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

[FloodsOfTears]

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.

FoT, he WILL ring.

But it won't be because he's a decent bloke horrified at his appalling behaviour. He may make you suffer for a day or two more, but he'll ring - and he'll overwhelm you with love and loveliness. Then in a few weeks or months time, BAM - he'll do it again. And you'll be even more confused, and even more sure it's probably your fault.

You've had some fantastic advice here, from women who really understand abusive, controlling men. Please get some counselling, from someone who can build up your sense of self worth, as unfortunately the slightly haranguing tone of this thread, however well meant, is reinforcing the pattern of abuse and control you seem to have endured all your life. Look on the BACP website for integrative counselling. Good luck - and please believe me, love shouldn't make you feel this way.

Lucky escape! Be grateful you have found out now & move on.

Is he 12?

Forget him

miranda, yes, it was haranguing last night and I was one of the worst culprits

my sincerest apologies floods

Floods, how are you today?
You may have felt jumped on last night, but that's because we have been there, or seen someone go through this, and would really, really like to prevent it happening to you!

Here's my story. It may help, it may not:
I met my ex at my lowest ebb. I was depressed and had low self-esteem, and I was in an unhappy relationship.
He was charming, funny, kind, he made me feel safe and he was a family man who was seperated from his wife, though still living in the family home. He took me to meet his kids and his wife, who was lovely to me (little did I know he'd threatened her that if she didn't let me come and stay, he would move out )

So I had the proof I needed that this was a decent loving genuine man, but I had fallen for him almost immediately. Within three days we were talking about marriage and kids, sending 30-60 texts a DAY and within three months we were living together.

The intensity of my feelings was overwhelming and I thought I'd met the love of my life. He even "primed" me by saying he suffered from cyclic depressions, and telling me how badly his exes had treated him, so I became a total doormat, willing to excuse every mood, every incident of verbal abuse.

The first time he hit me was on my birthday, 10 months after we met.

The first red flag, however, was just a few weeks after meeting. Not unlike what happened to you, but I was made to feel it was my fault and even said sorry. It hit me like a sledgehammer because it was a world away from the sweet, loving man he had been up till then.

Sorry this is so long, but if that happened to me now I would not hesitate to walk away, because I deserve to be treated with respect, kindness and decency.

And so do you.

Hope you're okay today.

I used to go out with a guy who was very complimentary, used to tell me how lucky he was to have me etc etc. We weren't always together as we were at uni and he used to go home in the holidays, so we used to talk on the phone. We had to end the calls always saying 'I love you, I miss you' and if I didn't say it, he would get the hump, as it meant I didn't mean it. I used to get free calls from 7pm in those days and I would have to call him at 7, if not, he would get 'upset' that I wasn't thinking about him enough, I didn't put him first. Even if I was out, with family, anything, that was 'our' time and I had to call then. I used to actually feel my heart sink when thephone rang as I was always worrying I had done something 'wrong' and would be punished for it. He hung up on me a few times when I was 'bad' and needed to be shown how 'hurt' he was, and would withdraw phone contact to punish me, this hurt because the regularity of the phone calls and their formulaic nature (I love you, I miss you blah blah) had been given too much significance in the relationship and so witholding them was a punishment.
Does any of that sound even a little bit familiar? It didn't start off like that, and at first it was flattering. He was a controlling man, by the way, with a personality disorder. Not saying your P is, of course, and this could be a one off (I couldn't swear that my DH hasn't hung up on me over something daft when we were in a LDR, he's not controlling, just occasionally a dick) but it could be a sign of more worrying behaviour to come.

hmmm..... so your friend came round... you told him you were off to speak to her.... he did actually say goodbye(albeit a bit stroppy)

..... then you persisted to call again and again....he got more and more pissed off till he turns his phone off.

he was a knob for being huffy and stroppy.

you are oversensitive and need constant attention i think.

you both have red flags.

that go AGAINST each other.

see the pattern of your future relationship yet..

you get offended by nothing.. he goes in strop as you start chasing and he enjoys the attention.

round and round you will go damaging each other.

so.... have you waited on him contacting today... or as predicted have you already contacted and he's still letting you stew.

no, haven't contacted, I'm waiting to see if he rings me.

I don't do chasing, I do sobbing into my pillow -= but I don't chase.

I'm not miserable actually.

And he's never sulked before. He doesn't normally demand my sole attention - we both have small children and we both know that when we have to go we have to go. This is out of character, so I'm going to ignore it and see if it happens again.

floods You have had some incredible advice here from women who really do know the score here -- some of whom I've seen in the psychotherapy threads - they know their stuff!

But what disturbs me is your repetition about how he's "never done this before".

There's always the first time. Always. I was only 18 the first time I was punched in the head by a "lovely, sweet man".

I too am 35 and my "now" story is very similar to alibaba's - a LDR conducted at lightening speed and he moved country to be with me - no daft phone games, no daft any games.

floods

I had to come back and see how you are today. I also hope you understand why some of us reacted so strongly to your OP. Quite often when women have been in horrible abusive relationships they get into one with a less obviously abusive man and becasue he doesn't hit them or whatever they feel like because he isn't as bad as the last one there is no justification for leaving. Also , as you have explained, your tolerance for bad behaviour has become misjudged because of what you have been subjected t in the past.

This is why gettting your self esteem sorted is so important - it all stems from that.

I'm glad you didn't ring him, now I hope you don't find yourself expected to apologise to him for anything and I hope he has a reasonable explanation for his behaviour.
And I hope this thread, harsh and uncompromising as it was, will give you something to reflect on in the future if you find yourself consfused about the acceptability of his behaviour.

I have no idea if he's a knob. But let me "translate" your original post the way I would have seen it if I was him and you were DH when we were doing long distance (briefly):

"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." - i would have felt uncomfortable having a lovey dovey chat. This would have been exacerbated depending on where in the chat we were - eg were we making small talk or were we exchanging sweet little love nothings that are embarrassing for other people to hear but which we both love...

"Everything I said after that got met with "Bye then". - I would have wanted to get off the phoned because wouldn't be able to help thinking of your friend sitting right there hearing every word.

"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." - would have been a bit irritated by the obsessive constant hounding when really, I get it and while I'd have liked to chat for longer, didn't want to have conversation while friend was there.

"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." - Frankly, would be very irritated by lack of sense of security and obsessive behaviour. Would have wanted to move on and go to bed/read book/watch paint dry.

Perhaps I do not have the "wanker" alert system as finely tuned as others, but if this is the first such instance, I'd barely call this him being a complete controlling knob. I'd say he's a little bit of a sulker who was cheesed off because you were obsessing.

Not all men are bad guys.

Floodsoftears. I was in this same situation a few years back and is was a LDR. Like you, I was absolutely gutted and was texting him constantly, telling him how sorry I was I got nothing in return. I would text him and ask whethr it was over. Nothing. I would try ringing him. Nothing.

After 5 long weeks, he 'decided' to speak to me again and wanted to rekindle our relationship. I'm sorry but at the time I thought 'how can someone put someone else through that for the sake of it'.

I then realised what a manipulative twat he was and actually would have had more respect for him if he had had the bollocks to say 'I'm angry with you now. Give me some space'.

The reason why some men won't do this. Because they like the game-playing. It's just all wrong, wrong, wrong.

I hope it works out for you, I really do but if this is going to be a familiar pattern, you will grow to resent him.

Good Luck X

well, i think hanging up on someone is pretty darned rude.

and for such a small thing as ending a phone conversation because someone's arrived.

i would not contact him, and when / if he does contact you i'd expect an apology.

if not, i can promise you this is not deep love. this was him manipulating you into feeling top of the world so that he can withdraw approval when you don't do what he wants.

ime, if someone puts you on a pedestal and is constantly telling you how wonderful and beautiful you are, they are not seeing you as a person, but an object.

I don't think he put the phone down on her after the first conversation... it was when she'd rung him multiple times to explain that she would call back that he put the phone down.

There's a big difference.

Yes floods you do sound very insecure. There was no need to call him back to tell him you would call him back. V silly actually - don't be ruled by the phone - it's really not healthy. You can go an evening without talking on the phone. I had a LDR with DH for ages and it was very expensive to call each other and he didn't have a computer at home - so we had to rely on short calls whenever we had money for phone cards, and meeting on MSN whenever we both happened to be online at the same time. Usually daily contact but not always. It was much healthier than 'having' to talk at a certain time every day - that gets really oppressive and it's too easy to fixate on that call, and if it doesn't happen something is 'wrong'.

I am so glad others had the same thoughts as me on reading the OP. My first thoughts were that you have scared him silly be being so needy. OK you were on the phone together. You already know that he thinks it is rude to continue on the phone if you have a friend there (and it makes for an awkward conversation too) so he said good bye. You then phone him later with your friend still there to tell him you will phone him later. So he tells you he is going to bed. You then keep phoning him. Meanwhile he is looking at his phone and thinking - "what the hell have I gotten myself into?"

This was my initial thoughts on the matter. Obv others saw a whole other possibility. If I were you I would step back and have a long hard look at the relationship and your reaction. Try and figure out which scenario is the correct one.

But be very wary - both of him and of your reactions.

actually, buda, i agree with you.

blimey, talk about a massive over-reaction

the op's i mean

So the daytime crowd think I over-reacted (so do I, in the cold light of day).

The evening crowd think I under-reacted by not immediately dumping him.

I still don't know how to react. On the one hand y'all say calm down. On the other hand y'all say get angrier.

Have checked FB (saddo) - he still has himself listed as in a relationship with me.

One thing is for sure - he's NEVER going to know how much it's wound me up.

I think you have to see what happens, This incident alone is not that terrible. You know you over react to this sort of scenario so getting some help with self esteem issues should be your next step.

I would see how he reacts to what happens. He might have just been frustrated and wanted to go to sleep, or he might have been being cruel. You'll soon know if you speak to him.

I'd just try concentrating on yourself for a while, and not worrying what a man thinks about you. Slow things down, and if he continues this behaviour, be glad it happened this quickly so you can move on. If not, he might actually be a nice bloke.

floods, you appear to have undergone a personality transplant in your sleep

or was last night just a bad dream ??

I agree with odearyme

wait and take it slowly, no more histrionics, fgs stop calling this "deep in love" shit, all your next steps should be about what you want/feel

if something makes you feel uncomfortable or bad, it probably is

trust your instincts a bit more, yes, you might have been hurt in the past, but that deep-down woman's intuition for a bullshitter is just lying dormant in you

wake it up and sort yourself out, you have it in you

honestly he sounds tired (benifit of the doubt) prob had a crap day, BUT I would be worried about being so intense so soon.

Don't suppose the bloke's from winchester is he?? My XP was EXACTLY like this, would tell me he wasn't controlling/manipulative, but you know what he was - the worst sort, would be the perfect man for a few weeks then once he'd 'slipped' and was his true self was when there wa problems - he didn't like hte fact I was with DS playing, he wanted m attention all the time, yet, it was ok cos it was when he was upset, or 'hormonal' - ie wanting sex! . XH was abusive in different ways, but all I can say is with XP I realised so much sooner. and honestly it's such a relief to be free.

tbh as well i'd also suggest working on your own self worth/esteem.

Still no contact attempted from either end here. However, I know he works a long day on Tuesdays... if I haven't heard from him by 9, I'll ring him. If he doesn't answer, politely or call me bck (cos everyone's allowed to be in the bath, right?) I'll assume he's a prime dickhead.