Erised Posted February 19, 2015 Posted February 19, 2015 It's now been almost two days since we've talked. I don't know what to say to him. I keep expecting him to reach out or just do something unexpected to suddenly surprise me... but it just doesn't happen. Am I being like, super unreasonable? I love him, but I feel like this relationship is just completely drained of passion from his part and I just don't enjoy that. Gosh, no you told him and told him. My best friend was more "romantic" than that on my landmark birthdays and we aren't dating. He showed no consideration at all, after you told him. He's in the wrong here, and you have to decide what you need to see and how much it he needs to step it up for it to be worth it to you. I'd be feeling pretty done by this point.
Author jazzybones Posted February 19, 2015 Author Posted February 19, 2015 (edited) OP bless your heart for hanging in...if it were me, his passiveness and overall nonchalant attitude about you and the relationship would have turned me off way before that even happened.... If you choose to stay...expect more of the same. Oh he may step up for awhile.. but really he's only doing that because you asked.. and what's the point of that? This was like, really on my mind when I talked to him, because I know that's how people can be... they step things up and it's totally reactionary as a damage control mechanism or because they feel pressured, and there's really no sense in nagging someone into being more romantic... it doesn't work, so I was more concerned with getting to the root of the problem and figuring out why things have gone down like they have... because he doesn't strike me as a lazy person or someone who doesn't care. But apparently he's felt kind of like walking on egg shells with me because he finds me to be sort of intimidating and hard to impress because I can be pretty critical (not of him in particular, just in general, I have pretty high standards for everything going on in my life and am usually very quick to walk away from something if it doesn't meet my expectations) and I just had to be like, "Yeah well you won't ever know if you don't ever try, I swear, doing nothing is far worse than whatever possibility you think there is of me not liking something you do for me." So, there is room for me to grow out of this as well. I could probably stand to be more gentle and sweet if I'm expecting stuff like this... I can be kind of an emotionless void when I want to be. I think in the past, it was all, "Ugh you need to be more caring. The end." without being willing to give anything in return... so I'm willing to give it a few weeks and really invest in meeting halfway with him on this to see if it makes any improvement... if for nothing else, at least I'll be a better person for it for whatever future relationship I'm in. Edited February 19, 2015 by jazzybones
katiegrl Posted February 19, 2015 Posted February 19, 2015 Hold on jazzy now I'm confused. You said in an earlier post that you DO do a lot for him...plan special things etc, and that you're frustrated cause you're not getting that back from him. So his excuse is he is intimidated by you cause you have the audacity (my word) to express to him what you actually want and expect... instead of passively allowing him to do NOTHING...not even be with you on your birthday? Something is terribly wrong here. Not to be all negative, but it sounds like instead of taking responsibility for being s deadbeat boyfriend... he's attempting to "flip the script" and blame his laziness and passiveness on YOU for being a strong secure woman who stands up herself and expresses to him what you want! Is this really the type of man you want in your life? Rhetorical question... just something to think about.
Author jazzybones Posted February 19, 2015 Author Posted February 19, 2015 Hold on jazzy now I'm confused. You said in an earlier post that you DO do a lot for him...plan special things etc, and that you're frustrated cause you're not getting that back from him. So his excuse is he is intimidated by you cause you have the audacity (my word) to express to him what you actually want and expect... instead of passively allowing him to do NOTHING...not even be with you on your birthday? Something is terribly wrong here. Not to be all negative, but it sounds like instead of taking responsibility for being s deadbeat boyfriend... he's attempting to "flip the script" and blame his laziness and passiveness on YOU for being a strong secure woman who stands up herself and expresses to him what you want! Is this really the type of man you want in your life? Rhetorical question... just something to think about. Naw, he took full responsibility. It was a long, long conversation that went outside of the scope of just this one thing, not that that was his excuse or anything. I do a lot of things for him and plan stuff for us to do on trips outside of where we live (and I do that pretty frequently, like at least a few times a year because I'm *huge* into traveling), but I don't plan a lot of stuff for us to do in this city because I haven't lived here for very long and am often kind of clueless about events going on and don't really like it here, so I've been planning on leaving this city (and I know he wants to get out of here too, so we have been talking about us both moving to another place). But I still frequently crack attitude about the kind of people who live here and how boring I find it. It's a really crappy attitude for someone to have and I only recently was even aware of how bad I was about it... not that he brought it up as an excuse, but I brought it up on my own volition because I realized that certainly would not encourage someone to want to take me anywhere knowing I'm just going to complain. He didn't blame me for any of his behavior at all.
katiegrl Posted February 19, 2015 Posted February 19, 2015 Okay thanks for clarifying. But to me, I still don't get how you making cracks about people and not planning activities in your city cause you're new there and aren't familiar.. results in him being a total deadbeat boyfriend... which from the way you described him earlier, certainly sounds like he is. But if you're okay with it and want to keep going, of course that's your prerogative...he's your boyfriend... not mine... Good luck sweetie... I hope it all works out the way you want it to.....
Author jazzybones Posted March 17, 2015 Author Posted March 17, 2015 Just thought I'd follow up on this since I know people often don't unless they come back with new problems It's been a bit over a month, and I decided to stick it out... and I'm really glad I did, because after discussing everything with him, the communication between us has been better than ever... it's been different and we've continued to try to understand what each other wants and needs and mutually worked on improving that. He's also made significant, permanent changes in a bunch of different areas of his life (removing things that were stressing him out from his life, making more efforts to be around his friends, and just being more romantic with me overall) which has made me step up my game as well, I think. I feel good about it because although I did discuss it seriously with him, I never nagged him about it so I really feel that these changes came because he knew they were what was best for both of us. I'm genuinely happy with where things are now and where they seem to be going. Thanks so much for all the feedback--it really helped me figure out what exactly was important to me and what I needed to talk to him about. 1
Redhead14 Posted March 17, 2015 Posted March 17, 2015 (edited) I've been with my bf for about a year and a half now. He's a very sweet and trustworthy person and we usually have a good time together and get along well, but he's not particularly romantic or unpredictable for that matter. I love him and I know he really loves me but at the same time, it just feels like he doesn't make any effort towards this thing that is kind of important to me. For example, he's always there for me when I really need him for something (like if I needed help moving heavy furniture, he'd drop everything he was doing and come over to help me right then and there). He even moved to my neighborhood to be closer to me. Whenever I'm sick, he's the one there taking care of me. And when I told him I was feeling like moving to another city, he seemed interested in going too. But last Valentine's Day (2014)... I just... didn't hear from him all day until that evening. I got pretty upset over it, because we didn't do anything and when I told him how disappointing it was, he responded by saying I didn't seem like the kind of person who would want to celebrate VD. So I told him, "I know it seems unlike me because I'm not incredibly superficial normally, but I *like* celebrating holidays." Around when my birthday was coming up a few months ago, he asked me what I wanted to do. It was my 30th birthday and I kept telling him, "I've never had a birthday party in my life so... I think that would be fun." But come my 30th birthday, I literally spent it alone because no party was ever planned. He ended up having dinner with his work friends and had planned to just come over to my house after to "hang out" because he thought I was busy or something, but I'm not sure why he thought this because I had told him I didn't have any plans for the day yet. I was *really* upset... not really at him, but just in general because you know, it was my 30th birthday and it sucked to spend it alone. Even just getting like 3 or 4 friends together for drinks would have been easy enough, but instead I ended up crying and feeling like a giant loser. So I told him how I felt and how important these things are to me and we were fighting about it for a while... him telling me that he understands how I feel but that he's generally clueless about stuff like this. Well, yesterday was Valentine's Day a year later. I had thought of some stuff to plan for him and I to do together, but decided to just hold off on it and see how things went this year. I admit this was kind of a lame test on my part. He spent the night at my place and after I made a late breakfast for us, I noticed he was just kind of sitting around playing with his computer and he suddenly is like, "I didn't plan anything. I kept trying to think of something but I just couldn't" And I got angry and told him how disappointing that was. Because even though I like celebrating that holiday, I know it's such an easy-out cliche holiday. It's so hard to go wrong... flowers, a little letter saying "I love you", playing a song on guitar... anything. I'm not a very material person and he knows that... for me, it's just having someone surprise me and do something out of the ordinary once in a while, but I feel like every day is the same with him. His birthday was just a week ago, and I put so much time and effort into making hand-made presents for him and making sure everything was perfect and so I felt really embarrassed in hindsight. It frustrates me because I'm always doing little things for him to show my appreciation... and I never feel like it gets returned. I've talked to him about this a good 5 or 6 times now and he acknowledges and accepts my feelings and always says he'll try to be better about it, but then whenever the opportunity arises, he always lets me down. Even yesterday, I said, "This is such an easy problem to fix... right now... we could do anything romantic, the two of us, anything... that's all it is...." but instead, he just went home. It's now been almost two days since we've talked. I don't know what to say to him. I keep expecting him to reach out or just do something unexpected to suddenly surprise me... but it just doesn't happen. Am I being like, super unreasonable? I love him, but I feel like this relationship is just completely drained of passion from his part and I just don't enjoy that. You two are just going through the motions of having a relationship. There is some significant communication problem between the two of you. Mostly, on his part, it appears. him telling me that he understands how I feel but that he's generally clueless about stuff like this. This statement suggests to me that he isn't interested in what's important to you. If he really understood how you feel, he would do something. To further my point, the passage below says a lot. he acknowledges and accepts my feelings and always says he'll try to be better about it, but then whenever the opportunity arises, he always lets me down. On your next birthday or VD or holiday or event you'd expect him to do something for you, make a plan for yourself to go out and have fun with your friends. You can ask him to come, but be clear that you're doing this for yourself because it will make you happy. Hopefully, he will get the message that this is what you want him to do. Show him what you want and how to do it instead of arguing or pushing him. You are not awful for feeling the way you feel. Your feelings are your feelings Period. You are entitled to your feelings and to have your needs met. If you are relying on someone else to meet your needs and that isn't happening, there is likely something wrong with the relationship somewhere. In addition, you should never RELY on someone else to meet your needs. They should want to. Edited March 17, 2015 by Redhead14
Hopeful30 Posted March 17, 2015 Posted March 17, 2015 Never, ever apologize for your feelings. You have every right to feel the way you feel, even if it doesn't make sense to you.
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