Need advice, again

[Jezah]

This time I really need to know if how I am feeling is out of line.

HBB has a new full time job, and its cut out talk time from 4+ hours each night to just over 2 if we are lucky. I have been really understanding of this, as my own ECT treatments are cutting into our time. However today he revealed that it is his friends birthday this weekend so he will be gone all Sat and Sun afternoon. I am incredibly upset, we get so much less time now and I don't get why he needs to take our weekend! Yes its a once a year event, but he ALWAYS has 'once a year' events like several times a month. End of Aug it was "vacation with his friends" then it was his other friends b-day and now its this friends b-day. I miss my boyfriend, and am so hurt that he doesn't miss me the same.

[Tooki]

This time I really need to know if how I am feeling is out of line.

HBB has a new full time job, and its cut out talk time from 4+ hours each night to just over 2 if we are lucky. I have been really understanding of this, as my own ECT treatments are cutting into our time. However today he revealed that it is his friends birthday this weekend so he will be gone all Sat and Sun afternoon. I am incredibly upset, we get so much less time now and I don't get why he needs to take our weekend! Yes its a once a year event, but he ALWAYS has 'once a year' events like several times a month. End of Aug it was "vacation with his friends" then it was his other friends b-day and now its this friends b-day. I miss my boyfriend, and am so hurt that he doesn't miss me the same.

Keep that point in consideration

Also, 2 hours of talk time a night is pretty good. I am lucky to get that sometimes. Also he has Saturday morning free, why not have a quick chat then. Stay up/wake up early if need be.

And how do you know that he doesn't miss you? I know for myself, being social with friends goes a long way in helping with the pain of being apart from my GF. It helps take my mind off the reality of the situation.

It's fine if you miss him. That's normal. Also be considerate of his own needs and friendships at home. You can't expect him to give up on his social life, so he can talk to you whenever you feel like it. There definitely needs to be a balance between the two.

[SoFarAway]

One thing about LDRs is the things you can't see. As soon as you hang up the phone or turn off your computer after a long Skype session, you have no idea what the other one is up to. And that thing that you cannot see is called the personal and social life.
If I understand that right, you are one of the lucky ones who actually gets to talk to their SO every day. Helen and my schedules are so messed up that we can only talk once a week on the phone/Skype. We usually have to rely on Facebook messages, emails, and text messages for the rest of the week. BUT it is not bothering me at all. We have this foundation of trust that let's me know that we are ok. If it wasn't, I would hear from her very quickly. And sometimes, I actually enjoy the free time that I can spend with my friends (many of them are actually female O.o ) because the wait time until I see my SO again would become unbearable. ...I don't even know how it will work when I get back on the ship.

What I am trying to say is that you have to learn to understand that he has friends besides his LDR. If he spends all his free time just with you on the phone and Skype, he also might feel a little bit pressured. So, don't blame him when he wants to spend a weekend or so with his friends. I promise you, he will miss you as much as you do when he is out with his friends. His feelings will not change towards you when he is out for a weekend or so. You guys actually do spend a lot of time with each other. Don't forget he has a social life and so DO YOU! You should not forget about your own friends as well.

To be honest, when I haven't heard from Helen all day, and due to the time difference, a text message wakes me up in the middle of the night with just a smiley face in it, it makes me happier than some of the conversations I had with her (or with my ex back then). It just tells me that she misses me and that she thinks of me.

I hope you get what I am trying to tell you. It is ok for him to hang out with friends... And usually some fun fun stories come out after that as well

[Tommybat]

I agree with the above posters. Don't be so upset about him working and spending a weekend with his friends. Relationships require understanding. I understand that the time cut of communication must be hard for you and him (I would kill for four hours with my SO hah) but that happens in relationships... People have lives outside of the relationship, y'know? Now is probably the time to try something creative and interactive without pressure. Why don't you guys try sending a nice long message to each other when you can back and forth?
It's important to look at things from your partners p.o.v as well as your own. He must be sad that he cannot talk as much with you as you are. Sugget something creative and non-time consuiming as an alternative for now.

[Black_Halloween]

Aww, im sure he's missing you just as much! Try getting into some hobbies so you're not sitting at home bored or hit up some friends up for sleepovers! ^.^

[TwoThree]

Hey Jezah. I've been checking your blog and wanted to say that I'm happy you're starting to see positive changes due to the treatment.

As for this thread, I do believe talking two hours a day should be good enough. My SO and I don't get that. I have had internet issues at home for over a year and we're lucky if we get to talk via Skype once a week or so. We do email during work hours but we're both busy much of the time. What I mean is, even if your communication time has been cut down you should be happy with what you have. As for him not being available next weekend, well such things happen. The need to socialize with friends has nothing to do with one's feeling towards one's significant other. You need to be patient and learn to let go a bit.

[kteire]

My SO and I had to drastically cut down the amount of time we could talk daily when he was working full time and studying hard for his actuarial exams, so I know the feeling. Anytime he'd have any social event, I'd have the knee-jerk reaction of thinking "WHY would you rather see them than talk to me??" and get all upset. I know you've said before that he's always had a more active social life than you, and when we were LD it was the same, as I was living at home to save money and had zero friends around.

Talking for less time will get easier. It really massively sucks at first, but you just have to keep telling yourself it's for the best. At least now he'll be able to make some money and maybe move out from his overbearing father's house? It's not a horrible adjustment though, so it will get easier faster than you'd expect. I

It sounds like he's got quite an active and large circle of friends, which is the same with my SO. I always found that even just having a bit of text contact while he was out helped me realise that he missed me too, and was thinking of me. The truth of it is though, he will be thinking of you less and missing you less when he's out with friends and distracted, but that's kind of the point of a distraction. It makes being away from each other easier, for him at least, and I'm sure he needs the social time with his friends.

So... no, I don't think you're being out of line in feeling that way, but perhaps a bit if you're dwelling on it and not trying to work on it. Maybe just find some way to distract yourself so that your weekend doesn't suck while he's out having fun. New craft perhaps? I learned knitting, and that was wonderful

[Biddlybiddlybombop]

I think something you need to try to keep in mind is that him seeing his friends is not a personal attack on you. It's not weird for you to feel like this - I know sometimes I feel like "Oh, he's busy, that means he doesn't want to talk to me". And then I remember that logically, I know he's not being busy to purposefully avoid me or upset me. And that although I may feel that emotionally, I KNOW it's not true.

And I sympathise about your time together being cut down, I've recently gone back to university, and it's massively cut down the time I can spend with my SO. It's frustrating, and I never feel like I've had enough time. But in a way it's nice... I appreciate speaking to him, we both want to speak to each other, and we're both in good moods when we speak, because we're happy to be together for a bit.

It's annoying when your usual habits get broken, but you'll get more used to it soon. And try to remind yourself that although it detracts from your time together, he's not seeing his friends just to avoid you. If he was avoiding you, or not wanting to talk to you, you wouldn't be getting 2 hours of his time everyday!

Good Luck!

[lucybelle]

I thought you guys were on a break? I think that was the best decision you two have made. You need time apart. He needs to miss you. You need to not feel dependent on him for happiness.

I hope your ECT is working!

[Moon]

I thought you guys were on a break? I think that was the best decision you two have made. You need time apart. He needs to miss you. You need to not feel dependent on him for happiness.

I hope your ECT is working!

I second this!! Nothing else to add.

[milaya]

Okay, so I haven't really commented on any of your threads before (as far as I remember), either I probably didn't feel like I had any constructive things to say or maybe I just felt that my comment would be seen as negative, the same might go for this comment, but I finally decided to write... so here we go.

First off, I agree with lucybelle. Weren't you two on a break?! also I thought that was the best decision for you two. If you have already decided to end this so-called break, I reckon this this probably was too soon - especially considering that it sounds like you're back to your usual problems again. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, but this whole "friends" vs. "you time" has been a reoccurring thing, or am I wrong.

I have to blunt about this, because I've had this feeling while reading all your previous posts - I think you need to be more independent. I use the word independent, because that's what you in a previous post declared him not to be, because he felt a too much need to be with his friends. Back when you wrote that, combining with your own "I don't need friends" statement I was close to declaring "irony" - but I kept my tongue. I'm sorry if I come off as mean or anything like that, but if you enjoy life without friends that's fine, but then I don't think you should call him independent and complain about his lack of attention.
I'm in no way trying to make you the bad guy here, I do understand some of your problems regarding your SO - whom also need to grow up, speak up for himself and take responsibility. And of course, more importantly he should stop breaking promises.
But, on the other side, I really think you should let him live his life and let him enjoy the things that makes him happy, even if it means spending a lot of time with his friends. If you really love him, then be happy for him. I'm sure he misses you as well, but he just also have other needs. I myself, actually spend a lot of time with friends because I miss my SO.

I know that going from a lot of contact to less contact can be hard, but to be honest I don't see 2 hours a day as a small amount of contact time (and I know a lot of other people here feel the same).
Because of my SO's work, we only talk once or twice a week for an hour or two and then 1 e-mail a day or every other day. Would I like more time? Yes, of course! but we're doing the best we can and we then make that work.
I also spend a lot of my weekends with friends and if my SO calls me during that time I'll often as him to call me another time, which he doesn't mind at all. Sometimes I don't get my daily e-mail and the next day he might write "sorry I didn't write yesterday, went out with some co-workers for some drinks" and I'll reply "That's nice. Did you have fun?".

I would wish I could say that you should just decide some contact schedules that makes you both content, but your SO doesn't seem to be always good at making promises - so I'm really not sure how I can help you is this certain situation.

But I will say this...
I think a lot here will agree to that in a long distance relationship communication is the key - but so is living your own life, enjoy your time even when your SO is not around, make good memories and create your own identity and independence. Please don't sit around and wait for the next call to come around, don't waste your time complaining about decreased contact or conflicting views of how to spend a Friday evening, don't watch your life pass you by - make the best of it!

[Sora1101]

I second milaya, it seems as though this issue is reoccuring and both of you need to work on it individually, you need to work on letting go and learning that he probably won't come through with his promises and he needs to work on remembering his promises, sticking to them, and realizing that he needs to make time for you. I think you guys should take another break until you can figure this stuff out. I know it's hard and you get lonely without him but otherwise this problem is never going to get solved.

[Verojoon]

But I will say this...
I think a lot here will agree to that in a long distance relationship communication is the key - but so is living your own life, enjoy your time even when your SO is not around, make good memories and create your own identity and independence. Please don't sit around and wait for the next call to come around, don't waste your time complaining about decreased contact or conflicting views of how to spend a Friday evening, don't watch your life pass you by - make the best of it!

I think also that "communication" doesn't only mean spending a lot of time talking but just being able to properly understand each other. This doesn't need to take several hours a day... I didn't read all the answers and I read your original post much earlier today, so hopefully I am not repeating someone else, but sometimes when I'm out with friends, or he is, we will just take a random picture of the setting we are in... no text... this doesn't take very long to do so we aren't being too anti-social and rude and texting instead of paying attention to our friends, but it lets each other know that we are thinking of the other, and that we want to share what we are doing with the other... But sometimes we don't get around to doing and it's not a big deal...

Lately I have been talking to SO almost every night for a few hours and I feel soo lucky... but the past two nights he's been too busy with work and he comes home with a massive headache (from working 12+ hours and quitting smoking and all the other stress in his life right now) I'm not even upset about it, because he takes the time to quickly communicate with me... (just a couple lines in a text message to tell me he's home and exhausted...)

But for me, it's about managing expectations... and we had a few fights about this sort of things when I expected I would get time with him and then something came up... I would act disappointed, he would get angry with me because my disappointment made him feel guilty, I would get angry with him for getting angry with me for such a natural thing as being disappointed... and so on!

So maybe you can communicate with him and come up with solutions with him on how you could feel like your needs are met without infringing on his right to have a personal life. For example you could say: "This may seem silly, but I would feel more involved in your life if you could send a text/picture/describe your evening" But you have to be realistic in what you ask for in return. And try to make some friends... I've always been okay on my own, but I found that being in a LDR it became very important for me to have a group of girlfriends I could go out with... because it is not fair to put so much pressure on one person to be everything for you.

I feel like I may not have made much sense in this reply... haha I have all these ideas of things I want to say and they aren't really coming out succinctly... but you have received much advice from some very wise people, so I'm sure you can figure it all out!

[Malaga]

The biggest issue my boyfriend and I have with seeing each other more often is time. Mostly his time off. I'm a little more flexible so we make it work. But he gets about 16 days off a year and tries to distribute them so we can see each other as much as possible.

Except when he books 5 days off to go skiing with his mates. As they've been doing for years.

In our first year I was disappointed, I couldn't understand why would he spend 1/3 of the total time he gets off, on going away with friends he sees almost every weekend anyway - unlike me. Even worse, my birthday always falls in their skiing week, when the deals are best. And on top of that, he has no Internet access there, his texts are blocked and the signal is poor so it's a mission to talk on the phone.

In our second year I accepted it, even if I didn't like it much. And this year he wanted to reschedule it but I told him not to be silly. I know I'm going to miss him like crazy, but he quite literally needs this break. He needs a change from his every day life, doing what he enjoys, and he needs some life of his own.
I'm anxious like you, it's not natural for me to be casual about it, but I know this need to consume every moment of his time can't lead up to anything good.

You think that he neglects you for his friends but when you add up the time he spends with you and compare it with how much time he spends with friends, you still win. It's not the same but it sure counts. And these were probably his friends for years before you came along and quite frankly, he'd be a right douchebag if he were to ignore birthdays and graduations for the sake of your Skype chat. Everybody knows someone who does that, and they lose friends at a rapid speed.

[dglynn77]

You think that he neglects you for his friends but when you add up the time he spends with you and compare it with how much time he spends with friends, you still win.

(This is so true Malaga! This is a great perspective!)