I'm so lost at this point...

[InLoveToHard]

I've been on and off with this guy for about 4 years..he loves to game, to the point his life now is wake up, game,go to work, come home around 1130 or 130 depending on his schedule,get me on FaceTime and then go on a game til 430 am and then go to sleep. He tells me that he spends everyday with me what more do I want, is it bad for him to enjoy something? Well I feel like going on FaceTime then playing your games until 430 am isn't really spending time with me, it's just kinda having me there yes but ur not spending time with me, ur spending time with your video games. So finally we met face to face, you would think after not seeing each other for 4 years we would be all over each other, well you're wrong, most days he was playing his games and I was laying there watching him play. I figured he would be all over me, I was totally wrong, so then when I brought that up he said "what did u expect me to do, just lay there with u and watch tv? That bores me I don't wanna do that" I get it I won't force someone to do what they don't want to, but if I'm willing to watch u game why not watch something with me? I game too so idc about the gaming, but when I voice that I feel like I'm coming second now to the games he just says "fine I'll just stop gaming forever" and that isn't what I want or what I'm even saying. I'm also 30 and he is 21 so I'm sure this now plays a factor in this relationship. Im just lost at this point and now he has a PS4 as well that he got for Xmas so when he is bored on Xbox he can just head over to the PS4 and play more games and just have me on FaceTime. It's like I can't even voice my emotions or opinions anymore. We have been through hell and back and I'm not willing to let him go but I just dunno how to get through to him at this point about what spending time together in long distance relationships means. He says he wants the physicality but clearly we can't have that right now so any ideas on how to get to him actually spend time with me or any activities we can do while being in a long distance relationship? I really just wish I had a girl friend that I could talk to and vent to cuz all of my friends are over listening to this from me and I don't tell anyone anything anymore...please help.

[Chris516]

I've been on and off with this guy for about 4 years..he loves to game, to the point his life now is wake up, game,go to work, come home around 1130 or 130 depending on his schedule,get me on FaceTime and then go on a game til 430 am and then go to sleep. He tells me that he spends everyday with me what more do I want, is it bad for him to enjoy something? Well I feel like going on FaceTime then playing your games until 430 am isn't really spending time with me, it's just kinda having me there yes but ur not spending time with me, ur spending time with your video games. So finally we met face to face, you would think after not seeing each other for 4 years we would be all over each other, well you're wrong, most days he was playing his games and I was laying there watching him play. I figured he would be all over me, I was totally wrong, so then when I brought that up he said "what did u expect me to do, just lay there with u and watch tv? That bores me I don't wanna do that" I get it I won't force someone to do what they don't want to, but if I'm willing to watch u game why not watch something with me? I game too so idc about the gaming, but when I voice that I feel like I'm coming second now to the games he just says "fine I'll just stop gaming forever" and that isn't what I want or what I'm even saying. I'm also 30 and he is 21 so I'm sure this now plays a factor in this relationship. Im just lost at this point and now he has a PS4 as well that he got for Xmas so when he is bored on Xbox he can just head over to the PS4 and play more games and just have me on FaceTime. It's like I can't even voice my emotions or opinions anymore. We have been through hell and back and I'm not willing to let him go but I just dunno how to get through to him at this point about what spending time together in long distance relationships means. He says he wants the physicality but clearly we can't have that right now so any ideas on how to get to him actually spend time with me or any activities we can do while being in a long distance relationship? I really just wish I had a girl friend that I could talk to and vent to cuz all of my friends are over listening to this from me and I don't tell anyone anything anymore...please help.

He may be the legal age to drink in the U.S(you don't mention locales'). But he still is behaving like a petulant teenager. He has extreme reactions for a simple request.

Dump him like a hot rock. I know that sounds brutal. He clearly is too young for a romantic relationship.

[InLoveToHard]

its easier said than done. i love him to much to let go. i honestly have tried to live without him and it just doesnt work for me.

[Rezie]

So the two of you have been together on and off since he was 17 years old? I feel like he is still stuck in that phase. Also I think that he is addicted to gaming instead of just having it as a hobby. I would say talk with him once more on how you would like things to go and then ask how he sees that your relationship should go. If you they don't match and you can't agree how to satisfy both then move on even if it hurts.

[InLoveToHard]

So the two of you have been together on and off since he was 17 years old? I feel like he is still stuck in that phase. Also I think that he is addicted to gaming instead of just having it as a hobby. I would say talk with him once more on how you would like things to go and then ask how he sees that your relationship should go. If you they don't match and you can't agree how to satisfy both then move on even if it hurts.

I agree and have stated as well that he is clearly addicted to gaming. We both want to be together and both have the same outlook on what we want but I feel like the age gap is what gets us. I feel like I'm obviously ready for marriage and all that and he is still trying to figure himself out, which I understand and won't stop him from doing, he is 21 but he doesn't drink, he doesn't party and I think that also helps us cuz he isn't out doing god knows what until god knows when. But with any LDR, when things r good, they're really good but when they're bad, boy are they bad. We went 4 YEARS without EVER meeting face to face and then had 1 week together face to face and I guess after 4 years I would think a video game wouldn't even be in your mind but maybe I asked to much. He doesn't know what to do and keeps asking me if I want him to pay more attention to me, what do I want, and I don't know what to say cuz he sits on FaceTime and Skype with me all day everyday as though we live together. But I don't wanna just be a body in the room and I say that and it's like idk..I used to treat him like such crap, I made him feel so unloved and unwanted and now he does that to me and now I understand how he felt and I hate it. Idk honestly if it is the distance but 4 years is a lot to invest and then let go of especially when most LDR don't even last 4 years with both people never meeting face to face for that long

[R&R]

Just because you love someone doesn't mean they are good for you. The most toxic and damaging relationship I ever had was on and off for 8 years with the first person I ever truly loved. We were LDR the entire time. I visited him everywhere he went: CA, TX, PA, VA, HI and NY. I sacrified and he controlled. He was 3 years younger than me and I was sure eventually things would change. After all, I loved him and that conqures all - right? Wrong, so wrong. We eventually broke up because he got someone else pregnant. When that relationship finally ended, I realized that I had completely lost myself and forgotten about me.

The reason I tell you this is because you have to realize that you need to love YOU first. Once you start loving you, caring about you and wanting what's best for you, then you won't deal with being treated less than you should be treated. Now, if he was putting in a ton of hours at a job where he was preparing for your future, that would be one thing. But hours upon hours of gaming and hiding in that instead of living in the real world? No, it's time to let go. He may say that he loves you but his actions show that gaming takes a much higher priority. Let him have his games - after you learn to love yourself, then you can find a partner who will want to actually live life and not just sit in front of a screen playing games.

[sasad]

My now 22 year old was the same way with games... They get absorbed in them. Its funny how so much has changed from generation to generation. But, he outgrew it. He used games to avoid getting into a relationship with females at that point in his life. He wasn't ready for one. He sold his Xbox last year... he grew up... Kids use cell phones to text their friends.. Should have seen my daughters face when I told her to just CALL her friend when she didn't answer her text... talk about a social fax pas...
You are 30, he is 21.. that a lot of technology years!
He needs to grow up and grow out of his phase before he can commit to anything. As R&R said, just because you love someone, it doesn't mean its a good healthy love.
Let him go, let yourself go. You will find someone who can give you what you need. But NOT until you let him go.


``Just curious... what do you mean when you say you have both been through hell and back???

[hmrambling]

We have been through hell and back and I'm not willing to let him go but I just dunno how to get through to him at this point about what spending time together in long distance relationships means.

Do you know what it means for someone to be emotionally unavailable? It sounds like he is not really available to you. Yet you are unwilling to let him go. As long as you are unwilling to let him go, he will think his behavior is acceptable. We teach people how to treat us, and you've taught him that it is okay to treat you the way that he is treating you.

Perhaps you can look at why you are attracted to someone who is emotionally unavailable and why you are unwilling to let him go when his behavior is unacceptable.

[NewToLongDistance2016]

its easier said than done. i love him to much to let go. i honestly have tried to live without him and it just doesnt work for me.

If you love him, can you accept him for who he is at this moment? Don't hang your hopes on him changing because if he is set in his habits, he will have a hard time breaking them and may never break them. If he spends a lot of time gaming, what will happen when you move together/get married/have children? All he will do is play games, while you bust your behind getting things done. This is how people get stuck in relationships, they would rather save themselves short term pain (a break up) and suffer long term pain staying in the wrong relationship. He will not get better or it may take years for something to change, think if you want to live like this.

[Chris516]

My now 22 year old was the same way with games... They get absorbed in them. Its funny how so much has changed from generation to generation. But, he outgrew it. He used games to avoid getting into a relationship with females at that point in his life. He wasn't ready for one. He sold his Xbox last year... he grew up... Kids use cell phones to text their friends.. Should have seen my daughters face when I told her to just CALL her friend when she didn't answer her text... talk about a social fax pas...
You are 30, he is 21.. that a lot of technology years!
He needs to grow up and grow out of his phase before he can commit to anything. As R&R said, just because you love someone, it doesn't mean its a good healthy love.
Let him go, let yourself go. You will find someone who can give you what you need. But NOT until you let him go.


``Just curious... what do you mean when you say you have both been through hell and back???

I remember hearing decades ago, where kids' in their early 20's are told 'the world is your oyster'. Meaning they have a lot of time to live and party. I think the OP's s/o is in that frame of mind still, and has a lot of growing up to do.

[InLoveToHard]

Just because you love someone doesn't mean they are good for you. The most toxic and damaging relationship I ever had was on and off for 8 years with the first person I ever truly loved. We were LDR the entire time. I visited him everywhere he went: CA, TX, PA, VA, HI and NY. I sacrified and he controlled. He was 3 years younger than me and I was sure eventually things would change. After all, I loved him and that conqures all - right? Wrong, so wrong. We eventually broke up because he got someone else pregnant. When that relationship finally ended, I realized that I had completely lost myself and forgotten about me.

The reason I tell you this is because you have to realize that you need to love YOU first. Once you start loving you, caring about you and wanting what's best for you, then you won't deal with being treated less than you should be treated. Now, if he was putting in a ton of hours at a job where he was preparing for your future, that would be one thing. But hours upon hours of gaming and hiding in that instead of living in the real world? No, it's time to let go. He may say that he loves you but his actions show that gaming takes a much higher priority. Let him have his games - after you learn to love yourself, then you can find a partner who will want to actually live life and not just sit in front of a screen playing games.

i never got any notifications that anyone responded. He does work, he works 3-11 pm right now and once the end of january comes he will be back to 3pm-1 am. He wakes around 11, usually eats and either plays a game or watches something, then goes to work all day and calls me on every break, then comes home and hops on his xbox or now ps4 since he got that for xmas. I dont expect every single second to be given to me,but he says "i want to be able to relax and enjoy when i get home" its like am i not enough to enjoy? i do love myself, and he knows i know my worth and i tell him that if he cant give me that time and attention i ask for which isnt difficult then i can surely find someone who can because i know damn well im worth more than sitting on facetime in silence while he games. Yea i can talk to him while he games and sometimes we have convos while he plays games but when i ask for just some me time he says ""what do you want me to do? we are 7 hours away from each other, what do you want us to do when we are this far apart" and i dont care for movie nights because i get bored watching movies but idk exactly what we can do since we are so far apart, i need help figuring out what 2 people in a LDR can do....idk any activities to do..I just need help, we have been managing for 4 years and i dont think love conquers all,not even close, i was in a 9 year relationship that went absolutely nowhere. i just need help with how to manage this. I helped him get a job and grow up so i understand wanting to game for the 4 hours ur at home and dont have to do anything but i mean am i asking to much or being unreasonable for asking for some us time without him throwing a bitch fit? i dont think thats unreasonable and im sure no one else will either.

[InLoveToHard]

OK im going to try my best and respond to everyones comments and questions..so sorry i kinda abandoned this,i wasnt receiving notifications...sorry everyone, i appreciate the feedback and help...In response to sasad, i agree, he definitely needs to grow up and grow out of the whole gaming phase, he used to do it 24/7, now when i say 24/7 i mean it as he goes to work 3-11 or 3-1 and comes home and games and does the same everyday either for 5 hourswith the 3-11 shifts or 3 hours with the 3-1 shift, which isnt unreasonable and i get that when he comes home he wants to unwind with that, everyone does something they enjoy doing to unwind with when they come home,i too am a gamer but like i said im not big into it anymore,i gamed from 21 until i was about 27 and then it slowly faded away, and when i say we have been through hell and back i mean, constant arguments due to being so far from each other, breaking up every other week due to not knowing how to handle long distance, LDR are so hard and we had such a tough time balancing it, also when we met,i was still involved in a relationship i felt so stuck in and had no clue how to get out of,which of course i am out of now,but there was arguments about that, petty arguments that made no sense,jealousy,and when i met him, he was very emotionally available, he wore his heart on his sleeve,told me how he felt,always wanted to spend time with me whether it was us having fun on a game together or laughing at a movie or just talking, but i was a bitch and began to feel smothered and voiced that to him and it was just the fact,ive never been used to being with someone who actually expressed feelings to me and was actually emotional with me and actually let me in and didnt try and control me, he let me be me whether he was jealous or not and he began to trust, but now he seems like his emotions have disappeared i mean he tells me he still loves me annd fears losing me and wants to be with me and that he is still here and still cares,but i guess now i regret accusing him of smothering seeing as now i miss that emotional person i first fell in love with.

In response to hmrambling: i have realized that too and constantly told myself i cant sit here and let him get away with his behavior because the more he sees theres no consequences, the more he will just continue to do it,he once was emotionally available and stopped it because of me telling him he was to emtional and smothering to me, so that i do blame myself for BUT im not going to make excuses for him because i voiced to him that he needs to be more emotional and show some type of compassion with me because im not going to be with a robot and i may never get that once emotional person back but if someone tells me they feel unwanted because i show no emotion, im sure as hell going to fight for that person and show them that i do want them and that i have more emotions for them than they can imagine.

In response to NewToLongDistance2016: this is a big reason why i havent left, when i met him he was like this, so i knew what i was getting into before i got involved so it isnt fair to me to try to change him, i have to let him grow out of this himself, but its also not fair to me because now he is in a relationship and he needs to learn how to divide his time up fairly, even when i met him in person, his controller got more attention than the girl he claims to love that he had never seen face to face in 4 YEARS. I would love to move in with him but im not going to do that instantly,i need to see if things truly can change, because no i cannot handle a household on my own because he wants to work then come home and game, he will have to realize living with someone is going to be less gaming time that now, he will go to work come home and we will have to clean, cook dinner, manage a household,idk how much time he thinks he will have for video games if he expects to live with someone.

In response to everyone: i totally agree in the end, i love myself to much to let someone just downplay me and my emotions because they dont see they have a problem. which maybe they dont,he only games about 5 hours a day now, but the weekends and days off are when its bad...he definitely needs to grow up and ill tell you one thing, he has more going for him than my ex did, he has a good paying job,a car and pays for all his own things, but i just feel like atleast a day off or something i deserve some type of attention instead of watching him on skype and facetime playing a video game, thats gets old and tiring. But he asks me what i expect him to do since we live so far apart and honestly im not sure besides movies and gaming together what we could do, so if any of you ANYONE IN THE COMMUNITY COULD HELP...list off some activites and stuff we could do. we have been invested in this for 4 years and i do know he loves me, its just the fact he is young and im not sure if he knows how to express the love or show it. his last relationship was awful and she controlled him alot and gave him bedtimes and everything and he just dealt with it, and im not trying to be that chick. i just wanna be happy with him, honestly id rather him be at home gaming and on facetime and skype with me than what most 21 year olds like myself did and go out partying and drinking and doing drugs, i just need some type of activities we could do together. ill be seeing him again in january at the end for 2 weeks this time and im going to see how that goes and if its the same as the first time i saw him where the controller got touched more than me, well then im going to reevaluate everything....please help...Give me some activites we could do in the meantime. All ideas accepted.

[R&R]

You can:

*Over Skype, cook a meal together and then sit down and eat and discuss your day.
*Take the other one with you to different places that have wi-fi, like a museum. You can Skype and look at the pieces together and talk about them.
*Read a book together. Each one of you read a chapter to the other each night.
*Have a date night where each of you go to Target or Walmart and give a limit of say, $10. Then when you get back, show each other what you bought for the other and then you can mail it or keep it for the next visit.
*You can play board games together over Skype. One person can control the game or you each can get a copy and both have it out at the same time.

There are plenty of things if you really want to put the effort into them. I'm sure if you did a Google search, you'd find a lot more things.

[InLoveToHard]

To R&R: Those all actually sound awesome and like a lot of fun. I really like the cooking then sitting down to a meal and I love the board game ideas along with the gift ideas. I'm going to put these to use actually. I will also google more,I'm the Google queen but never thought to actually just google it lol. Thank you for some ideas! They actually sound awesome and things I never would've thought of. If anyone else has more ideas please feel free to post more! Thank you R&R I hope this will help us. I will still post on here though when help is needed seeing as I need people who actually understand where I'm coming from to help me in hard times sometimes

[InLoveToHard]

So now I was talking well texting with my boyfriend, I know he isn't the biggest fan of texting because 1. It is annoying and 2. I knownwhen he plays is games that he gets focused in and I don't want to disturb that and I'd rather just let him play his game since he hates texting anyways and you would think it isn't a problem that I do that right? WRONG, I get these texts back "guessing you don't want to talk to me" and I respond saying "u said u don't like to text lol" then he says "I don't just kinda seemed like you wanted to go" so I responded "No but Ik how focused in u get on ur games and texting doesn't help u focus in on that" innocent enough honest message right? Well this is the response I get from saying something so innocent "Whatever then just fucking go then so sick of this game shit ". I don't feel I said or did anything to receive a response so hostile and defensive. We both have Saturday-Monday off and each day he is on his games from the time we wake between 1-3 pm until about 530 am or so...I mean am I wrong for wanting some time or bringing up to him that he isn't paying much attention to me or anything ?