• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Boyfriend Difficulties - Abandonment Issues & Scheduling Conflicts

Status
Not open for further replies.

Rorster93

Confident
I have a relationship question but do not wish to create a whole new thread when I already have this one. It sort of relates to abandonment so I'm going to go ahead and ask.

As many of you know my boyfriend and I have been having difficulties. I haven't spoken to him all week. We got into a huge fight this past Saturday over the same issue.

Here's the scenario: my boyfriend will not return my calls for a day or two or forgets to call me when he says he will. I call, he doesn't call me back. I call the next day, he doesn't answer. I go to his house, he's there hanging out. I'm like wtf? But he acts as if nothing's wrong and says hey and proceeds to hang out with me for the evening as if I haven't been trying to call him the past two days. It makes me feel like he doesn't care but then I have a key to his house and can come and go when we are on good terms. I know it has nothing to do with infidelity because we are free to access each other's phone in our relationship so he's not hiding anything. I'm confused.

We are now scheduling our conflicts. Should I bring this up at our next appointment or accept he's just this way and not take it personally? It def gives me plenty of opportunity to work on my abandonement panic but at the same time am I asking too much if I request daily communication?
 
scheduling conflicts? ? ? i've heard the theory, but it still hits my knee jerk reaction as akin to scheduling accidents. if i have enough control for scheduling, can i schedule a no show? my cactus plant is in crisis. . . her name is, "sheeba, queen of de-nial."

the scheduling concept doesn't work for me, but i posilutely believe in taking my partner personally on every score while letting him know what i am accepting as a discomfort i have to live with in order to love him. being able to talk comfortably about those discomforts is critical to preventing long-term resentments. i'll take the good with the bad, but please let me call a turd a turd and help me find kind and gentle words by which to discuss ^it^.

as for the daily communication. . . my partner likes it and a don't believe it is too much to ask. i'm grateful for his willingness to forgive me on the days it feels like more than i can handle. i'm not a big fan of the sweet nothings. it's okay when he teases that i have the emotional IQ of a bulldozer. he says it in fun tones.
 
scheduling conflicts? ? ? i've heard the theory, but it still hits my knee jerk reaction as akin to scheduling accidents. if i have enough control for scheduling, can i schedule a no show? my cactus plant is in crisis. . . her name is, "sheeba, queen of de-nial."

the scheduling concept doesn't work for me, but i posilutely believe in taking my partner personally on every score while letting him know what i am accepting as a discomfort i have to live with in order to love him. being able to talk comfortably about those discomforts is critical to preventing long-term resentments. i'll take the good with the bad, but please let me call a turd a turd and help me find kind and gentle words by which to discuss ^it^.

as for the daily communication. . . my partner likes it and a don't believe it is too much to ask. i'm grateful for his willingness to forgive me on the days it feels like more than i can handle. i'm not a big fan of the sweet nothings. it's okay when he teases that i have the emotional IQ of a bulldozer. he says it in fun tones.
His complaint though is that I bring up an issue every week or two or three weeks. He understands there will be conflict in our relationship but every week or three weeks? So the purpose is to reduce this frequency and only discuss "issues" at a scheduled time for only a certain amount of time.
 
His complaint though is that I bring up an issue every week or two or three weeks. He understands there will be conflict in our relationship but every week or three weeks? So the purpose is to reduce this frequency and only discuss "issues" at a scheduled time for only a certain amount of time.
To me, in a relationship it's really both people being happy/healthy and making little agreements with eachother about what works and what doesn't.

Does it work for you?
 
To me, in a relationship it's really both people being happy/healthy and making little agreements with eachother about what works and what doesn't.

Does it work for you?
Yes, it does. Every relationship is different, what works for some doesn't work for others. The confusion is, am I practicing avoidance when I try to have him call me every day so I don't feel the abandonment depression..? Am I really wanting to talk to him or am I wanting to avoid feeling abandoned?

Either way, my plan going foreword is to not discuss with him "issues" outside of our allotted time and dare myself to deal with my panic if he doesn't call me back that day. Hopefully it will be get easier and easier to deal with and my brain will realize he is not abandoning me if he doesn't talk to me for one day.

Geez, I sound so crazy. I'm so glad this is anonymous..
 
He’s not making an effort. Or, not enough of an effort.

Been there…

It will in all likelihood wear you down. Maybe right now you are ok with it, but later on down the road you’ll look back and think wtf….

Everyone wants to be wanted and my guess is that when he doesn’t return your calls you feel unwanted.

Also, giving you a key IMO was the easy route. Now he doesn’t have to make an effort to ask you over or to go out because he knows that since you have a key you’ll just stop by and things will be peachy keen (as you do).

I’m trying to untangle myself from such a mess. It’s hard. It hurts. I’ve been making most of the effort for the last few years. So, I stopped making an effort. Wanna guess what I got? No longer do we go out. In the last 2 months he has stopped by my apartment all of twice LATE on a Friday night where after an hour or so he falls asleep. Sigh. There’s so much more, but yeah, I get no effort on his part. (And no, the Friday night visits did not involve sex.) He also blames me for being someone who likes to plan in advance. We’re talking a few days here, nothing major. My schedule is the most flexible in the damn world, so with a 1-2 day notice I could be available save my therapy appointments.

My advice is to not call him first. Stop dropping by his apartment. See how it pans out. It may tell you all you need to know.

Guys like mine aren’t worth it. He has every excuse in the book why he can’t plan in advance, which means I’m the one left to drop everything at the last minute if I want to see him. I missed out on something last weekend that I really wanted to do. Never again.
 
He’s not making an effort. Or, not enough of an effort.
I'm sorry you're going thru that..
In my case, it's not really about his effort, I think he puts forth effort in diff ways..it's more about the anxiety I get when he's not reachable. My desire to interact with him is anxiety driven. Do I really want to talk to him or do I just not want to feel alone? Why do I feel the need to sacrifice so much to see him so urgently right now when I can see him tomorrow? It's the very definition of codependency. I don't like to admit that, but the first step in recovery is to acknowledge you have a problem, right?

Yesterday, I spent the day with him. The inner critic was telling me that I outstay my welcome even though he didn't say anything. He does pick on me with a dry humor that's hard for a lot of people to tell he's joking. He doesn't know how I feel inside so I try not to take it personally. I went home without establishing an exact time when I would talk to him again which made me uncomfortable.

My problem is not with him. If I didn't get anxious and catastrophize then it wouldn't be a problem. Sometimes I wonder how much easier it would be if I didn't have to worry or control or micromanage. I'm running away from my negative emotions. My problem is with those that hurt me.

These are the mantras I've been countering my inner critic with:
I don't have to micromanage / control / be vigilant
I can just be my authentic self
I don't have to worry
There's always tomorrow
He has a right to have friends, mutually supportive relationships
He has a right to change plans
I don't have to check his phone in this moment.
I feel distrusting and that's okay, it'll pass.
Give it time and see how you feel later (usually I look back and think, how ridiculous, so glad I did not react)

I've been reading Pete Walker's book From Surviving to Thriving and the bill of rights list for romantic relationships in the back I have found tremendously helpful as well.

I want to start a trauma diary but not sure how to manage the anxiety. I began to write about a memory and the anxiety was so bad I had moments of disorientation. I've had these before but they were stronger and more frequent. I still feel some benefit from it since returning a day or two later I can logically try to make sense of it which takes some of the anxiety away.
 
After reading the above thread, what I can say is you are very aware and are willing to work on yourself. It is a very brave thing to do.

I go through something similar in my intimate relationships and sometimes just taking off time and being with myself helps (that's awfully difficult to do but it helps)
 
After reading the above thread, what I can say is you are very aware and are willing to work on yourself. It is a very brave thing to do.

I go through something similar in my intimate relationships and sometimes just taking off time and being with myself helps (that's awfully difficult to do but it helps)
Thank you for this 😊
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top