He sulks over minor arguments and I don't know what to do

[Felinefine81]

I'm 35 and my boyfriend is 34. We've been together now for 9 months and we've lived together for around 7 months (felt right at the time and not too soon- he said he'd never fallen for anybody like this before and I felt the same). Anyway, most of the time we get on great but he has sulked on me now a number of times usually for around a day and I don't know how to cope with it. Also, we have never had an argument over anything serious so to me the sulking is over trivial matters.

Example: last night I was going out to my friend's house and knew I wouldn't be back until around 9pm. I asked if he would mind having dinner ready for me coming in as he wasn't out training for a change due to injury and I was annoyed when he suggested getting a takeaway. To put things into context, he goes out triathlon training most nights and regularly and is out from around 6.30 to 9 most nights. I 9 times out of 10 am the person that goes to the shop to buy the food and have his dinner ready for him coming in. I was pissed off that on the one night I actually wanted him to cook for me and make an effort, he suggested the easy option.

We were on the train at the time and I told him without raising my voice at all that I didn't fancy a takeaway as was trying to eat healthily and asked him why on the one night I had asked him to make an effort he was going for something lazy. This then has resulted in him going into a sulk and giving me one word answers. The only thing I got out of him was that he didn't give a fuck about having to make the dinner but how dare I question him in front of people on the train. I swear I was talking quietly and calmly and didn't make a scene at all so I don't understand his logic. When I got home from my friend's house, dinner was left out for me but he was up in the bedroom with the door closed and he's not talking to me. The last time he went into a huff is because in the little time we do spend together he is on his phone and I called him out on it. He said I spoke to him like a child and then sulked for hours.

I would like advice on how to handle this please. I am a person who has low self esteem and him ignoring me makes me feel awful. I've said to him that it feels like I can never have a discussion with him about anything that is bothering me as this results in a huff but this doesn't seem to be helping. I know that part of the reason his last relationship broke up was because of his moods. However, he tells me that she was a psycho to him and that the arguments were justified. Please help!!

OP, you need to build up your life so that he isn't a main part of it.You need friends/social network and hobbies.
The only way you'll interest this one is by becoming a triathlete but he'll probably still not involve you.

OP. whatever you decide, save this thread to read in a few years time.

She didn't work out to be very malleable and that may have been the problem

Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick, OP.

Did you not want to run a mile at thinking about that statement?

Read up on the Nice/Nasty cycle, of course he's being nice now, he's saving a load of money in this living situation and scared you out of mentioning his training for fear of being labelled the Psycho

The only thing he's saving for are things for him, not a diamond ring

I would not like it if my husband worked FT, them disappeared for three hours each evening! Erm hello child here!!!!????

How can he parent? He should have scaled his hobby back once his child was here.

The fact is you are not entirely happy- your gut is screaming at you but you are ignoring the massive red flags and your own instinct!

I'd rather be single than date myself in the evenings!!!

A few points:

• I guess you're getting to know him now. What a shame you rushed the moving in and you have to find out like this.

• your home is just a hotel to him. He's out all day. Comes home to dinner cooked for him. Then a coupe of hours later presumably goes to bed.

• Sulking as you call ir is otherwise known as stonewalling. It is a form of abuse and controlling behaviour.

Cut your losses now. He's an arse and it will get worse if you have children together

Be very careful. My ex started off like this and turned into a full on narcissist by the end of our relationship. The sulking, the silent treatment, the emotional and financial abuse, the lies, cheating and manipulation it was awful. I remember him walking away from me in the middle of a city 30 miles from our home when mobile phones weren't common and left me there because I'd had the temerity to object to something nasty that he had said. I was left worried sick with a baby only about 5 months old. He got the bus back home and thought I deserved being left waiting by the car for hours worrying about what would happen if I just left and went home.

All way too much, way too soon. You've built a house with no foundations.
It'll normally fall down

He sounds very self centred to me.

His life revolves around him and his training and everything else plays second fiddle to that - even his daughter.

His "get out clause" is that he told you he trained a lot, so you feel inclined to put up with it.

The thing is in a healthy relationship people do something called "compromise". It doesn't mean giving up your interests and hobbies, rather working out how those fit around your relationship and family and not the reverse.

He seems to want to maintain a single lifestyle - admittedly a healthy version of that - at all costs.

He hasn't changed his approach for his daughter so why do you think he would change if you had children together?

I might be sympathetic if we were talking about a professional Olympic athlete here, but these amateur sports enthusiasts whose hobby takes precedence over everything else are just fundamentally selfish.

They do it because they enjoy it - fine, but it's no less valid that someone whose hobby is re-vamping cars just because it's a sport. Someone who spent that amount of time in a garage at the expense of everything else would just be labelled as a selfish prick.

He sulks because that's his only available response - there is no way to talk this through in a mature way because he knows that the reasonable conclusion to any discussion is that he is self centred, egotistical and fundamentally selfish. Sulking is therefore the perfect passive aggressive way of not engaging, wearing you down whilst he keeps on doing what he damn well pleases.

Oh tell him to jog on. I was married to a sulker, one who did all this kind of shit. They always turn it back on you and make it your fault. It bloody isn't and it is so fucking tiresome to live like that. I am so glad i am not married to that boring git now. Get rid, OP. Life is too short to live on eggshells.

Sulking is horrible but I'm not convinced it's always "emotional abuse" or designed to "punish" the partner. Maybe some people are quietly really hurt during disagreements and retreat into themselves to process things. He accused you of speaking to him like a child; was it your tone of voice or the words that he took offense to? If he were my partner I'd want to get to the bottom of it and have a really good conversation about communication styles and how to resolve conflicts. Then make a decision based on the outcome.

Regarding the phone use, he's not at home much but the little time he is he spends on his phone? Sod that. He's physically with you (sometimes!) but not mentally present. All in all it doesn't sound like a great relationship, and the fact he puts his hobby above time with you or his daughter doesn't show him in a good light. As a PP said, he doesn't have time to commit to a relationship...or being a parent!

Do you think that your age and desire to have children is perhaps making you more tolerant of a not great relationship? The fear that if you dump him you won't find someone else in time?

You can do so so so much better.

He made me feel really special at the start and told me he loved me really quickly. I brought up recently how he never surprises me with anything, even small things like bars of chocolate when he's at the shop. When I'm at the shop I would have got him crisps or a treat he likes but I'm trying to stop that now as his not reciprocated. His response was that I don't like chocolate (I suppose I don't but he knows I like crisps) and as regards flowers, he joked and said I'd had 3 bunches since he'd known me so a bunch every quarter wasn't bad. (He bought me 2 of these in the first month or so) and the third was when I was upset after a row with my mum a few months ago.)

I was really upset he didn't even get me a card on Valentine's Day and we just got in a takeaway. His excuse was that he was ill, however he was still at work that day so wasn't that bad imo. I didn't get him much but ordered a book with each page personalised to him and spent a lot of time thinking of what to put into it. I also got him a card. I couldn't help crying in front of him about that as I felt a fool. He did pay for us to go to a hotel and for dinner the following month to make up for it. It doesn't help that I know he wrote his ex poetry and sent her thoughtful gifts, as I found evidence of that when we were clearing out his flat. He did say he was sorry for the Valentine's thing several times.

Don't get me wrong, he pays for the odd thing and puts a few quid into my account if he thinks I'm upset but what I would like is him to think of going to get me something himself and making an effort. To me, transferring money is the equivalent of buying somebody a voucher ie no real thought.

As regards the question about why he sulked when I said to him about his phone, I would say that it was probably both my tone of voice and what I said that annoyed him. I said that it was just plain rude for him to be on his phone when we were supposed to be watching a film and I possibly did rant a bit. I don't want to paint him in a totally bad light here and I'm certainly not perfect myself. I do have a tendency to go on mini rants but they're over with in a few minutes and then I move on. He's unable to move on and his reaction is to huff. I probably could watch my tone more and not get whiney but I just get so frustrated and it builds up.

Next time he sulks, I would look him in the eye and say "you may wish to behave like a child, but I find it a very unattractive quality and it is making me question our relationship every time it happens" and repeat each and every time. If he listens, and takes action - fair enough. If he carries on, you don't stand a prayer of this relationship working out.

He's not sulking, he's training you. And really, after 9 months it should be all fun and shagging round the clock. No relationship should be this hard work.

To be honest I'd have ditched him as soon as I knew he liked cycling. You marry him, you'll have a lifetime of him giving you excuses for why he has to continue 'training'. Have a quick search for some of the 'cycling widow' threads on here. It may be quite illuminating for you.

The thing about being in a relationship is that you should feel better within it.

Stronger, loved, cherished, supported, respected....

All I'm hearing here OP is a woman who is experiencing the opposite of this.

He strikes me as an emotional vampire that's sucking the life out of you - he takes and gives nothing back apart from the odd easy gesture that you increasingly find meaningful because he has set the bar so very low...

What does your sister make of him?

this thread is getting silly because you're not listening, just giving more and more examples of how he treats you badly.
You don't seem ready to acknowledge that you made a mistake at the beginning and you didn't really know him, and the real him isn't really very nice.

You are me, 20 years ago. Even down to the triathlon training and psycho ex.
Fast forward to today, 4 DC later.
He hasn't changed, except that it's now he ignores me for a smartphone instead of a computer.
If anything he is more selfish, lazy and cruel.
He does NOTHING around the house.
I am miserable, trapped and wish someone could have said to me then what everyone here is saying to you.
Unless you want to be me in a few years, get rid!!!!

You know you aren't 'the one' for him don't you?

He should want to be with you - you should be laughing together and making plans - even just Friday night plans -

You are just 'there' for him to come home to - kept warm and fed -

He doesn't love you - he lives being looked after - let some other fool do it

My sister has read everyone's responses and is overwhelmed. She has said that anytime she says anything to me about him she's afraid I'll just say she's trying to sabotage the relationship. She finds the posts very interesting.

I'm sure she does.
She doesn't want to upset you so has kept quiet but she no doubt thinks the same as us.
You can do better.
You know you can. And so does your sister.

Yeah listen to your sister. It sounds like she would give you good advice OP

He doesn't sound like a good partner at all

You are already saying, you should alter what & how you speak to him to placate him. So you envisage tip toeing around him to please him, or at the very least avoid his sulking & passive aggressivity. as long as he gives you some hugs?
This has so many RED ALERT signals.
He is not a partner, he does not share.... is that OK with you ? & then if there are DC, more of the same, his money, his sport, his disregard for your efforts & consideration. You already know he will not muck in if you have a child...
At least you can say you have been warned.

My previous relationship sounds very much like yours..however I never did the moving in bit..thank god.
Wed have similar conversations and I'd get the mood swings..they got worse and worse and the arguments started as i felt a lot were totally uncalled for.
I had moved a few months into us getting together and my friends think he hoped I'd ask him to move in but I didn't. He was the same with the affection etc but on the other hand miserable and not very nice.
I hope you can sort but I knew o wouldn't handle it.
I'm actually wit someone now and was waiting for the same thinking it was me..it isn't and we get on so well it just shows me some people aren't right.
Good luck x

I work with a lot of women from countries where arranged marriages are the norm. Many of them met their husbands for the first time on their wedding day and had kids pretty much instantly. If he didn't end up being a decent guy, that's that. For them, it is a permanent arrangement.

As far as I can see, you have literally nothing tying you to this man, either financially or culturally. The only thing holding you back is yourself!

You deserve to be respected every day in a relationship. Use your freedom to get the hell out now and find someone who doesn't make you feel like shit.