Communication

[asunax3]

Just curious..... How often do you and your SO talk? How often do you video chat?
I have this feeling like I need to talk to my SO all day and FaceTime every night, but I don't want him to feel like I am suffocating him. It helps me a lot to be able to see him every night but I feel like I need to stray away from it. Any advice?

[Harlequin]

Talk to him about it. Find out what you both think would be a reasonable amount of time to talk, and don't feel like you're obligated to talk to him all day and every night if that's not necessary. Conversation should feel natural, and if it doesn't, take a break for a little until you can pick it up naturally again.
My s/o and I talk daily, but we take pauses throughout the day when it seems like our conversation is turning into forced interaction.

[ThePhoenixRises]

We generally talk daily for around one hour on Skype (video call). Sometimes more, sometimes less. Because we are in completely different timezones, he is going to sleep as I am waking up, so we talk then. It is nice because I get to speak to him first thing in the morning. Throughout my daytime when I am working he is sleeping so obviously we don't talk then, but during my evening he is at work and will often send me messages. I try to keep my evenings busy by going to the gym/out for dinners etc with friends - this makes the evenings go faster and this way I am still living my own life and keeping my interests going whilst we are apart - and he is quite busy when he is at work anyway. I am really happy with the level of communication that we currently have, as I get to see him on video each day and usually a quick phonecall each night also. Obviously when he has his daughter with him we talk less on the phone, but he still keeps me quite involved by sending me pics of what they are doing etc. The thing I love the most is that he tells me goodnight every single night without fail, and when I wake up there is a message saying good morning. We have been talking for a year now - and I feel that the communication that we have right now is really good, as we have fallen into a nice routine with it.

When I first started talking to him and we were new in the relationship, I used to overthink and worry about the level of communication we had - I always wanted more. But this naturally went away after meeting him in person and spending some months with him this year. Now we are in a much more normal, relaxed state with communication. It took a while to find the right balance but we got there I am much happier now with everything than I was in the very beginning, because it was all new and we had to find our correct balance.

Why do you feel you need to stray away from it? Has he mentioned anything that makes you feel that you are suffocating him with the need to communicate often? You will find your groove eventually It just takes time, and remember that everyone's communication needs are different, once you learn each other's - you will find that you will fall into a nice pattern with it.

I am not sure how long you have been together but my best advice is to simply talk to him - ask him what he thinks about your current levels of communication, or if he feels that there is too much/not enough etc. I know that it is hard to have these conversations on chat (I rather have them in person myself) but it will clearly set out what both of your expectations are - and then you can work on it from there, once you know. Good luck

[staruletto]

We talk pretty much whenever there is time. He's on swing shift until October so he works morning shift for a week, afternoons for a week, midnight for a week, rinse and repeat. He's been on afternoons all this week and it's been glorious because his afternoon shift is the same as my mine . There isn't much consistency though lol. Like yesterday I was off and we didn't talk much at all (besides texting anyway). Today we Skyped for 3 hours or so. Sometimes we want to do our own thing, sometimes we can't hang up lol.

[R&R]

We generally talk every night for about 10-15 minutes. In the beginning of our relationship, we texted, talked and Skyped quite a bit. Now, almost 3 years in, we are very comfortable with each other and are quite busy in our own lives, so the nightly talk is fine. I couldn't tell you the last time we talked on Skype. Every now and then we text during the day. It's all with about what the both of you are comfortable with and agree to.

[xxcazaxx]

I feel like I could talk to him all day too We tend to text throughout the day and then speak to each other on the phone via facebook for an hour or so at night (he is a really late sleeper and I am not so much, so this tends to involve us both lying in bed chatting).

[sasad]

Everyday. Multiple times. My drive is over an hour each way.. we text as well. And we skype pretty much every night after my son goes to sleep. We fall asleep on skype together and he wakes me up in the morning, cuz I HATE mornings

[QueenD]

We text pretty much every day, though it's not a running conversation all day or anything like that. About half our text communication is sporadic short messages during the work day, and the rest will be a bit more significant conversations when we are free in the evenings. We talk on the phone 2-4 times a week, generally averaging 30-60 minutes. We rarely do video call, but we send selfies sometimes.

[asunax3]

Thanks you all! I have anxiety so when he doesn't text back for like an hour or so, I start to overthink and I try really hard not to. Any advice on how to combat this?

[differentcountries]

I am not sure what your practical situation is, but many people have jobs where you cant neccesarily be availble every hour. When I work, I really concentrate and dont stay in contact at all, exept for maybe lunch break. When I work out, grocery shop, travel etc I am not neccesarily availble. Expecting someone to be availble all the time is neither nice nor realistic. If you have anxiety, you might benifit from people who can give you professional tips.

[OtantikTin]

I think our communication is ok, though I would like to talk more sometimes, you actually don't have that much to say when you stay in touch everyday. We text everyday through the day, send Snapchats, phone about 2-3 times a week, Skype at least once a week. It's quite stressful for me because I'm an anxious person overall, and his job over there is quite dangerous (Policeman up North ). Fortunately, all of this ends in 1 month and 28 days.