Is it normal to worry when you don't hear from a loved one?

[Gelstick]

BF is generally very reliable, so yesterday evening when he didn't call after work like he said he would, didn't arrive at 8:30pm as I expected, and I couldn't contact him by phone, by 9:30pm when I did hear from him I'd managed to work myself into quite a state.

He'd had a series of perfectly believable events that gave him every reason to be late getting in touch, and as I said this was very much a one off, but I was a wreck.

Normal?....I suspect not.

Right, but you expected us to know it was 3 hours without telling us.

That was my point.

I would have worried too.

FM some people just have to be right. I think it was clear it was significantly more than one hour.

No, not to anyone who doesn't know what hours he worked.

However, it seems a bit lacking in any sort of resilience to be in such a state.

Did you message / phone him ?

I'd be very worried if he hadn't made contact by, say, 2am and it was completely out of character. But I wouldn't be in a "state" by 9.30pm. I think this is the downside of our ultra connected world. People are used to (and expect) instant and constant communication. I know someone that gets all emotional if their partner doesn't text "I love you" at mid morning every day from work which personally I think ridiculous. But apparently that sort of thing is normal these days and I'm the outlier. Sorry OP, I know that's deviating from your original post!

Yes, I said I hadn't been able to contact him by phone.

It’s normal to get worried, it’s not normal to become a ‘state’ when a grown man is an hour or two late because all likelihood points towards something benign…. A dead phone and a manager at work demanding he fix an issue, a car tire blown, a detour to the shop and being distracted by a band in the pub next door.

All sorts of normal reasons for a grown adult to be a bit late. If he had been MIA for 24 hours or not come home at bedtime then normal worry climbs and you contact his friends, family, work etc. longer than that and it’s the police.

It wasn't an hour though, and even if my OP was unclear, I've explained that (several times 😆) now.

I tend to fall into the "no news is good news" camp.

Especially if he was just coming over to hang out. If we had plans to be somewhere by a certain time I'd be a bit more pissed off concerned but would not catastrophise when he was just an hour late from when he said he'd be over (I would have assumed by this point he'd just forgotten to call after work).

You'll need to learn to not stress so much OP, that OTT level of "concern" can become suffocating for partners if they feel they need to constantly reassure you.

‘Panic’
’in a state’
ridiculous

3 hours, an hour, it’s all the same really. If the more likely answer is a possibility… aka he went for a drink after work with colleagues, he took a detour to his mums and had dinner there etc then there’s no need to be a state.

What were you worried happened? Crashes and murder etc are very rare. More likely the grown up is just out and about. Remain calm until another risk factor comes up aka it’s past bedtime, they’ve not picked you/a child up, they texted they’d be back in 10 and never came. See what I mean? Weigh up the likelihood

He’s not that reliable if he didn’t message you if he knows you’d be in a state 🤷‍♀️

No, your "more likely" examples are not at all.likely for him, not without letting me know.

Someone had died, I was right to be worried, it just wasn't him.

I meant something similar which is more probable than him being killed. I’m sorry someone died, but that doesn’t mean it’s normal to get in a state of panic because of your partner being a few hours late. Which was your question. Something happened that waylaid him, but he was not hurt and if he was, panicking wouldn’t have helped.

Im not sure why you’re angry. You asked the question.

But there isn't anything "similar", if he was able, he would have let me know.

I have no idea why you think I'm angry.

I'm not sure why you're getting the attitude you are. I might not be in what I'd describe as a state, but I'd definitely be worried given how unlike him it is to not be in touch.
(I also knew we were talking about more than an hour from your OP...)

@Gelsticki would also be in a state but I do have anxiety. If the roles were reversed by boyfriend would assume I got held up and not worry at all.

As long as it’s not stalking him and his movements…

with family I message the adult DC each day just to check in and say hello. Might be a 1 liner, might be a paragraph depending on events.

i generally know when to expect DH home but as we are on ‘find my…” if I’m going to put the kettle on, I will check how far away he is and decide if it’s a tea bag cup for me or a pot of tea for both of us.

How long have you two been together op?

You said initially you suspected it wasn’t normal - but then you’re really snapping at people who are telling you it’s not normal! I’m guessing you wanted people to tell you of course it’s normal?

if you lived together and he wasn’t home by the usual/expected time with no communication, that would be concerning. Just a boyfriend that you don’t live with? I’d assume he forgot he said he’d call, or that he worked late, or that a few colleagues went for a drink after work etc.

That said I used to get worried if I hadn’t heard from my (now husband) boyfriend to let me know he’d made it to work safely. But that was because he’d had 3 car accidents on that particular journey, all 3 cars written off over just a few years (late 90’s) and not long before we got together (2000). There were loads of accidents on the roads he was travelling. But I was never a “wreck”, more just a little worried that he might have had an accident but more likely he’d just forgotten to message me. If I hadn’t heard from him after say lunchtime, I’d have probably been worse - but that would have been because if he’d made it to work, he’d have seen his phone and a single message from me asking how his day was going. How many times did you try to contact him? Phone calls? Texts? Both?