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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Is this a bad sign?!

28 replies

Fancyingta · 26/08/2021 07:48

Or maybe I’m just too intense Grin

Basically DP rarely organises anything. We’ve been together over a year now (known each other a bit longer) and he works lots, often tired, early 40s, quite happy with chilling in an evening and staying in. That’s not to say he won’t go out, but it’s always me saying let’s go here or do this and then he’ll do it and say afterwards he had a great time, thanks so much for suggesting it, what a great idea etc etc. For instance I suggested we went to a gallery the other weekend and then stopped for lunch at this famous tea place (we love tea) and he enjoyed the whole day, sent photos to his family about it.

It just winds me up that he rarely looks into things or researches anything! I have also tried not making any effort and going with the flow a bit more (I’m NOT very good with that!) and he will then suggest something very last minute, ie in bed on the morning but it’s often chaotic, have to book tickets last minute and often there aren’t any, it’s not planned and so sometimes more expensive (if we get a train somewhere for instance) and I never have the right clothing with me! He’s not massively spontaneous so even when this happens it’s more because we are lying in bed and it occurs to him we could do something that day….

I guess I’ve started wondering if it’s a bad sign that he’s not that into the relationship…would he make more effort if he was? for context I can get anxious so I’m aware this could mean absolutely nothing and it’s just his nature. At the same time, whilst he’s affectionate, we see each other every few days and I’m happy, I’ve certainly been with men who have been a lot more full on with me and taken the reins.

OP posts:
TheFoundations · 26/08/2021 15:24

The bad sign is that it's making you feel bad but you don't realise that that means it's a bad sign, without consulting a forum.

Respect your feelings. Validate them. Your needs are not being met. Tell him, calmly, how you feel. If he doesn't respond in a respectful way, then he doesn't respect your feelings. And you know what you have to do then.

You can't be 'too intense', or too anything, because there are no correct levels of intense, or sensitive or whatever. If someone makes you feel/tells you that you are 'too x', that's just their opinion; it's not the rules. They're saying 'You are too x for me'

Your emotions are who you are. Your level of intensity is yours, and your responsibility is to find people to be around who accept you and love you as you are, and don't trigger you to write posts on forums questioning your own character.

AnaViaSalamanca · 26/08/2021 15:28

To me it’s a bad sign. It’s the sign of not wanting to pull your weight in a relationship.

Mushtullo · 26/08/2021 15:37

@TheFoundations

The bad sign is that it's making you feel bad but you don't realise that that means it's a bad sign, without consulting a forum.

Respect your feelings. Validate them. Your needs are not being met. Tell him, calmly, how you feel. If he doesn't respond in a respectful way, then he doesn't respect your feelings. And you know what you have to do then.

You can't be 'too intense', or too anything, because there are no correct levels of intense, or sensitive or whatever. If someone makes you feel/tells you that you are 'too x', that's just their opinion; it's not the rules. They're saying 'You are too x for me'

Your emotions are who you are. Your level of intensity is yours, and your responsibility is to find people to be around who accept you and love you as you are, and don't trigger you to write posts on forums questioning your own character.

I think that’s fair.

What you describe wouldn’t work for me at all, OP. I would find it mentally lazy and passive and deeply unattractive. I have a friend who behaved like your boyfriend throughout his marriage — in fact his wife organised literally everything for 20 years, from holidays to childcare to bills to days out, while he lurked on his PS 4. She eventually divorced him, and the funny thing is that he has a new girlfriend who hadn’t got the memo that he can’t be expected to organise anything, so he’s running around like a headless chicken asking me about ‘date’ restaurants and suitable places for a weekend away (even though I now live in a different country!) . To which I obviously say ‘Oh, but I’ve never met X — you’re best placed to know what she’d like!’ Grin

He just defaults to the idea that women organise things for him. I swear he hadn’t made so much as a restaurant reservation in decades.

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