Put second already

[dannymac_78]

My boyfriend of almost four years just moved 4500 km away from me for work. He has moved with one of his best friends to a beautiful place and will be making a lot of money while living with his friend. He has shown no emotion or sadness about being gone. However, I am stuck in this crappy city, alone, making minimum wage working at the mall. Last year he moved to Ottawa for a few months to attend school, we were 3 hours apart. There I was ignored, skype dates and calls were missed due to him being drunk and passed out or just not wanting to bother with it. Now he is gone again, this time further away. I cannot afford to visit, and I attend school (University for my first year) in the fall. Already he is not saying goodnight ignoring my texts and generally not caring (and he hasnt started to work yet so he is actually just sitting on his ass drinking). I want to give up, I can't handle this. I don't know what to say to get him to listen and realize that I am not being put second again or I am gone. Also, how do you get your SO to realize that yes you're upset and you will be until you get use to this situation. If at all.

[dukes2011]

I'm not a teen, but I can definitely still relate to you in this situation. I live alone and my SO lives with 2 of his best friends from college, so there are several nights where I dno't hear from him and I feel like I'm put second. Have you directly told him you feel like you're put second? It's hard to be direct sometimes, but he won't know you're feeling this way unless you tell him. It doesn't matter how long you've been with someone, nobody can read your mind. As soon as I told my SO I was feeling like that, he realized that he hadn't been texting and calling as much as he used to. Your boyfriend may just need that honest dose of reality. Yes there will be a certain adjustment, but that takes time. If the move was recent, both of you may be in the adjustment phase- especially if you've never done long distance. Also, it's easier for us to be in a routine when we're both in school. I've found that summertime it's more difficult to have a schedule, even though I'm still taking classes and he has continuing ed classes to keep his teacher's certificate.

[k.ferg]

That is really rough... I definitely wouldn't put up with that. I would say the best way to just get the message across would be to flat out tell him. Another option would be to take a break. Just tell him that you don't feel loved or appreciated, and you need some time to yourself to figure out if you want to do this. Hopefully, he will miss you like crazy and realize that he better start paying attention if he wants to keep you. If he continues to not care, or doesn't react to you not talking to him, I would say that you have your answer .
Relationships are really hard during the college years, and being apart doesn't help. Overall, though, you have to be happy.

[Jessipoo]

I agree with the above posters. In my case, his job and all his stresses were too demanding and I was pushed to the bottom of everything, constantly.

I suggest you talk to him first, calmly, write it down if you have to. Give it some time, don't nag. If that doesn't work, just stop initiating, stop writing as much, see what happens. If he gets defensive and questions you just tell him you were busy and didn't realize or something or figured he was really busy so you gave him some space.

It may or may not work. In my case, I tried for 3 months to talk to him calmly. In the last 2 weeks, things got worse for my ex-SO (sounds so strange saying ex...) and I broke, took things personally and was pushed over the edge. It didn't end well... well it ended.

It takes 2 to make it work, it takes 2 to make it fail.