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?

The GF went on to finish her course - dropped DH mate as soon as he wasn't around for her - and went to to have a great career.

If he can spend 10 minutes talking to you, he can tell you he wants a future with you within the next x years/months. I can't imagine being so busy that I can't type out "Yes, you mean the world to me and I would be so happy to move in together in 2025 and plan further steps, but after I finish my PhD."

When my husband was working full time and doing a masters degree, we were living together but barely spent any quality time together for a couple of years. He was very focussed on work and requalifying and all evenings and weekends were spent studying or working.

I remember my sister buying us a lovely National Trust membership for the year for us as newlyweds and not being able to understand that we just couldn’t use it more than once or maybe twice at a push.

Ultimately it was worth it as those years allowed us financially to build a financially secure family life together.

It sounds like your partner is at a similar pivotal point in his career and you have a choice to be supportive if you see the long term potential or walk away if this isn’t working for you.

Good grief.

She 's asking for a conversation about their relationship and looking ahead.

I've friends and family who have done PhDs while working full time and with young kids in the house.

He's making excuses.

My son is doing his PhD, only in the first year, it's so much more demanding. Luckily his partner has lived with him for five years and understands that it's worth waiting for.

@MouseMama Your experience is very different. You were married. You weren't trying to gauge if a guy was really into you or you were wasting your time when your bio clock was ticking.

He is writing up his PhD of course he has zero headspace. If he doesn’t get it together and submit in time it’s an issue. Plus when he is examined if it’s not up to scratch and he gets major modifications he will have another few months and have to resubmit. My ex and I were together when he was writing his up, I actually did his bibliography for him, this is many moons ago so very few references were online and it was a labour of love. I had finished studying and was working and due to him moving for his first job we lived 1.5 hours apart. We saw each other a bit but not often. We didn’t last not because of his write up but because we had kept our relationship a secret from parents. Different religions, when we fessed up it didn’t go well especially with his who wanted me to convert.

If he going for a career in HE - he will be moving round for work for years.

So yes you do need a long term talk.

However insisting on that talk when he up to his eyebrows in work and stress trying to finish a PhD and moaning it's affecting you - where is your concern and support for him?

He's explained he willing to have the talk and asked to have it when he less stressed - if that not good enough for you - well then you have option of breaking it off.

I've friends and family who have done PhDs while working full time and with young kids in the house.

Which is nothing like a short-term, long distance relationship. You can't compare the two.

I was about to same the same.

@VioletW I'm sorry but he's treating you badly.
This is really all about him.

If he really cared about you, he'd make time this week for a conversation.

That's all you're asking for. A conversation. Presumably you have dinner each night, sleep together, etc?
So why can't he find 30 minutes to talk about this?

How do you think that will pan out if you were together?
Would it always be about him?

TBH I'd pack your bags and head home.
You're worth more than this.

He needs to learn how to treat other people more kindly and with some consideration.

I picked up that he'd been married (not sure if that's right?)
I wonder if that went wrong for the same reasons? His selfishness and being all about him?

He said she'd have it when he finished writing up.

She can't give him till January - well to have a big talk - well then I'd say it was a red flag for him. Obviously if he doesn't want to do talk in January then OP really does have an issue.

I know how much work DH PhD cost him - but many of his friends and family dismiss it as they didn't see the stress of late nights and worry - they can shrug it off as nothing.

But he's happy for her to live there with him this week?
Have sex? Have dinner together?
But not talk about any plans for another 4 months.

No wonder men end up as entitled arses if women make allowances for them like this here.

Well you’re probably not priority right now in that case. A massive amount goes into a phd, especially at the end. Truthfully, if that’s the case you’re making a pain of yourself. If he were my son, I’d be telling him you were selfish.

Well if you’re not interested in LTB, why can’t you then just understand he is likely to be busy until he finishes his PhD?

You can’t have it both ways and force him to see you if he feels overwhelmed.

Either you wait until he’s finished the PhD and see if things improve, or you jump ship. You can ask him to make more effort, but if he can’t/won’t, then it’s your decision whether to stay or not.

@ClaireduLuney People work and do PhDs all the time, AND bring up young kids at the same time.
To say this guy can't have a conversation about where this relationship is going is madness.

'All the time'? Really? I'd say it's fairly unusual. And 'doing a PhD' and 'in the final few months of a PhD' are different things. Have you done one? I'd guess your friends and family members who've been in this situation required extra support from their partner or other support network in the final few months.

From the OP, I don't think she was asking for a conversation about the future. From his point of view it probably sounded like she was asking to schedule visits for early next year and he's wanting to leave it to nearer the time to see what his diary is like.

I know people who've done PhDs and brought up toddlers at the same time. And yes, they worked into the night.

Look- she's there this week. What's the point of her being there if he can't spend 30 mins talking to her?

This is not the behaviour of a man who's madly in love and would do anything to keep a woman.

It's the behaviour of a man who's putting him first and presumably always has and always will.

You do absolutely need to be able to talk about important stuff in a timely fashion and it's unacceptable to kick the can til 2025. Maybe some decisions can be delayed until 2025 but you can still have a conversation now.

If his phd is ending in December then I would accept not seeing him much til then though. If he's nowhere near finishing it then I'd reconsider if this is the relationship for you.

You sound ridiculously dramatic. And language like 'a man who's madly in love and would do anything to keep a woman'?? Grow up, honestly.

@owlexpress But this man doesn't have a family or even a partner. So it's not as if he's juggling a family and his PhD.
If he's got no time to talk to her, why on earth is she staying with him for a week now?
What a waste of her life and time.

Presumably he has time to have sex with her but not have a conversation.

I'm very grown up thank you. Old enough to be her Mum.
And I've seen it all before.
Men stringing women along and them allowing bad behaviour.

He's juggling a FT job and a PhD and running a household and probably trying to exercise, keep himself sane, and maybe even see friends once in a while, all without the support of a live-in partner, and tbh without the emotional support of his gf by the sounds of it. I don't see anything wrong with him asking for the mental space into the new year before having this conversation. Having a chat and watching TV isn't mentally draining, organising February 2025 and beyond when you're knee-deep in your thesis is!

Truthfully students with no partner , no Dc, no job are frantic at the end of a phd if they’ve put a lot into it.

It comes first at that point.

If I were his supervisor and he was being led by the nose by some woman stamping her foot about dates for the diary I’d be telling him to screw his head on tighter.

But the content if the conversation isn't a ten or thirty minutes one is it? Lets assume he does want to build a future together. That conversation is going to have to be about location, jobs, marriage and kids. These are not quick topics and should not be agreed to under pressure. Let's say he has "the talk" and says yes to.moving to the OP's city and yes to kids and them in January or six months down the line when he's actually got time to really think about he realises it's not going to work that way..then he'll be accused of wasting her time etc.
Those saying he should prioritise the OP above all else etc I think demo a quite immature or naive approach to relationships. When you're in your 30s and 40s other life stuff is crucial and can't always be put on hold.
My DP and I still don't live together after a decade and sometimes go a two week block without seeing each other, despite living in the same town. During COVID we didn't "bubble" as both have elderly parents. We share a future plan and had that conversation at a time when we both could consider what that would mean.

I know someone who did write up with new baby - she blamed it for her postal depression but she got it done. People do extraordinary things and others can dismiss their efforts and cost because it they don't see it.

Sometime life get stressful and busy - if your partners not there for at such times but an additional stressor and full of demands - personally I'm not sure I'd be wanting to stay with them. As pp says if it was the partner of one of my kids I'd be saying put them on back burner for moment focus on qualification and three years prior work and see their partners behavior as selfish behavior and a worry for future.

It's not the 30 minute conversation per se it the mental though and demands when you are busy and preoccupied.

If OP thinks this is part of a larger pattern from him - then she should leave the relationship and move on.