Tension/increased bickering before a visit

[books]

I swear I don't know what's happening with my relationship lately. I went from feeling so secure & sure of what I have with my SO, to being really insecure and over emotional about everything. The crazy part is I am going to visit him in 4 days, but it's like everytime I call him I start bringing up insecurities I have and how hard the distance is. he's never given me any reason not to trust him, but the distance sucks. I called him last night & we started to get in an argument over something stupid. He stopped it and said it must be that I love to fight. I guess I feel like I want to get things out right then & there. I know in a few days I can talk to him in person about these things (like communication, how much he's contributing to the relationship), but it's like it's just eating me up inside. Doesn't help that I am SUPER impulsive. So after last night's almost argument, I told myself I need to just hold on this week and talk to him when I see him. It doesn't help that I am pms'ing which makes me a crying mess.

So tonight I get home from work and check my facebook. He just got it a few weeks ago and I was really not too crazy about the idea. He has slowly been adding friends, many of them girls, who I don't know. Well, today he added 4 girls and I looked on one of their pages and saw she had posted lots of bikini/sexy pics. To top it off, this girl doesn't even live anywhere near him, so I'm like...why is he even adding these facebook attention whores (sorry for the harsh words). So I call him up all mad...he tells me he's busy and to call him back. I go back and look at facebook again and just say screw it. I deleted him. I didn't call him back, probably best not to, as I have no idea what I'd even say.

I don't know if I'm subconsciously trying to sabotage things or if this is just some nervous tension coming out.

Help!

[LadyMarchHare]

Usually fights right before a visit are from general stress and anxiety as well as any other stressors that could be going on in your life at the moment regardless of its relation to your relationship. Like if you're having issues with work, school, or family, those can easily bleed into other areas of your life and make you more sensitive emotionally to where fights happen more easily than they might otherwise.

It might be best right now to limit contact until you either see each other or can trust yourself not to act too much on volatile emotions versus any sort of logic. If you guys have things you need to talk out, it's better to wait until you're both in better emotional states than to just run through it and end up yelling because you want it addressed/fixed as soon as possible. It's definitely easier said than done, but in the end if you know it will be better for the both of you, it can't hurt to try, right?

[Silencedsongs]

I'm slightly confused on what your insecurities are with the relationship, or I just failed to read your post properly..

But what it sounds like to me is that you're stressing over the little stuff, and making it bigger than it needs to be. Take a breath and step back and look logically at everything. If he's never given you reason to doubt his worthiness and trust-ability, then these girls on facebook should not have been an issue at all. Yes, it might get under your skin, but it should not cause you to be upset with him. I have friends that add me on FB that I haven't seen in YEARS, but went to school with them in the single digit ages. Majority of them are male, but I don't talk or associate with them other than maybe a 'Hey! How're you doing after so many years?'.

If you're really feeling insecure about things, then try to bring it up to him in a way that lets him know you just need to be able to talk without an argument arising.

[13000km]

I did the exact same thing right before my last visit for a whole week or more. I'm one of the most impulsive people I know and often say or do things without thinking. I was constantly picking fights over things that really didn't matter. I was under a lot of stress from work, my family was away and my boyfriend wasn't there enough for me. Those were the reasons I gave for acting that way, but he knew better. I guess any emotion I was having (especially the negative ones) was amplified a couple of times. I tried a little bit to not act on those emotions, but failed repeatedly. Things were very tense between us for that week until the night before I flew, when I was in the company of friends, boyfriend was on skype and I was thinking omg...this is it!

It might be a good idea to explain to your SO that your emotions are running all over the place and it's hard to get them under control because of all the nervousness combined with your other stressors. let him know that you do not enjoy fighting, but that you don't really know how to deal with it. If you think it will help, suggest a decrease of communication, just for these 4 days, so you don't end up saying or doing things you don't mean because of your feelings again.

[8000miles]

Man, my girlfriend told me to read the post and I laughed when I read the title. That's exactly what happened to us. And when I read the first paragraph I laughed even harder because it sounds EXACTLY like her! haha so please be aware that you are NOT ALONE.

When visiting was getting close, my girlfriend got VERY nervous. I just noticed that she posted right above me so I won't explain... But you have to make sure he fully realizes a few things. One is that YOU are visiting HIM. I don't know how far away you are or anything, but it probably means you're sacrificing and risking a lot more than him in this situation. Two is that the whole ordeal is horrifying. When I was waiting for her to get off the plane I was so scared! I wanted to run! haha What if it's different in real life? What if it's awkward and quiet? What if you don't get along very well? What if the family and/or friends don't like you? It's a LOT of stress. So on top of already being impulsive, your emotions are going to be STREAMING out.

Like LMH said, it might even be best to limit talking. So I suggest:
-Talking to him and explaining how you're feeling
-Perhaps limiting contact for this period of time
-Reminding yourself that it WILL be worth it and that not everything is crumbling down, stress is just making everything seem worse

I'm sure it'll be perfectly fine once you two finally meet

[books]

Thank you sooo much for the replies. Just to clarify a few things: We were CD before and got along GREAT that's why I can't figure out why all these negative emotions have entered the equation. As far as my insecurities go, even I can't really understand what I'm feeling so insecure about. The only thing between us that really bothers me is that it is always me doing all the work, but I've told myself before that is more due to circumstances. He comes from a very poor country, me from a very rich one so the phone calls/visits/overall keeping the relationship together falls on me. One of my friends has told me from the start I would get tired of being the one doing all the work and I wonder if it's already happened. That's one of the things we need to talk about when I visit cause I feel like I need at least some effort on his part. We talk twice a week, with me calling him on set days and that's it. Sometimes I'll spontaneously call him other times when a) I'm missing him a lot or b) I'm obsessively thinking about something that's got me mad and I need to tell him NOW. I think I deleted him from facebook to show him how mad I was (I really don't have anything to be jealous about) but I actually went ahead and deactivated my account so I won't think about facebook for awhile.

I just hate I don't even feel excited to see him

[LadyMarchHare]

I can understand being frustrated that you're the one who is taking the initiative with most, if not all, things required to keep up a LDR. Even though there is logical reasoning behind it, sometimes we get moments where we want to throw a tantrum like a 6 year old, stomp our feet, and say it's not fair. We're human, we can't always be understanding, calm, and collected. And there are going to be times when you just feel bad or angry for no real reason but for the fact you can and if you're both feeling the heat then you're going to snap at one another, and that's fine. So long as your entire relationship isn't made up of arguments and "calms before the storm" then I'd have to say it's normal. The point is you know something's not right and you want to fix it.

Facebook causes a decent amount of relationship problems, from what I've seen. You question who the people are they're friending, you wonder why they're commenting on photos or walls and saying what they are, if you're prone to jealousy it can spark some nasty moments and generally unwanted and un-needed drama. Some couples are fine with not friending each other or just don't seem to have issue with their SO's activity but everyone is different. Better you leave it be than spark nastiness over something that in the end is not worth the headache it gives you.

[Rugger]

LMH always gives the best advice on these things. I would limit contact and try to not say anything to him while you are feeling mad and insecure. It's easier to talk to someone face to face.

[Alexandria Lora]

LMH and everyone on this post that has replied has awesome advice and shared experiences!! I so enjoyed hearing from 8000miles male perspective point of view (1300km's better half), and to hear him ACKNOWLEDGE his understanding of his gf's and your emotions was awesome. We as LDR's who do all the traveling experience ALOT of stress and when you couple that with a woman's hormonal and emotional influences...talk about WWIII!!! It is hard enough to deal with the expenses, the travel and cost of communication, but returning back/visiting to be WITH each other again, it is stressful as heck!! So many thought's come into your mind: will he/she still be attracted to me? Is the chemistry still there? Is it worth the expense? What the hell am I doing??? What the hell is he/she doing???? Doubts and questions arise and you know what? ITS NORMAL!! There is nothing wrong with questioning/assessing a situation, it means your brain functions properly as a human, you questioning a situation is all instinct, survival. No one wants to be hurt, and no matter how confident a person is and how trusting their SO is, you still question whats around the corner. What it really comes down to is how you decide to react to the situation.

That being said, when you have those moments of emotional spirals and need to reach out to your bf, do you have another ear (friend/family member/mentor) to hear you? I find in those times, I reach out to my sister or my guy friend so I can be heard and I can hear myself out loud talk about my concerns. I tell you what, it has saved MANY an argument between me and my SO. Sometimes when I have heard myself talking to my "outlet" person, I think: "wow, i sound REALLY crazy/emotional/over-the top!" Oh I can keep going...but in those moments I realize that the stress and the emotions have caused such a volcano in me that I would have blown my SO away!! If you have someone to talk to in those moments, someone who doesn't care how emotional or even crazy you sound, I highly recommend calling them before calling your SO. Sometimes, it not that you have to have your SO know what your feeling, sometimes its just talking it out and being heard, even if it is with someone else. Then you are able to really gauge, if anything, you need to explain to your SO.

I tell you what, just typing all this out made me feel good heheh.. but I truly hope this helps...

And btw, you and your SO will be fine... The reunion will be wonderful Take it from LMH and the others, take a break from fb and calling your SO..give your self a chance to re-group..and your SO too.

[books]

LMH always gives the best advice on these things.

Right?! I was gonna say, wow she always seems to nail it right on the head.

I really need to search for a good balance between exploding/causing arguments and avoiding the issue altogether. With my ex, I always did the latter and it's naturally what I go for. After me & my SO's first real fight, I posted a thread on here about what I perceived to be "communication issues". One thing that's really different with my SO is that I want to do things the right way. I want to have good communication. One of the main points of the replies I got in that thread was this: in an LDR you have to deal with things at the moment they come up because if you wait for visits (which may be far off or not even set yet) you will have lots of lingering/unresolved issues. Made lots of sense with me so that's what I've been trying to do but it's like...I don't know when to chill and just catch up with my SO without bringing up something that causes an argument.

Alexandria Lora- I do have a close guy friend who I talk to about everything. I actually called him up last night to talk about this. He always tells me LDRS are prone to failure b/c they involve all the issues "normal" couples go thru just amplified by the distance. But hey, at least he listens to me vent.

[LadyMarchHare]

I'm wondering if looking up books or advice columns about assertiveness might help you because when you explode you're being aggressive but when you leave it alone it's the extreme opposite (I forget the exact term at the moment) but assertiveness is the balance, the medium between both because it teaches you to address problems, I guess the word's "civilly" without looking to start a fight or waiting until the aggravation's just exploded to get around to saying something. I know it's something I've needed to work on myself as I have the awful habit of letting things go for months before I finally just up and take a baseball bat to the situation.

And while it is good advice to try and "not go to bed angry" and work things out as soon as possible, sometimes you're better off chewing on some ice before you say anything more because if the discussion's heated, it's going to stay that way so long as you keep going at it right then even if you're trying to settle things. Time outs in LDRs are harder because it's a complete shut down, you're not just walking into another room with them still in the same house, you're ending a phone call or conversation knowing they're out of your reach completely until things have settled. It's why the whole "fix it now" idea is much more appealing than waiting around for them to decide when to answer you, but again it's not fool-proof. Fights are hard no matter what.