Boyfriend and contact

[POPUpSt]

I don’t live with my boyfriend. However, we generally speak on the phone most days when we are not together.

This is going to sound a bit odd but he went out with some friends a few months back and came back a completely different person. I have asked him about this and the most I got out of him was that one of his friends had made a comment about his age and why he wasn’t married with children. He’s been distant with me ever since.

We had a conversation a few weeks ago about how him ignoring my calls and texts was making me feel. However, as a bit of an experiment (and after him having ignored two invitations from me to do something) I decided to see how long he would go without contacting me. He hasn’t messaged in a week. So I rang him this morning and he could not give me any explanation other than he thought not speaking for a week was normal and that we ‘didn’t need to be speaking every five minutes.’

I told him that this was upsetting me and that I couldn’t see the point in a relationship where it doesn’t add joy to your life.

He is adamant that I am acting ‘crazy’. I’m not am I?

uh -oh... sorry OP but I think he's playing you. You've told him how is behaviour makes you feel but he's deliberately being distant and uninterested, A WEEK with no contact from him at all? Pathetic!

He's not got the guts to finish with you, he's hoping you'll dump him.

Give him what he wants and move on honey - you're worth more than this x

He's just not tgat into you

OP, this relationship is almost dead.

put it out of it’s misery and move on. xx

Yep. A coward who is slow fading you.
Do not pursue him anymore as it just makes you look clingy/needy, and him saying things like “we don’t need to talk every five minutes” makes it seem like the problem is yours when it isn’t. But that’s the narrative he will spin.
Men like this never grow a spine. Be glad you found this out about him now rather than later when more was at stake.
You can only really speculate as you will never get any clear answers from him being the coward he is, but that night something obviously clicked. Either he panicked that his friends are right and realised he didn’t want those things either at all or with you, or there is a “friend” on the scene that he’s testing the waters with and distancing you to see how that goes. Don’t drive yourself mad looking for explanations you’ll never get or you’ll be tempted to answer the late night text you’ll get from him in 6 months time after no contact for all that time. Ghosters often become haunters.

Something has happened on this night out that he isn’t telling you about - he either cheated on you or met someone else and is pursuing a relationship with them.

Bin and don’t look back!

This was my thought. Dump him, set your standards higher

@POPUpSt knowing him as you do - so you think he’s such a delicate and fragile little flower that such an offhand comment would make him utterly be incapable of further communication and emotional intimacy etc in what is apparently an otherwise happy relationship? Or is it possible something else also happened on that night?

how long have you been together? How old are you both.

OP, he's checked out. One of you will be ending it soon

Yep, he's fading out of the relationship.
He's so afraid of facing the confrontation with how much he's going to hurt you when he dumps you, that he's now just manipulating you into dumping him. That way he can play the victim and you're the demanding and controlling girfriend and nothing's ever good enough for you.
Get it over with already.

I really didn’t think that he might have cheated. He only went to a restaurant so not sure he’d have had the opportunity. but thinking about it - that would make sense potentially.

He’s 50 and I’m 40. We’ve been together for a few years.

I told him that relationships are meant to care about each other and that I didn’t see the point of him if he didn’t care about me enough to check in for a full week.

I also told him that I was n going to fight because I didn’t think there was anything worth fighting for:

I'm sorry OP but for him to change so completely after his night out something must have happened and a comment from one of his friends is unlikely to be what has had such a profound effect on him. Much more likely he met someone.

I think if you accept the relationship is over you can move on with your life.