and I genuinely forget to answer, he says he doesn’t like that, and that if I’m online, I should answer.
Just to be clear, I answer fast if I’m available and we’ll hold entire conversations when he both have the time and availability.
Something he’ll do is say he wants to see me, and I love being with him, I really do. But because we both work late into the night due to both of us being musicians, that sometimes happens after midnight, I tell him rain check because I’m worried that something may happen on the drive here or back home (we live about 40 minutes away from each other with no traffic to consider)
He sees this as me blowing him off, and now that I’m reading it, I understand how it may seem. I just don’t want him risking himself at 1 am, or 3 am when he goes back home. I couldn’t stand the guilt if something happened to him because he came to see me late at night.
I also don’t bombard him with texts 24/7 because I don’t want to overwhelm him. He says he feels I’m ignoring him.
I’m not fooling around and I don’t cheat, I’m just anxious af and overthink everything. I’ve been told by previous partners that I’m annoying, overbearing and come on too strong, so I may be projecting a bit. I’m in therapy, if that counts for anything.
TL;DR: I don’t answer texts fast enough and BF thinks I’m blowing him off or cheating
5 comments
His deleting the messages and getting upset that you don’t respond to him while working is pretty childish. You should lay down the law, so to speak, on that foolishness and tell him that he needs to stop and you’ll respond to the message when you get done working
But you should also work on the cancelling of plans. I know you say it’s not your intentions, but you are totally blowing him off. Let him decide if it’s safe enough for him to drive to see you. And if it’s your turn to visit him, don’t make the plan unless you’re sure you are going to follow up on it.
You’re experiencing one of the huge benefits of consciously working at healthy relationship behaviors on your end: you can more quickly pick up on *unhealthy* behaviors from the other person’s end. If were embracing the unhealthy behaviors yourself — like jumping to see him at every chance no matter how inconvenient, dropping everything else to immediately make him your world, etc. — then it would probably take you several more months to even start to notice that he’s controlling and has very unhealthy tendencies. So be proud of yourself! You’ve rooted out major red flags! The next step is hard, though — break up with him.
What is your question?
41 and still playing childish attention games. I can’t imagine why he’s divorced
Deciding it’s too dangerous for him to drive is weird though. It does make it sound like you don’t feel comfortable saying you want a rain check
Wow I wonder why he’s divorced.