[nebuladreams]

Hey all, first of all, sorry if this turns out too long. Im drowning in confusion, and I really need some advice. Though I'm closing in to 30, I’m relationship inexperienced and tend to second-guess myself a lot. Hopefully you’ll be able to offer some insight into what’s happening with my s.o, because it’s really been a roller coaster for me, and I’m not sure whether it’s the inexperience talking.



Some Background:

My boyfriend is a moderator in OKCupid and actively uses the site to seek friends overseas. He’s stated his relationship status, and even mentioned somewhere in the mass of information in his profile, that he lives with me. He gets a lot of messages from single girls in South East Asia; some flirt, some wonder why he’s there, some exchange contact details with him and continue the conversation on a mobile messaging app called Whatsapp.

Before I continue, let me say that I know for certain that he has the ability to maintain platonic friendships with girls. A majority of his friendships started off online, and I've met some of these girls in person. I don’t mind if he hangs out with them alone. Come to think of it, he probably has 1 actual male friend that he doesn’t really hang out with all that much. He doesn’t nurture friendships very well… in the last 6 months, this man has invited him to hang out about 6 times, and they’ve met up about once. As for the other female friends that live in the state, well, he doesn’t really initiate hang outs with them, and may sometimes accept the rare invitation to join a birthday celebration. I find that he tends to step up the effort to hang out with the girls a little bit when I have to be away for a while. He had an overseas bff that he used to chat to all the time, but he feels like he’s lost her now that she has a baby and cannot entertain him online as much. This, coupled with his feeling of “friendlessness”, is what drives his log-ons on OKCupid.



Building the Upset: Entertaining Girls Online ‘Round the Clock and Sparing me Scraps Of Attention (Only If He Felt Like It)

Now back to what I was saying… lately, the number of girls he messages seem to have increased. There was some drama over the way he constantly messaged them even though I was around. I felt neglected and sad that contact with them seemed to precede me. I saw his restrained enthusiasm every time he checked his phone with every buzz that indicated that he’d received a message from them. The timely way he’d respond to their messages sort of cut me as well.

He showed me a select few of his conversations in the past (something he freely did at random, that is, before he found out that I didn’t like his log-on frequency online), which was how I knew that there were times when he had chosen to chat with these girls instead of responding to my messages. He justified this by saying that he got to see me at home anyway, so we could “talk” then. It seemed that he had taken away all the fun things I used to love about communicating with him, showered it upon these online randoms he so desperately wants to call friends.

Their messages were the first thing he’d entertain while getting ready for work in the morning, and the last thing he’d tend to at night. He’d keep in touch with them throughout the day while he’s at work, and painfully enough, gave them his attention even as he’d returned home to me.

I’m not clingy, I don’t bombard him with messages, I don’t even message him every day. But I miss the way he would randomly message me about work, or the way he’d message for the hell of it. If he has time to talk to girls online, surely he has time to talk to me? Seems he has long conversations with these girls throughout the day, while I get the privilege of physically sitting beside him in silence while he goes about his own thing after he returns from work…

Point is, he was constantly attached to his phone, and if he wasn’t tending to them there, he’d be on his laptop trolling 4chan while talking to not-so-new OKC friends that added him on facebook.

For 3 months, I did what I could to draw him back, but my existence didn’t seem to matter all that much. I’d try to emotionally connect with him and ask him questions, but many of these were fired back with ridicule and impatience in the form of “that was gay/random”, “why are you asking me that” “I don’t want to talk about work”.


For 3 months, he didn’t bother asking me how my day was, or what I’d done. He had tunnel-vision for the things he wanted to do. It hurt but I gave him space (ironically he would later complain to an online girl about not having time to himself). Besides asking me what was for dinner, there was no interest in what was going on with my life. Sure we went out, but even as we sat there waiting for food, he'd whipe out his phone and proceed with his “Hey how are you”s online.

There were a few lucky weekends when he’d snap out of it, and I’d really feel like he was present with me… but then Monday would roll around and wash him off to the sea of online distractions again.



The Boyfriends Reaction to my hurt

I broke down on a few separate occasions to tell him what I was experiencing, albeit poorly in my hurt and panic. I received anger and defensiveness. “I’ll talk to whoever the hell I want to. There’s nothing going on.” Then a cold stone wall, and resentment for “ruining” the day with that supposed non-issue that I decided to bring up. He doesn’t like discussion. He deals things however he wants to deal with them. A couple of months later, I wrote him a letter. “Don’t expect me to respond, I’m tired and I don’t have time for this”, he said.

Even when I mindfully attempt to put the focus on what I’m feeling, he manages to make it a sole issue about himself, and I find that I have to painfully backtrack, tell him I was merely relaying what I was feeling, describing things from my perspective, wanting a resolution, and not accusing him. His walls usually go up anyway, leaving me feeling very lonely and more upset than ever.



He complains about me bringing up the same issue over and over again, saying “there’s nothing to be discussed” even when I’m hurting, even when I’ve agreed several times to hold out on discussions until a more convenient time arises. But the thing is, my boyfriend seems to insist on generalizing “my” problem into plain jealousy over his interactions online,
rather than recognizing that the individual issues (ignoring me, being more engaging with people he doesn’t know, lacking presence in this relationship etc.) this problem comprises of, are the ones that require attention.

After a few talks, the phone attachment lessened… but through a process of obsessively logging on to Whatsapp to check his last log-on times, I had a gist of exactly how much time he was spending messaging people on there (that is, all day), and knew for a fact that if he wasn’t parked downstairs after returning from work to talk to them, he would frequently hole himself up in the bathroom whenever he was home to respond to their messages.

[Yes, this was unhealthy and drove me crazy, so I stopped doing this after a month.]
I’d comment on his phone attachment again. Comment on how much time he was spending in the bathroom. He’d get mad that I was making a big deal out of it. Complain that I was “timing” him in the bathroom. I’d withdraw.

I hated OKCupid. I hated Whatsapp. I hated that bloody phone, the way it vibrated to life, as if to emulate the vaguely intriguing life-force that sent that message from overseas.

BF’s Stance on Lack of Accountability in Emotional Cheating: Go Heal Yourself.
I wanted to trust him, but the neglect was eating away on me. He complained that I seemed to be seeking reassurance from him – something he thought was an act of insecurity and jealousy, which happened to be the cause of his 2 previous breakups. The thing is, reassurance was something I’ve needed from him since I returned last year.

We were trying to rebuild our relationship after a massive row of misunderstanding. Months after leaving, I realized that I'd acted to rashly and returned to where he was so we could work on the relationship.

It was then I found out that he emotionally cheated on me with a girl online – a girl he spent every evening with during one of his vacation stops, and flirted with heavily via IMs. He justified giving her more attention (i.e. avoiding me and my messages, animatedly updating her more on what was going on with him, and offering to pay for her airfare so she could join him at the last leg of his trip) by saying that he was confused about the relationship, and didn’t want to have to face my annoying questions about where he stood.

He felt bad, acknowledged that it looked bad but nothing happened. He didn’t cut contact with the girl he emotionally cheated with, because to him, he hadn’t done anything wrong. Since he became very active on OkCupid after I left, there were other girls that he confided in during my absence, and I found that they also took up a chunk of his attention when I got back.
He even seemed to prioritize the fake FB random that encouraged him to cheat on me and spoke to him about sex whenever they interacted. He had the gall to “protect” her and their conversations from me for fear that I may not like her and make him feel guilty about talking to her.
It’s as though I was being told to sit there and rebuild this relationship myself; that all he had to do was flow along with whatever seemed like the couple-y thing to do, but essentially still maintain distance and focus on whatever it was that benefited him.



My Stupid Vulnerability:

Though he told me that it wasn't a mistake for me to return, he still hasn't given a proper indication of how he feels about us. There have been instances that a normal person would say illustrates relationship certainty or security, but I found out the hard way that these weren’t accurate reflections of where he stood in this relationship.

I no longer make it a habit to ask him where he stands because i usually end up hurt. I also know that it’ll only annoy him and push him away. Besides, he did say that if he wouldn’t be sticking around if he didn’t think we were a good idea.



The point is, who is to say that he’s not confused and won’t emotionally cheat again with an online girl? Sure there may not be anything going on with any of these girls on OKCupid, but knowing that he wasn’t aware of emotionally cheating on me, and knowing that he actively feeds their conversations during any lulls at work (while failing to touch base with me) is what hurts.

I lay myself vulnerable to rebuild this relationship. I’ve done and risked so much. I’m struggling a little, but see the silver lining during those weekends where he seems to be a bit more present with me. I have trouble sleeping at night because of all the things left unresolved. Things he doesn’t want to talk about. Then the morning comes, he leaves, and I just want to sleep in and sleep my worries away, but I’m so afraid of getting back into that cycle where I let the bed swallow me whole, and I lose track of everything else going on in my life and just sort of waste away. Which is why, as sleep deprived as I’ve been over the last year or so, I keep getting up. I try to appear happy. I try to get busy. Productive.




Reaction to Nurturing Online Friendships

I’m not one to control who he can and can’t talk to. He’s a good guy, I want him to have friends, but not at the cost of our relationship. He was so much more attentive to me and the relationship before I left. This is all very painful, and I don’t know if I’m just over reacting, as he has suggested several times.

I don’t like how he turns to the girls to complain about the relationship (citing jealousy and insecurity with no context whatsoever) when all he’s given me is frustration, stonewalling, and zero attempt at talking things through to find a resolution.


A year and a half ago, I gave him permission to use me as an excuse to weasel out of anything with these online girls (i.e. telling them im possessive and jealous, which is why he can’t allow them to stay at his place during their vacation here), but somehow the jealousy has morphed into a truth in his head, and now he claims I’ve been jealous since the beginning (I was honestly indifferent, I was never the jealous sort, online girls meant nothing to me then). He’s complained about me, and thinks that I’ll twist malice into his online interactions, which is why he lies about conversations, and sometimes hides them from me. Contrary to how I felt about OKCupid after the 3-months of neglect, I’m no longer opposed to him making new friends, but the hiding, as well as the lack of contact throughout the day, isn’t helping.



Affection:

He tells me that he needs reminding sometimes. Every now and then I bring up the lack of affection, and it’s still very hit and miss. He was randomly affectionate for 2 days a week and a half ago, but I wrote another letter to clarify things on my end, and to tell him that I didn’t mind him making friends so long as he balanced everything out and kept up with the affection he was giving, but it seemed that this just caused him to distance himself a little. Though he’s wary of messaging girls in front of me, his phone attachment is now back with a vengeance.

I feel like I’m forcing him to act lovingly towards me when I have to ask for affection. I don’t want to have to keep asking. I don’t want to give affection when the recipient makes a joke out of it. I find that he’ll use affection as a litmus test to my temperament whenever I give up and withdraw – a rigid indifference tells him that I’m angry about something, and he’ll say “fine, whatever” and walk away.
Sometimes I want to reject him for neglecting me so much, he hates being rejected by people after all- but I don’t play that game… besides, by then I’d be disgustingly starved for love and touch that I pretty much melt into him anyway..
Yet, I don’t want withdrawal to be the key to gain his affection.


I’m actually pretty sensitive, so he’s experienced a few of my emotional outbursts in the past, and in the process may have become desensitized to them. It’s been tough building a wall of serenity, but these days I try to act cool and composed, and have been more successful in brushing things off. Trying to see if appearing to have more emotional control will draw him out somehow, and make me seem a bit more approachable.

I’m a bit lost. Am I reading him all wrong? In the last few months he’s been randomly purchasing small things which he thinks I might like. I’m not sure whether purchasing items has become his love language, or whether it’s another one of those things that are not reflective of how he feels about me.

[unaluna]

Wow. This post is all about him. What about you? Who are you? Get into therapy and out of this so-called relationship. You're just another moon in his orbit. You deserve to be special to someone. Makes me wonder about your relationship with your mother. I'm guessing not so special? I can relate to that.

[MrsInSC]

I agree with Hankster. Don't wait to get into therapy.

Ok. This post and your other post, well... the first was bad enough and now this? You are giving him everything, and he is giving you very little. Even then it's scraps, and most of the time you have to ask for it - which kind of takes the magic out of it doesn't it?

I know you listed a list of things that you like about him. So am not sure what you'd like by posting this? I think I would say that his behaviour again, is unacceptable and I agree with what you already know.
Without putting words in other's mouths, I think a lot of people will wonder, like me, why you are with someone who doesn't really make you happy. Sigh. But I know you'll defend him to the hilt because you love and want to be with him (and probably have low self-esteem too to do anything about it), I just hope you don't have to wait too much longer for him to grow up.

Good luck.

[unaluna]

Oh I didnt realize this was the toast guy. This reminds me so much of me and my relationships, way not in a good way. you can never give him enough of what YOU want.

[hamster-bamster]

I am sorry but this is just too funny.

You are clearly amazing. You write with such wit that it almost makes me cry.

He is clearly a complete idiot.

It seems that the ONE and ONLY justification for his existence on this planet (I do not know whether I should credit god or the process of darwinian selection for the fact of his existence, so I am mentioning both sources to be on the safe side) is to somehow inspire your wonderful stories.

I really do not see what else he might have a calling for. He does seem like a complete idiot.

Since you have already written a few very good stories taking your inspiration from his bizarre, self-obssessed, and generally pathetic ways of leading his miserable existence while being attached to an inanimate buzzing device called a cell phone and while constantly ignoring the real and true gem that he does not see in his real girlfriend, my ONLY question is: why don't you move on and find new inspiration for new stories in some other guys, who just might prove to be not so pathetic?