My boyfriend is a runner

Hey folks,

I need some advice.
I am very confused and feel helpless because of some issues in my relationship with my boyfriend. We have been together for more than a year now, and sometimes everything is going just fine, I calm down, start to feel at ease and trust him - and then some problem comes up, or something needs to be discussed, and all of a sudden he distances himself from me, becomes insecure and very rude and then doesn't want to see me because he says he is scared that we might fight again. He avoids telling me things and waits until I find out from others, or worse, facebook. He texts me a lot and this makes me very nervous, because his texts confuse me and make me mad and everything just gets worse. I don't get him. Of course I can understand that talking is hard, apparently especially for men (even though I don't want to let this count as an excuse for treating me that way). I have told him and showed him that I love him and that he can trust me, but he keeps hurting me and then running away from it. By now I have developed a temper whenever I get in a conflict with him and he starts acting unfair and scream at him. This hurts me as well and I don't want to be the girlfriend who screams and throws stuff, but I feel just so helpless and have lost my trust. My heart hurts physically, it is a real pain in my chest and I feel like he just avoids me and keeps me out of his life whenever he wants to. He justifies himself a lot, but I don't want to hear excuses. I want to be with him, and to be closer to him and not get thrown out of the comfort zone whenever I start to let go.
Any advice on this from the community would be so helpful. Thanks + hugs from a very confused little owl

What are you two arguing about? It is hard to answer unless we know

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Hi divine1966,

the exact last topic was that he didn't tell me that he could not keep an agreement that we had anymore. Our relationship is complicated and we have very different lives. I am constantly trying to find agreements with him to bring some stability and consistency into our relationship, but it doesn't seem to work. He is a musician and first I was very skeptical because of that. He told me that his music was just a hobby, because he also goes to university and to work quite a bit. By now it has turned out that the music is EVERYTHING. He accepts way more gigs than he agreed to, but doesn't tell me about it. (we had the agreement that one gig per month is okay for us both).

He seems to be torn between his lives and all the things he wants. I try my best to support his interests, but it is hard for me and I don't get enough of the fuzzy relationship stuff that I need. I don't live in his scene and his friends don't seem to like me very much, even though I tried to be open and cool about everything. I tried to explain to him that I need more stability in our relationship, and mostly that I need him to be honest with me. I know that he is afraid to lose me, so he tries to somehow work his way around me without telling me the uncomfortable things. (Like that he accepted three gigs more than he promised me, without talking to me). I just find these things out by accident or when he starts acting strange. That is what makes me so mad, that he makes agreements with me but then breaks them without talking to me because he is too afraid.
I know I sound silly and maybe mean, but I am actually trying very hard to make things good. I am getting very stressed out by these things I feel that I should maybe let it go so that he can pursue his career and do whatever he wants, but he also wouldn't accept that and in fact I don't want to lose him either

It must be frustrating if his gigs take him out of town. Are they local? How long do they last?

I do understand how you feel but I am trying to understand him.

I am an artist. It is a hobby but I at times participate in art shows. If my BF told me I am allowed to have one show a month id laugh. I'll do as many shows as I want, I don't need a permission. Unless of course you have young children at home.

What about those gigs that bothers you? Do you have hobbies that keep you busy?

Do you two live together? How much time do you two spend together?

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While I agree that he's in the wrong for not communicating with you about the gigs, ultimately the gigs are what he's passionate about and as long as he makes time for you and you guys don't have any children that he's neglecting, he should be allowed to do however many gigs he wants.

Also consider that a lot of guys (myself included) are introverted by nature and don't like talking about every little thing that we have planned or every little problem in our life. Many of us need our space or we go crazy. If said man was abused or hurt in any major way in his life, this type of personality gets many times worse.

I would suggest supporting his music passions as long as he makes time for you or maybe even let him bring you on a gig or two to hang out. Make it clear that you love him and support what makes him happy but request that he makes time for you in return.

The gigs are in and out of town and some are abroad. They last sometimes from late in the evening til 10 in the morning. imes they start at 6 in the morning. I came along a couple of times, but I don't really enjoy clubs and techno music, something about the atmosphere is so unfriendly and dark.

I did not make up the agreement with one gig per month or tell him that he is allowed to do this or that. It was something that he offered to me and which worked out. We don't live together, I have hobbies, friends and am independent with school and work. Thanks folks, I think I have to figure this out on my own. It is too hard to explain anyways.

If I may say ( and forgive me if I am totally off) but you two might just not have enough in common to sustain a relationship. Reminds me of my marriage. My ex and I had zero in common he is into boating but I am afraid to be on a boat, he is also into flying and has license to fly but I am am sick on a small plane. I can go on. Bottom line we could never do much together , I tried to join him but hated it all. and later we had a young child. So when we got married we thought love is enough. But it's not. The only thing in common we have is our kid

Even our adult now daughter laughs how we two got married having zero in common.

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You may be totally right, this is a thought that I have had before. It is just so hard to figure this out! We are both rather quiet and introverted. We watch movies a lot, or cook, but there never seems to be enough time to really do something together, and lots of things come in between whenever we plan stuff together. His activities are mostly related to the club scene, his roommates and friends are in this scene and people we meet on the street greet him with his artist name. I have tried to talk about these things and suggested that it might be better if we both go our seperate ways. But somehow we couldn't go through with it. As stupid as it sounds, the fact that he doesn't want to let me go made it even harder than it was in the first place. I feel like a horrible person and a mean girlfriend because his career/hobby/whatever it is bothers me so much and makes me so uncomfortable. I just can't relate to the people and the music, and I am a little scared of the club scene with all the drugs and craziness there. Before I met him, I liked to go dancing and had fun at parties, but now clubs just make me sad. This sounds so crazy and awful.
What confuses me is that he says he doesn't really want all the fuss, and that he rather wants to spend more time with me. I have always found that it is okay for him to say what he wants, also if this means that his music is the main thing in his life. But he keeps saying that I am the most important thing/person in his life. That makes everything so much harder, and I really can't see how we are going to be living together and maybe have kids (or pets ) and be happy in our own individual ways. Gosh, this is awful.

The things you said, DarknessIsMyFriend, are really true. I just haven't found a way to cope with this yet! He has had his troubles in the past and is rather introverted and sensitive, and I love him for that. But sometimes it is just so painful when he shuts me out. Then this sweet and vulnerable side turns destructive, and I am looking for ways to deal with it and protect myself a little from this pain. I have always respected his need for space, but I also felt that I had to take care and not neglect my own needs over his.

It might be best that you two part ways then. From my knowledge and experience, relationships or even friendships with people who don't have anything in common never work out in the long run. Breaking up now might save both of you a lot of heartache later down the road.

The earlier the breakup the less painful it generally is. Would it not be better to break up 1 year into a relationship rather than 10? There is much less emotional investment involved which makes the transition that much easier. I'm not saying it won't be painful but it will certainly be less painful.

Finally, if you care about him, perhaps you could still attempt to be his friend at least until he finds another girlfriend or at least gets over the breakup if he isn't the type of person to go crazy and become a threat to you that is. If you don't choose to do this, then consider that you'll be saving him great pain later down the road.

It isn't easy for most to make these kinds of decisions so you have my support if it's needed. Hang in there

I think I will give this a little time to become more clear about my feelings myself and until I feel calmer. Posting here and reading what you guys think has already helped me a lot and got me out of my confusion-panic-struggle condition!

It also could be that he is young? How old are you guys?

When ex and I first married his crazy lol hobbies were extremely important to him. With age these things a bit faded, he still does boating but he is now married to someone who loves that too so they do it as a family. He settled down and is a great father to our daughter and his younger kids. But it was a nightmare when we were young with his crazy activities! Not only his wife is a better match than me but also he grew up and settled. Even our daughter knows he changed so much with age, changed for the best.

Maybe he or both you guys aren't ready for serious stuff. He might need to get this out of his system


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I agree with divine1966 and DarknessIsMyFriend on this point. In my experience, and strange at this will sound, you can be deeply compatible with someone of certain levels but still a relationship might not work out. If you incompatible in another key area then that can be a big problem. I might be completely wrong, it's very hard to know at a distance from a reading just few forum posts, but my feeling is that your goals are too different and you don't fully understand what motivates one another, simply because you are different. It's hards to know exactly how much a couple need to have in common for a relationship to work, I've spend a lot of time pondering that question myself. But I'm leaning towards thinking that their future aspirations and goals should be compatible.

I just sighed a bit reading what you two have written. He is 28 and I am 26, actually I should be the "wild" one!
It is really so hard to find out what a relationship needs and what not! I keep thinking that it would be nice to live a little more, travel, meet new people and have fun, but something is holding me back.
It is a strange thing about BF and me, that he did not chose a girl from his own "scene". He sometimes talks about marrying me in the future (shriek), so I guess that he has some imagination of settling down, but I just don't know how all these pieces of the puzzle fit together.
I read somewhere that there is no use in wanting to solve riddles with your mind, but I don't want to do anything before I have clarity, or at least before my guts tell me what to do.
Divine1966, how long have you been married? And what do you think makes your relationship with your new partner work?

Some of the better longevity relationships that I know of, involve each having a sense of having a separate hobby/interest/passion. Being able to travel together without wanting to tear each other apart is also relevant.
Have you two vacationed together, yet?

We took some smaller vacations, each for a couple of days. Worked out fine, except for some small disagreements...

I have not been married long, we got divorced when our daughter was still young. I had other relationships of course one was longer than my marriage ( almost 9
Years). They were all unavailable emotionally one way or the other. One had drinking problem

My current relationship is very new so I not sure about the future but he is very much emotionally available. He does have hobbies and so do I. Both of our hobbies are the kinds that don't take us too far away and actually mostly done sitting at home or if we do it with other people it might be just few hours here and there. But we both work a lot and don't live close by so we try to spend time with each other when we are both off which isn't often.

Now I absolutely don't believe people need to be attached to the hip or have same hobbies. People need to have separate friends and hobbies. But I believe it has to be something beneficial for a relationship

Btw you are about my daughters age.

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Oh you are so right. I recently went on our first short trip. It wasn't anything exotic, very simple. It might sound weird as I've been to some gorgeous or exotic places in my life yet this was the best vacation I ever had. I am serious. It was perfect. I travelled with my other partners and even I saw great places something was always missing or arguments or discomfort . There was nothing missing this time around.

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You triggered something there. I often feel that he is emotionally unavailable, and that is painful. I am rather sensitive and there is a harshness about him which mixes with the hard techno scene that drives me away emotionally. I feel like I need to protect myself from something. There IS a discomfort. Admitting this makes me so sad. I am all by myself otherwise and my mother lives 600 km away. Maybe being alone again scares me.

you've told us what you don't like about him - his passion for music. But , unless I missed it, I don't think you've told us if there is a passion that you have or aspect that gives him difficulty (please don't feel you need to tell us what that may be).

My ex husband had a passion for drama that approached obsessive. When he was prepping for or appearing in a play it was as though the family didn't exist and I was a single parent. It was definitely unhealthy and ultimately one of the reasons I had for leaving him. In his case his pastime became a way to ignore everything and everyone else in his life. Those he would be acting with would become his new best friends and questionable friendships with female cast members became the norm. Once a play would end he would basically go through a grieving period then all would be normal again - until a new production came around.

Is your BF's passion actually getting in the way? When he is at a gig do you feel your relationship is on hold? Do you find yourself and your relationship threatened in any way by the other bandmates. What about the people he plays to? What is perhaps threatening by that.

Do you feel your relationship is on hold each time he is at a gig?

These are things that pop into my mind that I wonder if you have asked yourself. Perhaps you have and you haven't been very satisfied by the answer.

When I was with unavailable men one after another I told my therapist that I don't believe emotionally open men exist. She said they do. And I will meet one when I explore the reason why I attract wrong men. Sure enough I am with a guy now who has no harshness about him.

I strongly recommend therapy for you to get to the bottom of it

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I am in therapy... working on my problems and try to be responsible and deal with it. I thought that he was open and available in the beginning.
I know that the music itself can't really be the problem. Sure, I don't love the techno/underground scene, but I don't know why I should feel so frightened and abandoned as I do. It is also more something like you described with your ex partner, rcat. I feel like the music and gigs are an excuse for him to behave however cold and distant he wants and to ignore our relationship. So they became a symbol for my pain or something like that. Sometimes it feels like he is messing with my mind because he uses things I told him against me. I feel like I am trapped in some game which I don't understand, and this is driving me crazy.
I like doing yoga and read books and hang out with friends. I don't really have a clue what could bother him so much about me.

Whenever he plays a gig, he is out of reach for me for a very long time. Before his gig he has to play records at home, then there are the artist dinners where girlfriends are unwanted, the the gigs take the whole night, and then he sleeps and is tired and cranky for the rest of the weekend. I made the experience over and over again, that I feel like he turns our commitment off and on. Sometimes he texts me 50 times a day, and other times he promises to text me when he gets home late at night but then doesn't. I feel like he isn't really there for me. I am so disappointed because I have a job interview later today, and I am tired and sad because he called me at 2 in the morning today while he was slightly drunk and heading to a club to talk to someone and promised to send me a short text so I knew that he was home and ok. But he didn't. I had nightmares all night and when I woke up there was no text from him. It is a big day today for me and I am sad and angry because he knows that but doesn't care.

That was inconsiderate, on his part.

I am so sorry sweetie. I totally know how you feel. It sounds familiar.

I hate sounding like doom and gloom but people almost never change unless they really really want to. He is a good person but it doesn't sound like he is there for you. You are so young and i am sure you'll find right person. I have a feeling it's not him

we are here for you whatever you want to do

Good luck with interview!

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I don't think it is the music hobby that makes you feel frightened and abandoned

. It is your gut feeling telling you that he is not fully there 100%. It didn't have to be music, it could be anything. I was uncomfortable and frightened with men's hobbies not because I am needy, not at all.

But because they were emotionally unavailable and not considerate and their hobbies were just yet another thing
Yes their hobbies became symbols of my pain. And his hobby is symbolizes for you what is missing in this relationship

Also men I've been with were usually obsessed with their hobbies, not just enjoying them. Just like my dad.

There is a difference

I am glad you are in therapy please talk about it with your t.



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