Originally posted by FierceFoxie
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The issue is that his being stressed out does not mean you should stop communicating your needs. I'm not sure if, say, the issue with the bet would have happened had he not been so stressed out, i.e. I'm not sure if you generally have difficulty communicating your feelings when you're upset or not, but situations like that are only going to contribute to the stress/negativity of the situation, either on your end or his, and that's not healthy for either of you. I'm not saying you need to sit him down with a big ol' "we need to talk," but for example, my partner was on the iPad, using Skype, and we typically say goodnight over Skype messenger after hanging up the call before finally going to bed. The other night, he typed "Ily." It was the first time he had ever shortened it. Knowing he was exhausted but also knowing I would sit on it the rest of the night, I said, "Why Ily? :P" and he said he was tired and that was about the end of it. In response to, "oh, yea?", you could have said, playfully, "what, no I miss you too? :P" It's easy to overthink a situation as opposed to attributing it to what's more realistic, such as that he's tired or not feeling well.
What you have to be wary of is that you're not projecting meaning onto what he's saying or not saying, doing or not doing. If your inclination is, when upset, to get out of his bed and climb back into your own to brood, then you're going to be more likely to assume that something's wrong when he exhibits similar behaviour. However, he sounds like he's fairly straightforward and so I would try to concentrate on that as opposed to likening his behaviour to your own. When you start overanalysing and getting upset and letting your mind wander, I think that's the time I would take a moment to stop, breathe, and look to what's happened in the past. Is it often that your worries are overly exaggerated, and they end up being off the mark as far as accuracy? Or do your worries, in this relationship, generally turn out to have some merit or value? My guess would be that your tendency to overanalyse leads to your tendency to exaggerate a problem and that leads to a tendency to worry unnecessarily about what could very well be an imagined issue. When you start hitting that point of irrationality, I would honestly stop yourself, say out loud if you have to that you're being irrational, and then do something to keep busy and keep your mind off it as best you can. Repeat that as many times as is necessary.
The other thing to think about is that he's been stressed out. That means he's been dealing with what he needs to deal with, and that needs to take precedence right now. We can't always be in a place where we put our partners first, and that means that sometimes texting or phone calls get put on the back burner for a bit. At this point, I wouldn't assume it's so much because he's gotten comfortable (though that very well may be the case) as simply that his life his picked up and so he's having to learn how to manage it. He's having to balance his own personal stressors in addition to his social life in addition to keeping things up with you, and it's not easy when anyone hits a point of transition. It sounds like his mind is currently consumed by his worries about where he's going to stay and whether or not he's going to get the job etc. and especially in the patriarchal society we live in, both of those are going to be extremely important to him. Men also are not generally as good at multi-tasking as women are. I can't remember the exact study, but there is biological evidence to support the fact that men's brains are generally more compartamentalised than women's, meaning you may be able to be stressed about one thing and worried about another and still keep up your relationship, but his being stressed out and worried might simply be what he needs to focus on right now.
My opinion would be don't always approach communication like it has to be a big deal. If something he says bothers you, either casually mention it or have a talk if necessary, but be open and honest about it. Stop withholding information and feelings from him. I think you'd be surprised at how much partners tend to feed off of one another. If you're constantly withholding your upsets and not communicating your true feelings, he's going to pick up on that, whether or not he brings it up outright, and that's going to effect the way he's communicating with you as well.
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