Partner wants to wait until 2025 to discuss this?!

[VioletW]

We are long distance 3 hours apart in UK.

Lately he has been under a lot of pressure at work and has barely come to visit me when we planned to reciprocate visits. This was before he started the job.

That isn't to say we don't see each other - we've been on 3 short trips to other places in the last 1 1/2 months and i am at his place now for a week.

After I leave we won't see each other again until early December when he will stay with me for a week. So that means the whole of November we won't see each other. We're both busy but I won't know why he can't make the effort one weekend?

So today I told him I want to talk about this as I'd like him to visit me more in the new year. His response was to get very stressed and ask me to postpone the conversation until January! I said honestly I don't think I can do that. I need to be able to plan our time together in January and Feb. AIBU?

To me he is telling you it’s too busy of a time - he has to focus on his studies. Let him. He doesn’t want to talk about it - cause he knows you’re just going to try and make him feel bad. Let him miss you! And try and find something to focus your time on in November - don’t seem too desperate for him!! He’s soon be back in touch when he sees you’re no longer doing the leg work.

I was in a LDR for 3 years with someone who lved 4.5 hrs away. The first year was great and very equal, he spoiled me and we had the best time. Year 2, he would maybe visit me once for every three times I visited citing work, tiredness etc. I foolishly ended up moving in with him as a 'solution' where I was isolated from my entire support network as I knew nobody there apart from his friends. The relationship quickly turned both physically and mentally abusive.
I know you want the relationship to work which I completely understand, and I'm of course not saying things will unfold the same way as it did for me- but take what's happening as a red flag now. If he was as committed as you, he'd be making the effort. I wish I'd realised this sooner.

I think if he is finishing a PhD and working it is not surprising that he doesn't have a weekend free. When is his deadline?

He’s probably trying to get ahead of the work before Christmas, so that he can enjoy a few days off then. I would allow it to be honest, I think the circumstances are exceptional.

A conversation with his partner is not going to take a lot of time out of his precious, busy life.

It's not about the physical time needed but the mental capacity required to think, fully understand yourself and your position so that you know what you can offer and what you can't. Otherwise the conversation will progress nothing, achieve nothing and is likely to end up frustrating them both without a resolution.

So what he is saying/asking for isn't wrong but, equally, what the OP is asking for isnt wrong either.

He's at the end of finishing a PhD as well as working so he is under a lot of pressure but it doesn't make me feel like a priority.

The reality is that, currently, you are not his top priority.

People on MN like to say, "If someone loves you, they want to see you/spend time with you," and, "If he wanted to, he would," but in the real world it's not always as simple as that.

I sometimes think well, yes, if you work set/regular hours in a job you can just leave behind when you walk out of it at the end of the day it's probably a more reasonable expectation but not all roles are like that.

When I'm in a really busy period at work, I simply don't have the time, capacity or headspace to consider anything else. I've always made that clear to men I've dated (and friends/family tbh) and I know it has been an issue for some. Others have just used that time to do their own thing and catch up on their own lives. And I certainly wouldn't have the capacity to travel 3 hours each way to spend a weekend with someone.

That doesn't mean it has to work for you, though, OP. And it's fine to end it if it doesn't suit you.

Sounds like this isn’t going anywhere. I’d look for a more local boyfriend if I were you.

I'm imagining the reverse situation posted on MN:

"I'm currently in the last two months of my PhD, plus working (full time?) and in a LDR. In the last 6 weeks I've seen my partner 4 times, including them staying at mine for a week. In November and December I will likely only be able to spend a week with them due to my current work/study pressures. When I told my partner this they were quite unhappy and wanted to discuss plans to see each other more in the New Year. I love my partner and want to see them but the next two months are so swamped for me, I am overwhelmed by the stress of my PhD l, and my partner's unwillingness to wait to discuss this until I have the headspace for it is really discouraging. I don't feel like a priority for them, and wish they could be more supportive of what I'm doing. My PhD has been years in the making and I'm almost done but I feel like it's not important enough the them to be willing to wait a few more weeks for me."

The LTBs would be rolling in...

He’s just not that into you.

He's completing his PHd. If my daughter was in his shoes and she was getting pressure from her boyfriend I'd advise she ignore or reduce contact.
He's working towards his Doctor of Philosophy.
My Dsis and myself have one as does my favorite cousin. It's fucking hard work especially if you're working,even if you're working in the field your PHd is in.
Support the fact he wants his doctorate. It shows he can commit to something and work hard to get it.

I know people who got married and had children despite doing a PhD, so it’s a rubbish excuse. He’s just not into the OP or he is as selfish as they come.

Cut him some slack, he's obviously very stressed. Wait until Christmas to discuss it and then see if you can find a resolution.

Ah, OK so I voted you are not being unreasonable @VioletW and then you fed in that he is doing a PhD. Is he close to submitting?

As a PhD supervisor and having completed one myself there is a point in the process where you lock yourself away for anything up to 8 months. If in the early part of next year he has submitted then it should return to normal.

The chances are he isn't avoiding you, he has just spent 3+ years (or in the middle of it with deadlines looming) on the one thing that may set his career up for you combined future. Cut him some slack and see what he is like in the New Year. I have had students attempt suicide due to the stress of submission. Do not underestimate the pressure people can pop themselves under so a 5 week hiatus sounds pretty normal to me.

If however he is only halfway through, tell him to give his head a wobble and at least meet you half way for a day.

Also edited to add, if my DH had taken the stance you have during my PhD we wouldn't have lasted. Now 27 years on with DCs it was probably worth waiting the 6 weeks of each year as a deadline loomed, and the arduous write up phase.

I feel like these responses are divided between people who know what it’s like to have a looming PhD deadline in addition to working, and people who don’t. It is all-consuming, it takes over your life, it is all you can think anbout and I don’t think he’s being unreasonable at all asking you to postpone discussions until he’s done.

Or even just a professional career that doesn't have set hours and experiences competing demands at various points.

OP, MN loves nothing more than to see a relationship ending, and they love even more being able to tell a woman how not interested the man in her life is.

And this.

OP, when you're reading these responses, just remember that not everyone is advising from a position of experience...

What’s he doing for Xmas?

I think you talk now in all honesty. Be prepared though this could be the end .

Id he is commited he can make the effort too .
so he come to you one week form when t ok January . What’s happening over Xmas and nee year aren’t you seeing each other ?

Should I just say no actually, this is important and I need to talk now?

Well what did you say when he said that? Surely if it was an important conversation for you to have you didn't either just ignore he'd said it or say "fine" then sit and seethe?!

You say "I know you've got a deadline but I just wish I could see more of you. I need to know if you're as in to this relationship as I am. You don't have to tell me right now, but I think we should be able to discuss things without setting meeting dates that far in advance." Or something like that.

In reality January isn't that far away so you might decide you're able to wait. Or he might bin you off for being too pushy.

I think you are being very unreasonable. This is a short state in his life when he is working at a new job, trying to cram in study for what has presumably been years of study and you are being me, me, me! Give him some slack, if you really like him, and see what happens in 2025...it really isn't that far away

Reserve judgement until he finishes the Phd.

You've posted about this relationship multiple times now - what's the point?

You say "I know you've got a deadline but I just wish I could see more of you. I need to know if you're as in to this relationship as I am. You don't have to tell me right now, but I think we should be able to discuss things without setting meeting dates that far in advance." Or something like that.

I'm just imaging how I'd feel if, in the middle of a mentally busy time at work someone started bleating on at me like this.

I think if you choose to push for more time and forward planning at this stage of his life he might just throw in the towel on your relationship. You know that he is working and doing a phd so either you take on more of the travelling and agree to give him more time to actually get these things done or you complain that he's not putting enough effort in to you and add more stress to his life. This is not forever so if you want to keep this relationship give him some space to breathe. It will benefit both of you.

If he needs to finish his PhD and he’s working I can see that there might need to be a period of h focusing on that. Writing up a PhD is a lot of work and you need to immerse yourself in it fully for long periods of time. Doing that and working full time is a lot.

That said, I don’t understand;

1. why if you are together now, why he can’t talk about the future and what his hopes are for you both.
2. Why you can’t both travel 1.5 hours for lunch every couple of weeks. 3hour distance is nothing.

I think either his head is just too full (I didn’t see my boyfriend for two months when I was finishing my thesis - basically did it all day everyday only stopping for food, sleep a couple of hours TV and exercise) or he’s controlling this for some reason.

Oh is this the university lecturer? If so, just stop and leave him alone. You have been on his case for months about how much effort you put in and how little he gives back. You are completely smothering him.

I did a PhD and I did have to focus 100% for a couple of months at the end. I didn’t see my boyfriend, family or friends. I worked on it everyday stopping only for food, exercise, sleep and a couple of hours relaxing (usually junk TV). I needed to stay immersed in it or I’d lose my thread. There is no way I’d have been able to get married or have a child in those last couple of months. Different people are, well, different.

Yes but he is still not approaching it the right way by just telling her to wait.

She's obviously upset - he needs to do something other than just ignore it for the next two months and expect her to be OK with that. That is not caring or helpful.

My DH is doing an on-line PHD and juggling a job - there is a lot of work to do, lots of deadlines. Cut him some slack or cut him off