very confused

[Bean29]

I don't know if this is right place to post this but here I go! Me and my SO have been together for awhile but lately I feel like he loves me but that's all. There is no effort anymore! He was just visiting me a couple of weeks ago and we had a talk about our relationship and how he needs to work on it because I having been happy! Don't get me wrong I love him but long distance is hard and unless it's 50-50 it doesn't work and right it's more like 95-5. And when I told him he understood but now that he went back his doing it again. Now putting any effort in this relationship. Ya I get I love here and there but that's it! I know his life where he is Hard with his father and work and money but I think we are all going throught this. My confusion is that I think we both are holding on to this past that we had 9 years ago and holding on to last string of what can be instead of what reality is! I love him with all my heart and I want spend the rest of my life with him but I am just wishing for the 50-50. So I guess I am just waiting alittle longer and see how I feel with it all. But how long can I wait?

[Fish]

Sounds rough. I don't see how long distance can work if both people are not putting effort into it. Actually I don't see how it can work in any relationship. Be sure to talk to him about it again. Hope it works out.

[Andi]

I'm in the same boat. My BF gives me maybe 5 minutes a day on the phone and most of the time I have to text him and tell him I'm going to bed. He pushes me to the side and makes me feel like not only are we not in a relationship but we don't even have a friendship. We talked about this last night and I told him (again although he seems to have forgotten we have been over this already) I need more. He needs to give me at least 15-20 minutes once or twice a week. He gets upset when I tell him I need more and I think he feels I am criticizing (which I am not) he can't know what is going on with unless i tell him. This happens a lot. He will be "good" for the next few days and then it will go right back to me being cast aside. We have been LD for 9 months now and have 9 more months to go (I wanted to move in June but now it looks like August at best but more likely January). I told him I can not do 9 more months of this. He told me he is not a phone person but an in person person. I let him know that the phone and skype is all we have. It's so frustrating to feel like you are putting your all in and getting little of nothing back. I don't know when I will see him again. I am going with my family sometime this summer to scatter my dads ashes so i will see him then but after that who knows. i don't know what is going to happen but i did tell him that if I don't get more than we are going to fall apart. He told me if i need to talk then I can call but every time I do I get the same 5 minutes and then he's off onto more important things than me. Good luck to you. i know how you feel.

[LoveJ]

Relationships, in order to succeed, need to be a 50/50 balance.
The reason for this is that when that balance is off, negative feelings can begin to develop, which can be very toxic for a relationship. If you are putting in a vast majority of the effort to keep a relationship going, that's not at all fair to you, and will cause resentment to build up. It's not at all ok for him to be slacking off and letting you do everything it takes to make the relationship work.

The thing with waiting to see if this changes is sort of a Catch 22; the longer you wait to see if it improves, the more comfortable and accustomed he gets to putting in minimal effort. If he sees he can still be with you without working for it because you'll do everything, he's not going to want to work. He's going to get lazy and try even less. And just the fact that he's ok letting you do all the work without investing much time or energy into you makes me want to say, "Dump him like a wet rag, because you deserve better!" but I know it's not that easy.

If you've already had a big talk about it and he knows how much it bugs you that he's not putting in any effort yet has reverted back to being lazy, I'm sorry to say, it's not going to change. I know you love him, but do you really want to spend your life with someone who makes you work overtime while he metaphorically sits on his butt all day long asking you to bring him chicken wings? Of course not. That's no kind of relationship. If he won't listen to you, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find someone who will. You deserve that.