Hi everyone,
Sorry this is going to be a ramblish post,thanks in advance for reading. My SO and I have been long distance for 5 months, with a month spent together in the middle. He's in Australia, I'm in Spain, I'm coming back in two months and moving to his city in March. We've been together for almost 9 months.
Yesterday my boyfriend had a very stressful fight with his dad and was feeling really down on himself, saying he was a bad person, a disappointment etc. Because he couldn't call since he was out, I talked to him through messenger, telling him about all the people who loved him, all his accomplishments etc etx ans eventually it seemed like he felt better. When he came home, we were caught up messaging so I forgot to ask if he could call. We had a fun conversation, I was trying to be fun and make him feel better by distracting him with talking, and I felt like he was having a good time. I wanted to get his favourite food delivered to his door but he lives with parents and it was 12 am so I decided I'd order him donuts later in the week.
At some point he made a joke that I've told him makes me really uncomfortable, so I told him again to please not do it, and he was apologetic. We kept talking for a while, he was laughing and stuff, but eventually our conversation got onto my best friend who my boyfriend has kind of a disparaging attitude towards, so I got kind of annoyed with him again for saying stuff about my best friend, so we kind of had this debate about him, without either of us seeming upset though. After we got off that topic, we had a normal conversation, but then got on the topic of his best friend and how she judges me for my past relationship choices and advised my bf to leave me once or twice. I was annoyed by the mention of all that so again we spent a while semi arguing over it, then he kind of said she cares about him more than I do (or at least that she cares less about studies than she does about him and I don't) and I told him that upset me, he took it back.
Basically after all this we both felt pretty not great, and talked about why that was. He said that that night has been the worse he'd felt in years and that I had failed at cheering him up ans just made him feel worse. He said I didn't care about him and only cared about myself and my own issues. He said he shouldn't have relied on me and that I didn't try hard enough to cheer him up and that I wasn't jokey enough or trying to make him laugh.
I know I shouldn't have kept getting annoyed at him, but the reason I was was because all the stuff that made me annoyed was stuff I'd told him bothered me or that I didn't like to talk about, and it felt like if I just let it go he would only do it again and I'd get more resentful and that would be worse for both of us. I really did try to be jokey and fun and make him feel good, even when we were talking about uncomfortable stuff I made jokes about it to show that I wanted to keep it light. He always says talking over text doesn't really help him feel better and he needs physical presence for thaf.
Basically I feel like I've failed as a girlfriend and person in general. I do feel like I tried and I cared, but maybe he's right and I was just looking out for my own interests. I can't even look at his chat icon now without a wave of selfhate coming over me, I'm scared I'll never be good enough to support him properly. I wish he hadn't said the things about me failing and not trying, but I'm worried that I'm just making excuses for myself because I know he's right. I just feel so so worthless for making the person I love feel bad. I'm not even sure what my question is, I guess it would be - how can I make him feel better next time? How can I get over this feeling of selfhate? Do you think I acted selfishly? Just any comments or suggestions would be so so appreciated.
Thank you for reading this, thank you in advance for any responses, I know it's really long and convoluted!
Sorry this is going to be a ramblish post,thanks in advance for reading. My SO and I have been long distance for 5 months, with a month spent together in the middle. He's in Australia, I'm in Spain, I'm coming back in two months and moving to his city in March. We've been together for almost 9 months.
Yesterday my boyfriend had a very stressful fight with his dad and was feeling really down on himself, saying he was a bad person, a disappointment etc. Because he couldn't call since he was out, I talked to him through messenger, telling him about all the people who loved him, all his accomplishments etc etx ans eventually it seemed like he felt better. When he came home, we were caught up messaging so I forgot to ask if he could call. We had a fun conversation, I was trying to be fun and make him feel better by distracting him with talking, and I felt like he was having a good time. I wanted to get his favourite food delivered to his door but he lives with parents and it was 12 am so I decided I'd order him donuts later in the week.
At some point he made a joke that I've told him makes me really uncomfortable, so I told him again to please not do it, and he was apologetic. We kept talking for a while, he was laughing and stuff, but eventually our conversation got onto my best friend who my boyfriend has kind of a disparaging attitude towards, so I got kind of annoyed with him again for saying stuff about my best friend, so we kind of had this debate about him, without either of us seeming upset though. After we got off that topic, we had a normal conversation, but then got on the topic of his best friend and how she judges me for my past relationship choices and advised my bf to leave me once or twice. I was annoyed by the mention of all that so again we spent a while semi arguing over it, then he kind of said she cares about him more than I do (or at least that she cares less about studies than she does about him and I don't) and I told him that upset me, he took it back.
Basically after all this we both felt pretty not great, and talked about why that was. He said that that night has been the worse he'd felt in years and that I had failed at cheering him up ans just made him feel worse. He said I didn't care about him and only cared about myself and my own issues. He said he shouldn't have relied on me and that I didn't try hard enough to cheer him up and that I wasn't jokey enough or trying to make him laugh.
I know I shouldn't have kept getting annoyed at him, but the reason I was was because all the stuff that made me annoyed was stuff I'd told him bothered me or that I didn't like to talk about, and it felt like if I just let it go he would only do it again and I'd get more resentful and that would be worse for both of us. I really did try to be jokey and fun and make him feel good, even when we were talking about uncomfortable stuff I made jokes about it to show that I wanted to keep it light. He always says talking over text doesn't really help him feel better and he needs physical presence for thaf.
Basically I feel like I've failed as a girlfriend and person in general. I do feel like I tried and I cared, but maybe he's right and I was just looking out for my own interests. I can't even look at his chat icon now without a wave of selfhate coming over me, I'm scared I'll never be good enough to support him properly. I wish he hadn't said the things about me failing and not trying, but I'm worried that I'm just making excuses for myself because I know he's right. I just feel so so worthless for making the person I love feel bad. I'm not even sure what my question is, I guess it would be - how can I make him feel better next time? How can I get over this feeling of selfhate? Do you think I acted selfishly? Just any comments or suggestions would be so so appreciated.
Thank you for reading this, thank you in advance for any responses, I know it's really long and convoluted!
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