Not so much in common ? Need advice...

[Berenice]

Hi Everyone

So i'll try to make this short :
Me and my bf have been dating for 6 months now, and have been in LDR for about a month.
He's in America, I'm in France, so there's a bit of time lapse, but we still manage to skype and text throughout the day. My bf is gonna start a new job in a hospital in 4 days, it's gonna take much of his days, and we're not sure when we'll be able to talk. I hope that we can skype at least once a day, not seeing his face is gonna be terrible.
On top of that thing, and this is what I ask you guys advice about, is that since approximately 1 week, I feel like he's completely not interested in our conversations.
Now, before anything, my bf is slightly obsessional about certains things. He is constantly worried about my safety and my health, to the point that it doesn't make any sense sometimes. I used to think it's cute and sweet, but not so much anymore. His brain is constantly thinking about something, work, cars, fixing stuff in the house, paper work, gifts to buy for christmas (even if it's in 5 months), book to read, medecine,future, etc. It just never stops, to the extend that he cannot sleep at night. His brain is like a crazy machine.
When we were together (physically together mean), I didn't notice it that much, precisely because we were physically together. I knew that he was slightly obsessive, he never tried to hide it or anything, but the fact that I could see him and touch him everyday made it all "not noticeable".
Now, the only way I can "connect" to him is through skype. I can talk to him 1 to 2hrs a day, or less depending on the things he has to do.
And since then, I feel like he's not interested at all at sharing stuff with me, talking to me, listening to me, answering me, etc.
A basic conversation is me telling him what I did and him either not answering me because he's doing something else on the computer OR answering me short answers like "yea" "cool". That's what happened just now and that's why i'm writing this.
I feel sad, down, and not worthy of any interest when that stuff happens.
We talked about it, cause he noticed that I was sad. I told him how I felt, and I thought he understood, but 2 days after, it started again. When we talked about it, he said that the only thing he has to say to me is that he loves me, and misses me, and wants to be with me. It's such a delicate situation, cause I tell him that I feel all these things also, but I do believe that it is not enough to build a strong and lasting couple. We need to share more things.
I'm not saying that I'm super interesting, but I try to talk to him about movies I see, books I read, stuff I saw on the internet, etc, and he just stays totally blank to whatever I say.
Recently I'm noticing bad habits that I take regarding to that situation : I'm putting myself down, feeling like i'm not worthy of interest anyway, then I'm trying to find him a million excuses to be like that (he's tired, his mind is busy with all the things he has to do, etc) and finally sometimes I even do like him, like a revenge. Sometimes when he speaks to me I just pick my phone and start playing games, which is stupid and childish and rude.
I don't want us to be like that, I tried to give him advice about his obsessive behavior (obsessive is a strong word, in his case it's not like a disease), and I told him how I felt and now I just don't know what to do. I'm starting to have bad thoughts about us, if we're really good together, and if we can make it as a couple together. I need someone who is interested in what I do (or don't do), I need someone who can share things with me, who can truly, completely be WITH me when I skype, cause that is the only way I can be with him for now.
I'm very scared, cause we both love each other like crazy, and I want this to work.

As always, it's not as short as I planned, so thank you very much for reading this!
Pls tell me what you think, any point of view is welcome !

Thanks!

[redapple]

I don't post here very much any more but this rang a very familiar bell with me as to when I was LD. For a quick background, he's a gamer and was regularly trying to sneakily play games or mess about on his phone or YouTube, this would lead to lots of "uhuhs" and "that's cool". Basically conversation ruiners as your experiencing! I'm presuming that you've talked to him about this? If not you need to say the classic "I feel like..." And talk him through the feelings you've discussed above. If you have and it's still happening, then one of the things that really helped us was cutting down the time we talked but making it a more special time. We spoke every other day, because that is what worked for us, for about 2-3 hours. We'd maybe watch a show together but whatever we did it was as a couple. He agreed to put 100% of his attention onto whatever we were doing (as did I) and then if he didn't I could very quickly call him up on it and remind him what we had agreed. This is genuinely one of the hard things about conducting a relationship through the Internet, not very good for distractions!! Good luck!

[whatruckus]

My SO is like this. It's just how he is, he prefers to talk face to face more. He's always distracted watching TV, playing video games, or watching YouTube videos, so I completely understand how you feel. I don't have much advice to give, since mine is the same way, even after I've talked to him about it numerous times. I'm sorry!!

[LovingAcrossTheAtlantic]

I think redapple gave great advice!

As a side note: I think him constantly being worried about you isn't a bad thing at all. It means he cares, which is always good.

Just wondering, but when he gets to the point he's not really listening, have you tried asking him what's on his mind? I just know when I get stressed about something I can get caught up in my thoughts and zone out unintentionally and I usually don't realize I have.

[differentcountries]

I imagine that his mind circles around the new job he will be starting. It must be a big change for him.

My SO does always say very intetesting things. But he mean what he says. I believe him when he says that he misses me. He has learned me to simplify things. Sometimes we don't talk at all, we just look at each other. If we are distracted, we can continue skype another time.

[Berenice]

Hi guys, thank you for your answers and advices, it's all very warming !

We talked a bit yesterday about this, and I think he understands more and better how I feel .
It's a delicate matter, cause I don't want to make him feel like i'm sick of him saying he loves me and cares for me, but I want him to understand that I see a relationship as sharing a lot, more than love words. It's not meant to denigrate love words and all, just to say that I probably need to have more conversations.

But I also totally understand that he has a lot on his mind, and I do not want to urge him or put pressure on him. It's hard to express all these feelings, especially though Skype.
But after the conversation we had yesterday, I feel better. As he said yesterday, we are both overthinkers ^^

I do ask him what's on his mind, but most of the time, it's not like ... it's not like there's a specific thing on his mind. The usual scenario is that he's looking for stuff on the internet (cars most of the time, he is crazy about cars) while I speak to him, and then he looses attention. But I noticed that he does that even irl. It's scarce, but sometimes when my parents or sisters or me talked to him, you could see at his face that he was loosing focus. But as I said, it's not bothering at all when we're together. Through internet, it's more frustrating cause it's the only moment I can see and talk to him.
Of course I'm ready to help him with everything he's going through, even if my range of actions is very reduced. Most of his problems are related to cars or stuff to fix in the house, i'm just like totally lost when he talks about this He says he doesn't mind though.

Anyway, i'll let you guys updated about this thing, I hope it goes better soon. I think it's on a good way, communication is really so important, I had the bad habit of always keeping thing to myself in my previous relationship, huge mistake, even if it might be embarrassing for a few minutes, the best is always to say what's going on, and always keep respect for the other one.

Thanks again guys ! It's really beyond great to have a forum to talk about all these stuff

[rhabdoviridae]

I would ask your SO to devote all of his attention to you when you talk. Don't browse the internet, watch TV, etc. If he's so obsessed with looking at stuff online all of the time, ask him to set a timer for 15 minutes during which he doesn't do anything but talk to you. After that amount of time, end the conversation and hang up. Draw that time out slowly but surely and hopefully it helps. If there isn't much to say, cut the conversation at that point and say goodnight, don't fight to draw it out.

Another piece of advice would be to draw him in to conversation. After you tell him about your day, ask about his. Leave open ended questions that he can't just give one worded answers to. For example, "What did you do at the hospital today?" or "What kind of gifts were you looking at today?" Sometimes it takes a bit of prodding to get them talking, but it can be done. But really, if he won't engage in conversation, I would tell him that you need to reconsider the relationship because a LDR without good communication isn't worth it.

[Hollandia]

My So would do all sorts of things while on Skype with me at times. It annoyed me but, he spent most of his free time on Skype with me, so it made sense that he would still want to game, watch tv, surf the web, pay bills and do whatever else. If I had asked him to make sure he only paid attention to me while on Skype I am pretty sure my hours a day would have turned to minutes. I guess it comes down to percentage of free time, you can't expect someone with little free time not to want to do other things, but also some of that time should be dedicated to you. I got used to it and told him, let me know when you are totally free to give me your attention when i wanted that type of attention. We talked about it and might have even had some spats over it in the beginning but we made comprises that made us both happy. I suggest you do the same.

[Berenice]

Hi !
Yeah, I asked him before that something I would appreciate is that he tries to do all the stuff he thinks about BEFORE skyping me so that when we skype he has free time for me. We talked about it more yesterday, and he says that it took time for him to be settled (we both went back to our home countries a month ago after spending a year in China). Yesterday he wasn't busy at something else for the most part of our skyping, so I guess things are slowly getting better.
I realize that I might have over reacted about this, we'll see how things are in the future. It's good however that I told him right away, so that he knows that it's not pleasant to feel not being interesting enough.

Anyways thanks again for your advices and answers

[LovingAcrossTheAtlantic]

Well I am glad things are getting better

[rhabdoviridae]

My So would do all sorts of things while on Skype with me at times. It annoyed me but, he spent most of his free time on Skype with me, so it made sense that he would still want to game, watch tv, surf the web, pay bills and do whatever else. If I had asked him to make sure he only paid attention to me while on Skype I am pretty sure my hours a day would have turned to minutes. I guess it comes down to percentage of free time, you can't expect someone with little free time not to want to do other things, but also some of that time should be dedicated to you. I got used to it and told him, let me know when you are totally free to give me your attention when i wanted that type of attention. We talked about it and might have even had some spats over it in the beginning but we made comprises that made us both happy. I suggest you do the same.

I guess it just depends on the person/relationship. I'd rather have less time of better quality conversation than more time when he's not focused on the conversation or doing something else simultaneously. Maybe your SO can multi-task better than mine, but if my husband is watching TV, for example, all I get is "Yeah" and "Cool" and other mindless stuff When we talk, I want to talk, not just see his face. I respect that everyone is different, but if all she's getting is the non-committal responses and no active conversation, I think it's fair to ask for at least a little time that he devotes just to her, even if he's really busy.