Am I being too unreasonable?

[Hollandia]

There's always Google Hangouts too and plenty of other programs to vid chat or voice chat with. When people get told, I don't have internet and they live in a civilized area of the globe and they previously had it, it's a flag. When people claim they can't vid or voice chat because of programs giving them problems with their computer for a long period of time, it is also a flag. I think your right, he wants some space. I would talk to him about it via email and then frankly, give it to him. Let him be the one to contact you and go find other things to do with your time. Don't sit by the phone and fester over doing so.

He used to talk to you on Skype daily and now he has problems with Skype and so can only FB message? Yeah, no, I don't think you are clingy for waiting to be able to keep the communication at the same level it was before, and I would ask him point blank if he WANTS to voice/vid call with you. Google hangouts work just like Skype so I suggest he try that, if he won't, then you have your answer and have to decide where to move forward from there. You are not being clingy but he also does not have to want to continue to talk to you daily, will you be okay with that?


If you tell your SO you love them and they get the message and don't respond, you have a problem. He never came back next day and said, Sorry I did not see that text and I love you too? I hate to say this but I think you have a bigger problem than "hearing each other's voices". He is puling away for some reason and you might be smothering him or he might resent the obligation to talk to you more than he wants. You have to ask him. I think I would have a conversation about what you both want from this relationship and work out a compromise but sometimes it's good give each other some space and do other things. It sounds like he is taking you for granted a bit, I would not be okay with that. He called you melodramatic so it sounds like he is indeed somewhat annoyed by you. I suggest you write him an email and tell him how you feel. Re-read before you send it and make sure it does not read with a ton of emotion, but instead be rational. Explain how you feel and ask him to write an email in response, then perhaps the two of you can get out how you both really feel and work through it. All relationships have rough patches, as long as both parties want to work through it, you could come out stronger than ever.

[Kapwned]

Maybe you can use phone calls as a way for him to remember what hearing voices feels like, that way it might also be easier to help him through the changes he needs to do on his computer.

Generally, it is easy to get caught up in the words used if you already don't communicate well. For us, it works very well to ask him if he is busy because he IS generally busy (with working set hours, mostly) and he feels very appreciated that I acknowledge that. For you guys, it might work better to simply ask him what he is doing or what time he will be available to chat, call etc. That way he can get time to finish whatever he is doing while you don't have to wait on his whim but can do something, too.

I don't think you're being clingy or unreasonable.

However this is difficult situation, because it involves communication. You need communication to solve issues, so solving an issue that involves communication can be hard.

My advice I guess would find out his thoughts about communication, how often he wants to communicate and what his reasoning is for avoiding voice chats? Everyone's different, some people like talking every day, some people like talking every weeek. Also maybe ask if theres anything going on thats making him more quiet and less talkitive, maybe he's stressed or dealing with something in his life.

Im no expert but thats what I would try.

Nice to find more people who think I'm not being unreasonable. But you guys make some good points and suggestions. I do think we are prone to communication issues if we're just limited to text. With calls you can hear tone. Like when I asked if he was busy, he later said "I got a paragraph and a half of you upset because I didn't reply right away from your messages."


This is what he was referring to:

8/16, 7:06pm
Me
Could we talk on Skype sometime tonight?

8/16, 8:24pm
Me
Busy?

8/16, 8:24pm
Him
A little - whats up?

8/16, 8:25pm
Me
Nothing. Just wanted to talk to you and you hadn't responded to me or said anything.

8/16, 8:34pm
Him
Ah' I'm talking to Sean and Tony about stuff and things

8/16, 8:36pm
Me
Okay. Well, when you can I would really like it if we could get on skype.

(we had found that Outlook essentially has a browser version of Skype and tried it out)

Our chat beyond that was as per usual until he brought up that my sensitivity as of late has put him in a difficult position and he doesn't know what he wants to do because he feels like he doesn't even have to try to upset me and he can do it and he used that portion of conversation up there as example. I honestly don't see how he could have interpreted that as upset and impatient with him, but just as he claims I am being too sensitive he is being sensitive and presumptuous himself. I understand I shouldn't have gotten upset and taken it so personally as time went on, but I also feel like he's being a bit melodramatic and misunderstanding me and letting it unfairly affect his judgement of me when he has hardly even spoke to me about it.

Our first initial argument stemmed from when I asked him if perhaps part of the reason he wasn't acting very eager to find a Skype alternative was possibly because he wanted space and if so I wanted to know what it was that I was doing or what could be done. And as I previously mentioned he took it as me accusing him of avoiding me. That was when he went and got onto Outlook, called me, and griped at me for being so melodramatic and accusing him of stuff and told me I was being really obnoxious about it and he was beginning to lose his patience with me. It's been 2 days and he hasn't been on Outlook since and I can sense some lingering bitterness as he hasn't been as affectionate in the way he speaks and when I was trying to tell him good night last night and I love him he didn't respond.

I just really want to get back to us hearing each others voices so there's less room for interpretation. I have decided to let things cool down for now. I just really feel like with the way he is handling it and how our current means of communication are set up makes it so the ball is completely in his court and he has control of the situation.

[corrda00]

I don't think you're being clingy or unreasonable.

However this is difficult situation, because it involves communication. You need communication to solve issues, so solving an issue that involves communication can be hard.

My advice I guess would find out his thoughts about communication, how often he wants to communicate and what his reasoning is for avoiding voice chats? Everyone's different, some people like talking every day, some people like talking every weeek. Also maybe ask if theres anything going on thats making him more quiet and less talkitive, maybe he's stressed or dealing with something in his life.

Im no expert but thats what I would try.

[differentcountries]

Maybe you can use phone calls as a way for him to remember what hearing voices feels like, that way it might also be easier to help him through the changes he needs to do on his computer.

Generally, it is easy to get caught up in the words used if you already don't communicate well. For us, it works very well to ask him if he is busy because he IS generally busy (with working set hours, mostly) and he feels very appreciated that I acknowledge that. For you guys, it might work better to simply ask him what he is doing or what time he will be available to chat, call etc. That way he can get time to finish whatever he is doing while you don't have to wait on his whim but can do something, too.

[Kapwned]

So my boyfriend and I met on an online dating site. I wasn't really interested in dating at first, I just wanted people to talk to online because I don't really have any friends locally and my job and schooling have me glued to a computer. We didn't talk on the site long before adding each other to Skype. When I attempted to talk to him he didn't really talk much. It'd take him usually over an hour to respond (kind of hard to have conversations that way) or he'd just disappear so I assumed he was too busy or wasn't interested in talking to me. So as time went on I stopped messaging him. Months passed and he randomly decided to message me. Coincidentally I was going through a hard time so he invited me to do a voice chat to talk about it. We clicked instantly and ended up talking for hours. While we spoke he admitted that he is horrible at IM conversations since he's horrible at multitasking and he's always working on something at the computer, and it is a pet peeve of his for others to be impatient and demand immediate responses from him. So we fell into this routine of doing voice chats on Skype every day since it was much easier to talk that way. Eventually we started dating and the chats continued. We've never really gone a day without talking even just a little bit on Skype until recently.

As of late Skype has not been working well on his computer. It makes his computer crash and he's pretty much fed up with it.

So lately all of our communication has been via Facebook messages and it is such a contrast to what we once had, it's kind of frustrating. He never signs into the messenger so I never know when he's there. When I message him it's a shot in the dark. And as expected he on average takes over an hour to respond to anything I say. So I tried finding fixes for his Skype issues, but he said nothing worked. I told him to try running the diagnostics tool on his computer and to post it to the forums so they can check it out for him. He didn't act very receptive of this suggestion, so I began to explore our back up options for calls - Google Hang Outs, Trillion, Ventrilo, etc. But he doesn't seem too enthusiastic about using them. I don't think he quite see's what the voice chats mean to me and I don't think he remembers why we started doing voice chats in the first place (because we connected better that way and it was easier).

Amongst the many other things going on in my life paired with unmedicated anxiety disorder, a few other conditions, and stress... I got a little emotional and started to take it a little personal and we ended up having an argument over it. He thought I was accusing him of avoiding me which I wasn't. I just didn't understand why he wasn't being very receptive to my suggestions and ideas. And we've already had a bit of an misunderstanding as he took me asking if he was busy as being impatient and demanding of his attention while he was working on something. I wasn't, I was honestly just asking if he was busy. And so he's been losing his patience with me as of late and I feel like I'm walking on thin ice.

People have told me I'm being clingy, unreasonable, and ungrateful. If we have absolutely no other option then it's fine, but I just feel like if it could be helped, why not?

Am I being too unreasonable and asking too much by wanting to find us an alternative means of doing voice chats?