Am I right to feel this way? Maybe some advice?

[Maxattack]

Hello all, just to start off I am a bit of a newcomer here at LFAD though I have been reading the forums for QUITE a while. All of your posts and threads have been an immense help to me in dealing with my LDR, so thank you!
I apologize in advance because this is a LONG post!

Anyway, I'm here tonight maybe just to rant or even share the feelings that many of you maybe feeling as well I'm sure. I haven't quite read anything close to my situation so that's why I'm here now.

So for a little background, me and my SO have been together for almost 10 months which honestly isn't a very long time. We met in high school and knew each other for half a year before we began to hangout/date. Now we became best friends before we started dating but I honestly had a crush on her the moment I laid my eyes on her. Everything from the start just seemed like fate or God bringing us together and I still feel that now. I am so much in love with her and so many aspects of our lives and personalities are so much the same and even this early on I am so sure I want to marry this girl (we talk about it often and I'm totally okay with it!). I love her to death (and she in return loves me and I'm sure of this) and I'm the type of person who thinks about whether I can spend the rest of my life with a person before I decide to become serious with them which is why she is my first EVERYTHING. The dating scene is not my cup of tea! haha

I miss her dearly which may be why I am feeling the way that I am. I want to point out that I've always been the listener in most social situations and that's one of the reasons why she loves me, because I listen and actually care about ANY conversation we're having. But the past several months I've just been feeling a bit neglected emotionally and socially sometimes. Yet the things that affect me are so small yet collectively hurt.

We text each other constantly throughout the day and she tells me many things about her day which I absolutely love because it makes me feel like she's putting me in her life even when I'm not there. I genuinely care about all her activities and griefs she may have throughout the day. The thing is every time I text her about happenings in my own life she gives a comment or two, maybe asks a little bit about it, texts me one or two words (which is my absolute PET PEEVE about texting, such as "cool xD, "oh really??", or "mmmmhhhhmmm! "), or she'll just turn my comment around and make it about her (not necessarily selfishly though). This makes me feel like she doesn't care (which most likely really isn't the case) and it just makes me not really want to engage a text conversation and usually I just wait until she texts me during the day. This same thing happens even when we talk on the phone or on Skype and it's even worse because she's easily distracted (like when her dog is misbehaving, or she's working on some project on the computer, or yelling at her nieces who live with her at home) and I never really feel like I have her full attention because even through skype I like to have "eye contact" a large part of the time and I give her that but don't always receive the same treatment. The thing about me is, with her, no matter what we're talking about I always want to know details so I'll ask questions and try to delve deeper (because isn't that how conversations work?). And it's hard to talk about myself individually because she'll do slight acknowledgments to let me know she's listening but then that's it. I really do love talking about her life and her own problems but again never really talk about my day a majority of the time.

Other small things start to annoy me as well like how she tells people how she's got me wrapped around her finger (which I know she is joking and is in no way bitchy as I seem to be making her). She's told her friends about some of the not so great dates that we've been on (which I already knew she didn't like. Plus one incident she even posted a joke about it on Facebook). Even when I'm with her physically she'll tease me with our mutual friends about these dates or other personal things I'd rather not bring up. Now I know she's joking about this stuff and her joking really doesn't happen very much (which is why I consider it a small issue) but it makes me wonder what she says about me when I'm not around and it's just hurtful sometimes. Even with the friends I have here I do nothing but make people jealous about how amazing she is (because to me, she really is!) But tonight especially really annoyed me because we decided to skype and watch a movie but I warned her before hand if she was sure because I knew she'd be tired and probably fall asleep soon in our session (which she did, and not even halfway through the movie!).

Now I will point out that I tease her sometimes too but USUALLY it's in retaliation but if I've seriously hurt her feelings I have no problem sincerely apologizing and I do feel bad and she definitely makes sure of it! (lol) So i'm not at all saying that I'm like the perfect boyfriend. But through these last several months it got hard for us to a point where she outright told me she didn't love me the same way as in the beginning (granted it may have bee fact that things weren't going so great those couple weeks of her life and I wasn't physically there for her). But I quickly fixed that problem by visiting her soon after (missing some days of school even!). And throughout our relationship it's always been me reassuring her that everything will be alright or giving her the space she may need. Honestly SOMETIMES, I feel like I'm putting in so much more in this relationship than I'm getting out of it (though in all fairness I do and will always love her more than she can ever show me) but all these SMALL things just build up and make me feel that that this relationship isn't even close to being equal. Really I'm just hoping these issues disturb me because of the whole distance and missing her part.

The big thing for me is that I don't want to bring some of this stuff up because I'd feel like even if issues were resolved it would just make me feel like I'm forcing her to "care more" or seem like it. And most of these things she does I'm sure she's not really aware of. I know successful relationships are about communication and compromise but again to me if things are fixed they won't feel so natural after I let my feelings known.

So is some of this a big deal? Or am I just being too needy or sensitive (especially for a guy LOL)?

If you were able to get through all or even part of this I'm truly grateful because for me even posting this and letting out some steam in this community is really helping me vent and deal with everything. I know this is LONG so THANK YOU! But if you've got ANYTHING to contribute it will help me so much and maybe even others with a similar problem.

Thank you again for your support and I'm truly amazed by those of you with LDR longer than several years!

[Safihre]

I can relate very strongly to a big part of your story, being the guy in the relationship that puts in more than the girl seems to be uncommon..
People will tell you to talk about it, but from experience I've noticed that it can just as easily make things worse since she will feel constrained.
It is very hard to go through all the ups and downs of her feelings, but right now I'm just waiting it out untill our next visit. Trying to cope with her not 100% believing in the whole concept of LDR, it's freaking hard. But when we are together, she will believe again. When you can see the love and affection in your SO's eyes.

Some people are just not the type for LDR. Our SO's seem to be like that, making us put in more effort. You will have to decide if you think eventually when you are together the balance will be back to normale, because I know when I am with my SO everything falls back into place.
For my personal situation I know the best thing to do is just stick out the wait and not complain, but sometimes you just need to voice it.. It makes it so hard not to be the needy one..

Is she worth the wait and the annoyances? Is the balance usually shifted to normal when you are together?

[snow_girl]

If it is bothering you talk to her about it. You can't force someone to care more but if she does care for you then she will try to make a change. If you haven't said anything to her, how can she know she is doing anything wrong?

[ThePiedPiper]

Three big things I'm seeing here.

1. Her having a different communication style doesn't mean she doesn't care. For example, sometimes my conversations with my friends go like this: Friend - "I had a horrible day at school today." Me - "Why? What happened?" Friend - "My friend was whispering to me and the teacher yelled at me, telling me to be quiet." Me - "Argh. :/" Friend - "Yeah, so I'm not in the best mood." Me - "Yeah. :/ I remember that happened to me a couple of times in my biology class. My mom always told me it was because you're the one who listens, so it's better to go through the one of the two that will listen versus yelling at the one who was actually talking, but I know how frustrating and embarassing that is." To some people, that's considered making it about me (though I have only had one or two people take up issue with me on this). To others, the anecdote helps. From my perspective, it's simply how I relate best to people. *shrug* Sometimes it's hard for me to know what to say, so my way of letting someone know that I understand is by sharing my own emotional experience and letting them know that on some level, I understand. If they're someone who doesn't like that mode of communication, and they express that to me, then my responses are more likely to be the one or two word responses. Again, it doesn't mean I don't care, but what more can you say in that situation other than "Wow, that sounds like a bad day" (affirming statements) or "I understand because that happened to me once" (relational anecdote)? And I would venture to say that your SO, too, cares. She simply doesn't know what to say.

What are the types of things you say to her when she's having a bad day? Are they the types of responses you want from her? You need to communicate that, but you need to be careful how you communicate it. For example, it's one thing to say, "I know that you care about me and love me, but sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I would love for you to reassure me of it." It's another thing to ask directly, when you're upset, "can you reassure me right now?" And it's another thing entirely to ask her to change her communication style for you. My ex would often use "". I realised, later, when he told me that when I would use faces (we had a complicated relationship but suffice to say, he hated when I offered advice, reassurance or comments of any kind and I wasn't about to ignore him because I loved him, so I used faces), it would communicate that I didn't care, it was most likely a projection. My ex used faces, in my opinion, to make it seem like he was listening when he really wasn't. When he took the time to type out a comment, even if it was a small two word comment, usually I learned I had his attention. In my case, though, it genuinely was a matter of his not listening. Before you confront her about it, I'd see if that's the case in your relationship or if she's actually listening, just communicating differently. Without you telling us how you communicate with her, it's hard to use the two for comparison, but when I read your post, I don't get the impression that she doesn't care at all.

2. About her being easily distracted. It happens. If she lives in a distracting environment, they're going to happen. I never gave eye contact on Skype. Giving eye contact was hard for me. If I'm being 100% honest, you need to be able to let some things go, because it sounds like you're expecting a deep, meaningful, passionate, full of eye contact relationship every time you speak and you simply... aren't going to get that. If you're having an issue with her lack of acknowledgment, and it's a genuine lack of acknowledgment, talk to her about it. Where do you think you're going to get with your issues if you don't talk about them? Not married, that's for sure. Friendship is the foundation of any relationship, but you don't even have that without communication. So talk. to. her. Oftentimes, we don't see our behaviour from someone else's perspective until it's pointed out to us. Then we realise the impact it has and we either stop or we don't or we talk about it and come to a compromise.

3. Again, about the comments she makes, talk to her about them. I would tell my ex certain things, like I found the fact that he was a virgin incredibly hot and attractive, or I liked to call him "pup" because we had this inside joke that he was my Irish Wolfhound. It wasn't until he ended up getting short with me and opening up that I realise he liked neither. He found the first to be condescending and the second was something he had bad associations with (not sure if this is true, what they were, or if he simply didn't like the nickname ). I didn't get that at all! I never said either to condescend or provoke him. All were said with the best of the intentions and out of a loving or fun/playful/lustful space and so I didn't know the impact they were having until he confronted me openly. As soon as he told me he understood them in that context, even though I did not mean them the way he was interpreting them, I stopped. Why? Because I cared, but it took him confronting me with it to realise how he was seeing something that was, on my end, at least, entirely innocent!

tl;dr You aren't going to get anywhere by not communicating any of this to her. Communicating your needs or what bothers you doesn't force her to care more. It forces her to see the repercussions of her actions that she hasn't probably thought twice about. If you can't communicate your needs, your relationship will fail, but you can't expect her to be a mindreader every time she does something you don't like. Honestly, talk to her. If your relationship is as strong as you say, you shouldn't have any issue with the results.

[Maxattack]

Thank you all for your quick answers! They are all helpful and I appreciate all of you taking the time reading my story.

Safihre- I like this advice at least for now because honestly the issues I have are not a BIG deal (just collectively as I have noted it hurts)

snow_girl- I do agree that communication is key and we do communicate usually effectively but I'm not saying it will force her to change but if I confront her about the issue and she does change it just wouldn't feel genuine. But maybe that's just my own unrealistic opinion.

ThePiedPiper-

1) I do agree with the different communication style as I suppose a majority of our conversations have been this way. Really the major part is, when I do choose or want to share my own life with her it will usually be about 4 or 5 texts back and forth in which along the way she will change the subject to something that just happened to her.

2) Yes I am well aware that distractions are inevitable and I'm no way saying that I provide constant eye contact nor do I expect to receive it a majority of the time. It's just that I would appreciate focus at least with important conversations. I guess the big part here is the distractions part (facebook, people, texting) because I know if we were talking and I started talking to my roommate or if I started texting people in front of her I know for sure she would get annoyed and possibly even hang up on me or be passive aggressive about it (which I think is an issue for both of us obviously). But considering what you say I think this is definitely something I will bring up if she ever gets upset about me being distracted which is rarely the case because I like to put a majority of my attention on her when we're conversing.

3) I think you are right and I will confront her about these comments one day when they build up enough. (I have a minuscule temper and am not the person to blow up and I need enough examples to show that sometimes her comments hurtful and inappropriate).
And ya I know it was a LONG post but I just needed to get major points out (which build up!)

[ThePiedPiper]

I think you're going to have an issue if you wait until they "build up" or if you wait until she gets upset at you for something she does. Trust me, as someone who has both been on the receiving end of "you do it to me all the time" and been on the confronting end of it, it never ends up the way you want it to because emotions are already running high. I'll say it again, if you're in a mature enough relationship to know you want to marry her, you should be in a mature enough relationship to communicate your needs and feelings to her before the point of them building up until you can't contain them anymore. :/ Because then you're right, you both end up passive aggressive and as I'm sure you've learned, that's counterproductive to the problem at hand. What I don't get is why you don't actually want to talk to her about your needs in this relationship though...? Maybe you can clarify that for me.

And the tl;dr was for my long post, not yours. Trust me, I'm an author of many, many loooong posts on here. I figure the best I can do is read and respond to others' long posts on here.

[Maxattack]

No worries! I wasn't at all offended. I'm well aware that it was a long post. Thanks for your reply!

But I guess one of my worries is that even if she does fix the issue of the one-way texting and becomes more active in conversation when it's my turn to talk, it just won't feel genuine like I pointed out earlier. I'd feel like I'd forced the issue and therefore she'd just be doing it for me... I guess (irrationally) I'm thinking that I want her to SHOW that she cares without me having to tell her especially with the way I always contribute to conversation (because despite what I'm saying I do know she cares at least most of the time LOL). Or AT LEAST shy away from the one or two word comments. (I mean with this pet peeve I'm just like, why text me at all?)

As of the other issues (teasing, distractions, comments, etc.) I agree that I should talk to her about them and possibly soon. It's just, for us, it never seems like the right time to talk about it. I mean we're usually always happy in a majority of our conversations and never have really fought about anything so just bringing it up out of the blue is not the way I want to talk about it.

Rationally I know, I need to communicate my feelings and I suppose I'm just not used to telling people that I NEED them to do this or that for me. And honestly, she does care about me and I do see that LDR-wise (with random "I love you" and "I miss you" texts through the day, loving posts on Facebook, and such) but I am not hesitant to admit that I do put in WAY more into this relationship than she does. (though for now, I am okay with that because I think, right now, she needs a boyfriend who who will unconditionally love and support her until she is steady in life; if you'd like to know more you can definitely PM me about I guess our situation)

I guess right now I need to know, am I being to sensitive or do I just need to grow a pair? hahaha

Thank you again!

[ThePiedPiper]

I don't think it's either, really, but I think you're looking at the situation and communication wrong, if I'm being 100% honest.

Say she didn't like it when you greeted her with "hello!" as opposed to "hi <3", and she never told you, so you went along saying "hi <3" sometimes and "hello!" at others, depending on your mood. Meanwhile, she sat on it with increasing resentment until she finally blew up at you and said that it bothered her. How would you react? Would you sit there and say, "oh man, now I have to force myself to change who I am to accomodate her even though I don't truly care" or would your reaction be more like, "I never knew that it bothered her. I wish she'd have told me sooner"? If it's the former, then I think there are deeper problems to be worked out. My point is, sometimes we do things and don't know that they're bothersome. We do them because they're benign to us. If our partners seem fine with it and don't make it into an issue, we don't realise it's something that needs to be changed. But if our partner comes to us and says this or that hurts them, we change it, not because we don't care, not because we're faking it 'til we make it, but because it hurts us that our partner was hurting and we want to be the same partner to them that they are to us. That's what I'm saying. You seem to think that talking to her means any changes she'll make won't be genuine. Does that mean you've faked everything you do for her? Or everything you've changed that's upset her? For example, if you started texting and she didn't act like it bothered her. Would you not want her to communicate that it upset her that you texted during a conversation? o.o Like I just don't get how that's any less fake. You're basically pretending things don't bother you to avoid confronting her and that's what I don't understand. You're not asking her to change. You're bringing something into her awareness. There's a difference. One is changing for you, the other is realising that what seemed benign to her really wasn't after all and she cares enough about you to change it. In that sense, you need to grow a pair, because you are in for an unhappy string of relationships and building resentment if you continue to associate communication with forcing your partner to do something disingenuous.

[Maxattack]

Thank you for your continued advice Piper. I do agree with most of the things you are saying though I will bring up that she's never actually made me change in a similar manner for the sake of loving or caring for her. Save for the instances of 'if you love me you won't illegally drink or do drugs'. Even though I want to do them, I won't because I love her. But this is not necessarily a genuine change because I still WANT to do these things. Whereas her changing to be more involved in MY conversations changes her 'style' of communication as you first noted in your first post.

Therefore I ask you just as another perspective, if your SO asked you to be more proactive when it comes to talking about him and go beyond the "Argh :/", "Oh no! ", "Mhmmm! ", "Hahaha ya xD", etc. and you did try to change by asking more questions or at least trying to add more than just a couple words and a smiley would it be because you were actually trying to care more or because you were just doing it for the sake of your SO/relationship?

I promise I'm not trying to antagonize you or anything, I really just need a clearer picture and you seem to have a lot of experience with this!

I suppose personally I think I just need to wait for an appropriate time to bring up my issues. Not necessarily at a point of blowing up or anything but more at a time where maybe it is more applicable.
Your advice has really been helpful especially because I suppose I'm the type of person who needs to think things out in my head or talk things out with other people so thank you for taking your precious time!

[Kristin91]

First, have you talked to her about how all of this makes you feel? Communication is a HUGE part of LDR's, and you have to be able to tell your SO everything that bothers you so that it doesn't build up. It doesn't matter if we think it's a big deal or not. If you think it is, then it will continue to bother you until you bring it up with her. Chances are she doesn't even realize it bothers you because it's her natural personality... As ThePiedPiper has said, your communication styles are different, and she can't know that something bothers you until you bring it up.

[Black_Halloween]

You really are making a mountain out of a mole hill here. Just sayin'

[ThePiedPiper]

My ex actually did say something very similar to me. Granted it was in an entirely different context (as in nothing I was saying, across a span of months, was right/he got cross for all of it), but I still worked to change it. Yes, for his sake, but I did it because I loved him and cared about him. *shrug* It's as simple as that. You do things for people you love, especially if they ask. I don't see in any way how that promotes the idea I somehow loved my ex less because he asked me to stop doing something that bothered him. I stopped because I loved him and you don't want to continue bothering someone you love. I would have hated it if he kept his mouth shut like you're doing BECAUSE I loved him and wanted him to be open with me. I don't know how else to convey my point, but yes, I've been in the situation you presented to me and my advice remains the same because love and change (read: compromise) are synonymous, not mutually exclusive...