Have I messed my relationship up by raising my dissatisfaction

[Kingpongking]

I’ve been dating a man for 4 months. We are dating exclusively and it seemed to be going well.

He has flown back to his home country for 5 weeks. It’s a stressful trip as he is sorting out some probate related stuff and dealing with some tricky family dynamics, plus has a lot of people to see.

He’s been there two weeks. He’s text and called every day, some days quite a lot which is lovely. However, in the last week, his communication has really just been him complaining about how stressed he is. None of the conversations have really been him engaging with me or taking an interest in what I’ve been doing.

I do get it, I really do. But the last straw for me was when he called yesterday. He said he’d call me at 10pm his time. He called me at 4am!

When he did finally call, he sounded so miserable and like he desperately didn’t want to be on the phone. He was irritable and kind of snappy with me. There was no warmth in his voice at all. I just got really upset and couldn’t hide in my voice that I felt put out. It really felt like he’d called out of obligation and had no interest in talking to me.

I messaged after to say I totally knew it wasn’t personal, but to please let me know if he was finding calling me to be an obligation and that his disposition on the phone had made me wonder if he was actually interested in continuing a relationship with me.

I know it’s always a no-no (especially on MN) to be needy, especially in a newer relationship but I was really at the end of my tether after a week of hearing no niceties at all and just being a dumping ground for his stress, with 3 more weeks of it to go.

He replied and said he did still want to be with me and everything was fine, and I definitely wasn’t an obligation, BUT while he totally understood my side, unfortunately he was giving was all he had in him right now and he was unlikely to be able to be any more engaging or cheerful any time soon.

That was last night and today I haven’t heard from him today at all 😔. Usually I hear from him a ton during the day. So now we’ve gone from very frequent albeit gloomy communication, to no communication at all. Which makes me feel like I really messed up last night by telling him I felt upset. I really should’ve been more understanding and just kept my mouth shut. I let a moment of insecurity ruin things and now I don’t get to hear from him at all. The worst thing is, now I look back and realise he had been making a lot of effort, despite his stress, and I let one bad conversation get to me and drove him away.

I am 45 years old and have been happily single for years, so I’m completely embarrassed that I’m even having to worry about such things.

Tricky - I think being ‘reprimanded’ often gets someone’s back up even if they are in the wrong - I find it does with me. I know it sounds manipulative but sometimes you have you raise an issue by angling it slightly different e.g I don’t know if these calls are making you feel worse as you really don’t sound happy and I’m not always sure what to say - if you want to take a break from calling that is fine…more about them than you…don’t know but have found it works whereas the other approach can make people very defensive as he appears to be now. Having said that would agree with pp that it is a lot for 4 months - does not sound fun for you and might be best to bin off at this stage

Why would you want to be in a relationship with a miserable twat who conditions you to be too afraid to raise anything that pisses you off?

I think I probably don’t, if I’m honest. He just dropped me a text that (I think??) had a typo in it and didn’t make sense.

i replied “I’m not sure what {insert typo word} meant! Enjoy your drive”.

His reply:

”forget it. Too busy to explain. I need to go”

He’s text me, so I’m not sure why he was so hostile.

This is about the tone of literally all communication right now, although he insists he wants to keep dating.

It’s just too draining.

I am fairly hurt by this response. I am basically hearing that he will not/cannot meet my emotional needs, but I must meet his.

A relationship is rarely 50/50 all the time in terms of emotional weight pulled. Sometimes one person will feel 20% in their ability and the other can pull the 80%. It’s when you both feel extremely low in capacity that you have to have a conversation about how to cope so that you don’t end up hurting each other.

If I’m honest (without knowing you both fully over time), I think you went too hard at him knowing how much he was struggling. The brunt of his grumpiness had been for a week.

Yes but...
He could have politely said he is stressed and cant talk every day.

On the other hand, i would not want to ring a newish partner every day nor would I want to receive daily phonecalls.

So maybe OP is a bit needy wanting daily conversations- maybe these are her needs, but for someone else it can feel very suffocating.
But the guy seems to have a very short fuse and react badly to suggestions, which is not a very good sign.

Did he react badly? It seems to me he is just expressing how he feels. That he could see her side of it, but that he was at its wit’s end at the moment. That he felt she was unreasonable to pile on relationship stress on top of it.

Again, if it had been ongoing for quite some time then there comes a point when enough is enough, but it had been a week.

I think he probably should have cut the phone calls down from the beginning, especially if he felt his energy and patience really depleting, and asked OP to understand, but perhaps he felt unable to for whatever reason or he didn’t know that he wouldn’t be able to happily cope with them. Stressed and tired people often don’t make the best decisions. Sounds like the time difference is difficult to manage too.

Just looking at OPs updates about the texts/messages he sent- it seems he has been mauling over the fact she was unahppy and how dare she when he has stuff to do.

Maybe it's just a bad time for a relationship for both of them. Maybe if he is in a better place, it may be worth trying again, but it defintiely seems he has an unpleasant side to him Id not want to explore.

His response suggests he's trying to end it with you but doesn't have the balls to so is just dragging it out and being an arsehole in the hope that you do it for him.

There is no relationship here. End it and stop stringing each other on.

I personally don't think this man is worth giving up being single for.

He is not in the head space for a relationship. You are not his unpaid therapist.

Cut your losses while it is still new. Sometimes thinks just don't work out. This is this.

I don't think that however his responses suggest he can't deal with stress without being absolutely rude. Trust me, you don't want this. End it.

Four months is a decent amount of time, and it sounds like, aside from this, you’ve been having a good time with him and the relationship could have legs.
Hes going through a bit of a rough time out there, he hasn’t been amazing to you in the last week but we all have rough patches. I wouldn’t write this off. I’d give him another chance and send him a message saying you hope he’s okay etc and you understand it’s a rough time.

Yes I also agree with this

Thanks all. I went back to the texts I sent him after he was so rude on the phone, and they really weren’t putting any pressure on him.

I said (verbatim):

”hey. Sorry if I sounded a little off on the phone. It was hard to know how to react as you sounded so much like you didn’t want to be on the phone. I love the fact you make the time to call but please don’t feel you have to call me out of obligation. I don’t want to be something that’s adding more pressure to an even more stressful time. And if you’re finding it hard to have someone else to think about right now, please do tell me”.

That was what I said. Word for word. .

And then he has barely spoken to me since, except to tell me he was annoyed by that reaction.

His contact levels since then have gone from 20 times a day (absolutely his doing. Never mine), to twice, and they’re just messages about how busy he is and that he won’t have time to talk to me.

It feels heavily one sided and I’m struggling to see an upside of remaining in it.

I’m inclined to agree with the PP who said he wants to break up but doesn’t have the balls. Although he absolutely insists that isn’t the case.

Beat him to it. Ghost him now. I’d even block him. I wouldn’t want someone like that in my life, he’s using you as an emotional punchbag at best, and conditioning you with abusive behaviours at worst.

@Kingpongking you have no obligation towards this bloke. As you rightly say, you're only 4 months into the relationship. I'd leave things be while he's away and if there is anything to salvage when he gets back to the uk then decide at the time whether or not it's worth salvaging. Don't get over invested. It's not worth it. Plenty of other people out there if it doesn't work out.

His contact levels since then have gone from 20 times a day

that's excessive, you really don't need that in your life. He sounds unhinged, and expects you to bend and sway to meet his emotional needs. Very entitled.

It’s a well known tactic. Go cold and insist they don’t want to break up so you have to do the dirty work for them.

He's obviously under pressure, but his responses are full of red flag here. Ditch and move on with your life.

Fully agree with this

He's going through a tough time with bereavement/probate so would cut him a little slack, but tbh he sounds rude and a bit too much like hard work. Definitely not good under pressure. Let him put the effort in to contact you (or not) whilst he's away but if he's rude again end the call and let him know whilst you wish to be supportive you're not his therapist.

Seems reasonable to me and in his position I can imagine feeling the same. Calling/ texting you every day when you have only been together 4 months is excessive, in my view.

You don't know that.

God you lot are nasty.

I met someone last year and 4 months later my mother started dying. She was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer that was untreatable and wasn't even worth chemo or radiotherapy.

If that wasnt bad enough my remaining family behaved appallingly and I won't go into it but it was the worst thing I've ever been through and I've cut off the family since mum's death.

Only 4 month onto a new relationship this happened to me. My boyfriend saw me at my worst very early on. Yes I was miserable yes I was stressed, I couldn't help it..I tried not to let it affect everything but sometimes I failed.

Guess what he's still with me and its been 18 months now. I was worried we wouldn't survive but he took a mature approach and though it was hard here we are.

I mean what about you OP? He calls you daily and you're pisses off he's not on bended knee? Why are we so self obsessed all the time and now no one can have family problems, you see it as a sign of disinterest?

Maybe he's better ending it.

Mmmmm. He’s a bit me, me, me, me, me, isn’t he

As opposed to the op who has none of this going on and cares only for herself

Fuck him off, it’s too early days for all this drama

He sounds quite nasty and taking out all his stress on you. I wouldn't be interested in dealing with that and I suspect he'd never go back to being the "nice" guy he was earlier on. This is the real him - take him or leave him. I'd be leaving him.