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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

Boyfriend of 4 months is sulking and not answering my calls - am devastated - irrationally so.

149 replies

FloodsOfTears · 24/08/2009 23:42

I have a long distance relationship. I love him deeply - he says he loves me (nd he said it first).

Tonight, I rang him at 9.15, for our usual chat. But 10 minutes later a friend of mine poped in and I told him I had to go - at which point he got really abrupt and said, ok, go. Bye then. Everything I said after that got met with "Bye then". Rang him back ten minutes later, told him I'd ring him when she had left, he told me not to bother as he was going to bed, stop being antisocial and go and talk to my friend.

Tried to ring him to say goodnight at 11 - he put the phone down on me without speaking to me. Tried a few times, in case he lost signal - has been known to happen - phone repeatedly switched off. SO I haven;'t bothered again.

What if this is it? What if he never wants to see me again, or speak to me - what if he won't answer his phone tomorrow or the next day or the next day? What if this is me being dumped?

I'm utterly miserable. I absolutely adore this man and he's being so so mean and I don't know why. PLEASE help me put some perspective on this.

OP posts:
odearyme · 25/08/2009 00:24

I think you need to read the Lundy Bancroft book. Just cause a man isn't violent, doesn't mean they are not controlling. He sounds like a twat, just a different sort of twat.

FloodsOfTears · 25/08/2009 00:25

But Is one reaction (his) a good enough reason to bin someone you really do love? What if he's just being a cock? It'll be the first time in my memory he's done so - and no, it isn't what I want to hear. I don't want to dump him. I love him, I love his company I we have really good fun together - until tonight.

God it's been nearly 3 fucking years since I split with my ex and I'm not fit to be out in public alone ffs. I have NO idea how to react in any given situation

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 25/08/2009 00:25

....until you didn't give him the attention he thought he deserved....

now you are a bad girl, and you must be punished, and he is very disappointed with you

can you not see a horrible scenario here ??

odearyme · 25/08/2009 00:25

And the daily compliments so early on are ringing alarm bells too

BitOfFun · 25/08/2009 00:26

One reaction that makes someone so obviously an utter twat, yes, that is enough.

mrsboogie · 25/08/2009 00:27

yes his reaction is a good enough one to bin him because

a) You don't really know what he is like so you are in love with a fake version of him

and

b) this is the first time he did it, it won't be the last

mrsboogie · 25/08/2009 00:29

save this thread and read it the NEXT time he tries to pull the puppet strings - it might ring true when it happens again, maybe

FloodsOfTears · 25/08/2009 00:30

I don't KNOW!!! I don't KNOW what just happened, I don't know if I'm over reacting to a tired man who didn't want me to be antisocial to my friends, or if I'm under reacting to a control freak prick (as many of you seem to think).

My gut feeling is the former but my gut feelings have got me NOWHERE in 35 years. I don't trust them.

And believe me if you knew me you would NEVER believe this of me. I keep this side of me so fucking well hidden I'd be more likely to have said "yaaah kick him in the nuts!" to anyone telling me a similar story - just on general principal rather than any true feeling.

I KNOW I'm the walking wounded but nothing I ever do seems to blunt this intense vulnerability to other people. I've been this way all my life and actually I fucking hate it.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 25/08/2009 00:30

I have said this before, but it fits here

"beware the overly-complimentary and charming man..."

floods, I think this whole thread is an over-reaction tbh

it could be a one-off, it could be the start of a regime of horrible controlling behaviour from him

we don't know

but you really need to listen to the warnings you have been given and tread carefully

mrsboogie has it right, some men can sniff out this sort of vulnerability a mile off

they build you up, then knock you down just a little bit each time, so that soon you don't know your arse from your elbow

I say get out now, you obviously cannot cope, but you won't

just remember this thread, and protect yourself

BitOfFun · 25/08/2009 00:31

Well change it then, and take back some control and self respect. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

AnyFucker · 25/08/2009 00:33

was that good old eleanor ?? wise woman

now who said "you can't be too rich, nor too thin" ??

was it that woman who stole a royal and removed his bollocks ??

BitOfFun · 25/08/2009 00:35

Ah, fascist ol' Wallis, aye

AnyFucker · 25/08/2009 00:35

Wallis Simpson

she was a rum 'un

FloodsOfTears · 25/08/2009 00:39

I will save this thread, actually.

I never seem to know what is going on in people's heads. I don't GET manipulation.

My friend says he just in a man mood, ignore it and he'll snap out of it.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 25/08/2009 00:41

< softens a bit >

floods, good luck and look after your fragile self, only you can do that

why don't you post again tomorrow and let us know how you are ?

remember, love is supposed to be nice, not make you feel bad

< wanders away, damning that soft spot I can't shake off >

FloodsOfTears · 25/08/2009 00:43

If he rings tomorrow I shall be totally totally cool, and make out I thought he "must have gone to sleep"

believe me there will not be a himnt of the drama I have given out on here tonight.

And if he doesn't ring, I'll be fucking gutted. but I'm not chasing him. I can't spend my whole life being wound up to sobbing point over silly things. I need to learn not to do that but I don't know how.

OP posts:
FloodsOfTears · 25/08/2009 00:44

Mkay

OP posts:
SolidGoldBrass · 25/08/2009 00:53

Honestly, get some counselling and a healthy dose of feminism. It is not good for you to be so dependent on another person's approval and so affected by his behaviour. He's only a bloke. He probably leaves the loo seat up. There are plenty of men out there who don't behave like sulky knobbers when they don't get their own way, so no need to lose sleep over the ones who do.

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 25/08/2009 01:01

That's better.

Go and get some sleep and see what tomorrow brings. None of us, including you, know whether he is a wanker, or just a decent guy who has behaved like a wanker.

Please please remember this thread though, and if you get a whiff of anything like this with him again, run for the hills.

I would also recommend some counselling - you need to understand why you are repeating a pattern, and to learn to have some faith in your own judgement.

picmaestress · 25/08/2009 01:29

This makes me feel sick, it's exactly how narcissistic men start their games. I'm your age, and I've lived with two of these buggers.

Kind, funny, charming, nice, cosy, non-threatening, everything you could ever dream of in a bloke. And then, WHAM. You've committed a grave sin, and my god, you'll be punished.

Please listen to the women on here, asking you to walk away - we're not saying it for the good of ourselves, we're saying it because it's a really big fat warning sign. It's a classic start to manipulation, using your fear to control you.

No good guy would put the phone down on you and repeatedly ignore it. What you did was perfectly reasonable and rational, and his reaction was really fecking scary. He now knows you were freaking out, and it's given him a massive kick. It's so wrong.

AttilaTheMeerkat · 25/08/2009 07:53

floods,

re your comment:-
"I have been appalling treated in the past and don't have any low level radar of shitness".

And that is precisely why you allow yourself to be so appallingly treated now. You don't need yet another loser in your life to have a LDR with. Those things have two main features - absense and pain.

I would also agree that you need counselling to work through your own low self esteem issues. I think your vile and violent ex has an awful lot to answer for and three years on the damage in you is still evident. My guess as well is that going back further, your childhood was not all that happy either.

Love your own self for a change. I don't think you've ever really done that.

FlightHattendant · 25/08/2009 08:05

Floods,

Pic is right, Anyfucker is right, she's not trying to give you a pasting, she's actually beingkind - though I'd be upset too.

You are giving me shivers because I was where you are when I joined MN a few years ago...I'd been with a man I knew for about a month, he as lovely, kind, sweet, I thought I'd found someone 'normal' and thought I was falling in love. (cringing now!)

One night my mobile was broken and I went and got another, so that he wouldn't think I was ignoring him (not sure why I got the idea he would), anyway it was charging and I couldn't get a signal. I'd rung him on the landline explaining this, then took ds to bed, was lying next to him trying to get him to sleep (he was nearly 3 and just starting in his own bed, wouldn't go off for hours sometimes)

The landline rang (about 10pm) and it was a very shouty, drunk, angry sounding boyfriend, who proceeded to demand that I get ds out of bed, and take him round to his house, because he 'missed' me and needed me to prove I loved him it turned out he thought the phone being broken was a lie and I was trying to dump him

anyway I was really upset, said no way, ds is just going to sleep, I'm not waking him up to go to your house across town. I'd never encountered this side of boyfriend so was pretty shocked he thought this about me, I was fairly committed even a month in. I'd also known him vaguely for years and everyone said he was nice (well mostly)

So, I kept saying 'don't be so silly, I'll call you in the morning'. Eventually I can't remember if I hung up or what, but I went to bed.
About 12 I woke up, to a funny sound - there were pebbles being chucked at my window. It was him. He was prancing around outside sticking stolen flowers into my hedge and shouting he loved me. He left a heap of gravel outside the front door with some more stolen flowers from someone's garden, then cycled off into the night.

I was SO freaked out by this display of utter madness that I rang the police to ask them to stand by in case he came back - I'd no idea what he was capable of, or doing - luckily he didn't come back agian but I sat all night shaking in case he did.

Next day he rang and apologised after I had a go at him. It was so unbelievably strange that I decided to pretend it hadn't happened, because it didn't make sense.

However, he never really was sorry, he said he wanted me to know how much he loved me and it was my fault for making excuses with the phone. (of course!)

He began then a campaign of control. He would come round and SULK on my sofa. He would constantly criticise my parenting, and behave as though ds was a total threat to him. He was basically highly fucked up, jealous of my child, told me how awful my clothes were, how his kids (when I was finally allowed to meet them) were 'disgusted' with the fact I hadn't brushed my hair (I had, but it was windy) and then still in denial about his real nature, and thinking i must be the unreasonable one, I got pregnant.
Then it REALLY started to go badly wrong.
I won't go into detail now but he was appalling, horrible, cruel and very mean.
It was only when my mother came round after he'd rung, and found me crying again, and BEGGED me to leave him that I finally felt I had permission to give up on the father of my child. the emotional abuse was awful but nobody said I could leave, and I felt so stupid. This was roughly 7 months into a relationship and already I was a wreck.

He briefly made efforts to get me to see sense, as he called it, and 'what exactly did he do that was so bad?' etc etc but since ds2 was born he has not been round once. I stopped taking the shit, basically, and he went off to sulk and/or find some one else to bully.

Floods - I am just like you, have no idea how to react properly to stuff because I have no baseline idea of normal. (i prob have aspergers too, fwiw - just realised a few months ago)

Be kind to yourself because this guy certainly isn't worth your tears. PLEASE don't talk to him again. Don't just ay 'oh I thought you'd gone to sleep' because he'll interpret that as you trying to gloss over what is patently NOT ON. He's think he's got away with treating you like crap.

I am guessing he ahs a controlling mother. He certainly has a problem with women.

Heis a knob.
HE IS a knob. I'm telling you this and I want you to get angry, right now, that someone has dared to treat you like that, and blow him off completely.

Let us know how you get on. (futurewise - I don't know how to find someone nice, but I think I might need counselling or at least to resign myself to a while without a relationship - as I choose wankers, too, and would rather be single than do that again)

FlightHattendant · 25/08/2009 08:07

Oh dear apologies, that was long

junglist1 · 25/08/2009 08:16

Only read the OP, FOR GODS SAKE KEEP AWAY FROM HIM.

RumourOfAHurricane · 25/08/2009 08:32

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