Communication issues...

[Kellyrose687]

My boyfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship for nearly 3 years now.

The distance is very far with me being in Ireland and himself in Japan. I'm having a lot of thoughts about how long this going to gone on for and starting to get some doubts. My fears stem from the fact that he rarely contacts me anymore. I think the last time he contacted me was before Christmas.
I'm kind of getting sick of being the one calling him or emailing him as it makes me seem like the "needy" girlfriend.
Even when he does suggest talking over Skype, he ends up being late or just forgetting altogether. I know he is very busy as he works and goes to college but why should I spend my time waiting around for someone who isn't willing to put in the effort of being with me? I'm busy too and I just find it so disrespectful that he thinks I'm just going to hang around and wait until he is ready to talk with me.

Even when I try discussing these issues with him, he doesn't want to talk about.
I've suggested breaking up a few times because I'm just so fed up with it and he doesn't want to. I do love the guy but I can see us being in this type of relationship for a while and I just don't want to be treated like this for another 2/3 years. We might as well not be together.

I just need some advice from other people on how to get him to understand how upset this is making me and how serious I feel about all this.

[Dezface]

He hasn't been the one to initiate contact since before Christmas or you haven't talked at all since then?

[Kellyrose687]

He hasn't been the one to initiate contact.

[Benni]

He hasn't been the one to initiate contact.

Now, that would piss me off! B and I are in contact at least 3 times daily and it's about equal parts on the initiating of the contact.

[Hollandia]

I understand his time difference but that would be unacceptable to me. If you never contact him again, is it done? I would not be willing to "chase" my SO all the time, it creates a power control aspect to the relationship. It does whether he admits it or not. There are exceptions when the one partner is in the military and always has to initiate but you are the one doing it for what reason? These type of situations remind me of the mind games that people play when first dating and feeling each other out. Me and my SO went through something like this a few weeks into our relationship and when I realized I was doing too much initiating , I stopped. It was hard to not have contact for a few days but after a long weekend, he was back with......."where were you babe?" I told him I was busy with work, seeing some friends and went out a bit. I was not lying, I made a point to be busy(I suggest you do the same). I did not want to be sitting around waiting for him by the laptop. That was the last time we had any type of issue with that. Some men classify women in certain tiers and only you can help them decide what tier you are on. I am sorry to be cliche, but playing hard to get is still around for a reason. You however should not be in this place after 3 years. You should be on the tier for "marriage material". This is not how men treat the woman they love and want to marry someday.

I am a firm believer that if you love somebody you make the time for them. The movie and book..........He is just not that into you........kinda spells it all out.

I am not saying he should be doing it all the time but he should be sharing it with you, and he should want to. When the mind games are done, you pretty much never even think about it anymore, because you both know that you both would do it if you could. Christmas is four months ago. I would send an email to him, short and sweet. Something like..........I really love you and looking forward to hearing from you again soon......and then wait and see how long it takes. If you go over a month. I would have to question the relationship. You offered to break up and he did not want it? Then he needs to show it. If in your gut you don't feel respected, then you are most likely not being respected. What guy would not want a woman to always be there for him that he never has to be there for? Actions speak louder than words.

[aniay]

*hugs* you must feel awfull

In my opinion, relationship is a tandem that needs to ride. You can really ride it by yourself but do you want to carry someone who is lazy enough/not serious enough to just make effort of helping you?

Have been in relationship where the other person didn't make any effort, I think such relationships are hurtful and very unfair and disrespetfull, seems to me your guy isn't taking it seriously.

If I were you I'd write a letter sugesting that if he doesn't change out of his own will and doesn't start to pursue the relationship, you are not going to take this shit anymore. Or just cut it completely but I have bad experience about giving second chances.

But it's your life, your decision.


Stay strong *hugs*

[ThePiedPiper]

I actually am going to sing a different tune and say I see more of an issue with him not following through than with who initiates contact. There were a lot of issues in my relationship, but the fact that it ultimately ended up being me who initiated contact on a daily basis was not one of them. He was always happy to talk to me, however, so it might have been different in my case than in yours, but my opinion is if he's up for chatting with you, and happy when he does so, why should it matter who initiates the contact? I initiate contact in another of my relationships 99% of the time and she's one of my best friends. There's absolutely no imbalanced power dynamic between us, so I'd argue that if it causes an issue for anyone, it's because they let it become a point of tension and create issues out of it. What seems to be the bigger problem in your relationship is his lack of follow-through and you feeling like he doesn't respect your time as much as you do his.

What I would recommend is make your time something to be valued. You say you're busy but you also talk about initiating contact. Does this mean you DO sit around waiting for him? If so, stop. That's the thing about people. Most of the time, they fall into a habit. If you're the one who's always online, always initiating contact, etc., eventually it becomes expected. I'm sure you've done it with some things/people as all (or at least most) of us have at some point. The thing is, if you want him to value your time, make it be something to be valued. If you want to go out with friends but you two haven't spoken yet, leave him an IM or a message letting him know you're going out but that you love him and wanted to write him a goodnight message. Then go out. If you want to spend time unwinding watching TV or reading a book, do so. Your time won't be valued until you start valuing your time and doing what you need to do to respect the fact that you're busy.

I would also suggest talking to him about his follow through. And don't go into the whole "maybe we need to break-up" thing, either. :/ You eventually use it to the point it no longer matters and he can continue to treat you the way he does because no matter how much you bitch and moan and say you'll leave, you never do. So don't play that card unless you're genuinely going to follow through on breaking up with him. *shrug* But I would confront him and tell him his lack of follow through with, say, Skype is really upsetting to you. Don't tell him he never follows through. Tell him "I feel hurt when you say we're going to Skype and we don't. I end up missing you even more than we usually do. Do you think we can schedule in some time for Skype this week?" and let that be that. If he continues to not follow through, then you really need to start thinking about what you want out of this relationship and if it's worth it to consider pursuing it.

The big thing I would say, though, is you need to value your own time like you want him to value it. That's the bigger issue than the whole "omg he didn't message me he must not love me" game some people make out of it. If you ARE hanging around and waiting for him, stop being that person. If it's an inconvenience to text or message, don't. Value your time, honour and respect your time, and if he's worth his salt, he'll start doing so, too, but it's similar to the concept of you have to love yourself before you can allow anyone else to love you in the way you deserve. If you don't set your boundaries, you can't expect other people to know where they are.

[vansaddict00]

My boyfriend and I have been in a long distance relationship for nearly 3 years now.

The distance is very far with me being in Ireland and himself in Japan. I'm having a lot of thoughts about how long this going to gone on for and starting to get some doubts. My fears stem from the fact that he rarely contacts me anymore. I think the last time he contacted me was before Christmas.
I'm kind of getting sick of being the one calling him or emailing him as it makes me seem like the "needy" girlfriend.
Even when he does suggest talking over Skype, he ends up being late or just forgetting altogether. I know he is very busy as he works and goes to college but why should I spend my time waiting around for someone who isn't willing to put in the effort of being with me? I'm busy too and I just find it so disrespectful that he thinks I'm just going to hang around and wait until he is ready to talk with me.

Even when I try discussing these issues with him, he doesn't want to talk about.
I've suggested breaking up a few times because I'm just so fed up with it and he doesn't want to. I do love the guy but I can see us being in this type of relationship for a while and I just don't want to be treated like this for another 2/3 years. We might as well not be together.

I just need some advice from other people on how to get him to understand how upset this is making me and how serious I feel about all this.

I'm going through the same exact thing right now. I'm always the one initiating phone calls and I email him. Most of the time he doesn't respond back most of the time with emails. When I talk to him on the phone I get a vibe that he's in a hurry to get off the phone. We exchange about 4 text messages a day which really isn't anything. My bf is in college and he's busy and I'm trying to keep busy with work and friends. Its really taught me to be independent and I've realized that I dedicated too much time to him instead of my family. I'm now much closer to my family and I've learned to depend on myself. I think being LD, at first I felt too needy, constantly wanting to check up on him and see what he was up to. Initially I thought that him moving away and him being in school would open up opportunities for him to have female acquaintances, so the idea made me nauseous. He has a lot of male friends and not too many females so as far as I know I have been alleviated knowing we can trust each other. Even though I wanted to think about him everyday after, his thoughts would lead to me missing him more. Eventually I would stop thinking about him just to alleviate the pain and to focus on the current moment without any distractions. That's why my current mindset feels like I'm single even though I'm not acting upon it and taking advantage of it. I realized you can't rely on someone else to always be there and take care of you. It has helped me to just focus on the moment and find social interactions with people just around me. I don't rely on him to fulfill my every need. Lacking interaction and communication with him has had me resort to talking to my friends and family more. It has help me to fill the void, knowing it is a dire basic need. I tend to get depressed from isolation and if I am alone too much. Being soo busy with work with distractions has its downsides though. I forgot about his birthday. I felt horrible, but I remembered because it was a Facebook bday reminder. Tax day ended on the 15th so that was my only focus, and his bday was the next day. I never told him. I understand how busy he is, and I feel the same, since I'm not sure where this is going. He will be there for another year at least and will try to transfer back to CA. I do know that when I was in school I was very busy and you have a lot of social events. I definitely feel for you!

[Bradman1299]

I am a guy in the same situation, it feels like 90% of the time I initiate contact and "wait" to hear back. Sadly I love her so much I think I have just accepted it as part of the relationship. Seeing that the messages have been read and not getting a response drives me insane.

[pink elephant]

ThePiedPiper has put across a few points that really ring true.

I've spent a few years in a large city in Japan and while my (now) husband was living in the Scotland. We both worked full-time and as I learned a bit of Japan work culture, I realized it was sometimes "expected" that you work overtime. Many times I came home at 8pm or later. I was often tired from work and my long commutes. There were some awful times when we couldn't Skype for a long period of time (also this was the time before smart phones were around) or until I had access to my computer, so it wasn't fair to either of us if I wasn't conscious enough to Skype with him or have himself kept waiting around for me to come online. With the time difference, I was awake and heading to work while he was going to bed and vice versa. We never really were fully awake to talk except on the weekends. But he later came to understand why I was so tired all the time during Skype conversations when he came to visit me in Japan twice and learned about my work schedule, how long it took to get anywhere (since I walked and biked pretty much everywhere), etc.

Our solution was to make a schedule and develop a Skype routine where we knew that was our time to talk and we would do our darnedest to make that our time only. It worked so well that we stayed together over my period of working there for those years. In times where neither of us could make it, we would send a quick text.

I'm not saying you should give your boyfriend a break or that his busyness is an excuse for lack of communication between you two. There are even some people out there who just are really terrible at communicating online, but when you put them face-to-face with another human being -- they just can't stop talking! With my ex from a previous LDR, he was fine with chats and forums, but he never wanted to talk to me on the phone for whatever reason. In fact, whenever we were physically together he was comfortable to talk (a lot) about anything. (Things weren't broken off due to lack of oral communication, but for other reasons.)

As previous posters have already said, I think it would be worth sharing with him how you've been feeling about it all and if it's possible to work out a solution. Even though my husband and I had crazy schedules back then, we still wanted to try to make time for each other no matter what time we had to wake up or go to bed. Heck, we were even grateful for a few minutes.

Whatever happens, I sincerely hope something will work out for you both.