Dear Miss U,
My long distance boyfriend and I go four months without seeing each other while he is working across the country. Lately he has been playing video games and/or watching movies literally all night till 5-7 in the morning, and then he sleeps away the whole next day and we hardly have any time to talk. When we do talk now we seem to be fighting about his sleeping habits. Am I wrong to get mad at him for taking away from the very little time that we do get to talk? This is my first time in an LDR and I just feel like we should be talking as much as we can. I miss him. How do I get him to see where I’m coming from?
– Lonely in Seattle
Dear Lonely,
You’re both wrong here, and both right. You’re right to get mad if he’s not making talking to you a priority, but I don’t agree that you should be “talking as much as you can.” Depending on how much that actually is, that can be really unhealthy for the relationship and you as individuals. He’s right in the way that it’s his life, his leisure time and he has a right to do the things he enjoys. It’s also probably better for him to get his fill of this kind of lifestyle before you get to the point of living together, when the impact his sleeping patterns have on your life would be far greater. The trick is finding a balance; but as you’ve noticed coming to a compromise isn’t always easy.
It’s key to find out how much each of you expect to talk. How much time did you/do you spend together when you’re not long distance? Did you talk for three or more hours per day? How much time, realistically, did you actually have where you dedicated your focus to each other? This information can act as a guide to how much contact you should aim for whilst long distance, other commitments permitting.
For myself, I know that when Mr. E and I are not long distance, we’re in the same room as each other (awake) for 4-5 hours a day, but the amount of time we are actually talking to each other or doing something together is sadly a lot less. We talk for about an hour and a half all up, and maybe two hours of that per week is when we are focused just on each other. Long distance I find we do talk more (making up for the other types of intimacy that are lacking) but the amount we are 100% focused on each other is still maybe a quarter of our overall time spent. Throughout our relationship together this of course varies – there were stretches we were both unemployed and we spent far too much time together; periods when one of us didn’t have the internet and we hardly had contact at all; instances where one of us sacrificed a lot to work around a ridged schedule the other had; and times we were physically together but so mentally separate we barely knew each other anymore. Of course there were times at the height of our courtship when we couldn’t get enough of each other (I suspect you’re feeling like this) and a stint where we hadn’t been together long enough to have a say in how the other spent their time (likely how he is feeling).
Once you have found out how long each of you expects to talk per day (including discussing if multitasking will be allowed) and met somewhere in the middle, you can discuss how best to fit that into your lives. It isn’t ok for games and movies to have a higher priority than you, but it is ok for him to want time alone and time to have fun. Maybe there’s a different time you can dedicate to talking if the plan you’re using isn’t working? Maybe there’s a game you could play together and talk during, so you’re both getting something you need? There’s no reason you can’t watch a movie online together either. Talk to each other about different options, and treat each other with respect, even if you can’t understand the viewpoint your partner is coming from.
It may also help you to have specific examples of his behaviour if you want him to see there’s an on-going problem and make a change. Saying “you never spend time with me” or “you always blow me off to play games” will just get his back up, and if you can’t provide examples of when and where that happened he will probably think you’re exaggerating or over-reacting. Try “I feel unimportant/unloved/rejected when you prioritise movies higher than me, like last Monday when you forgot I was waiting on Skype because Spiderman was on” or “I feel hurt because poor time management means you’re always asleep when we could be together. I don’t want you to be sleep deprived or to never have any fun, but if would mean the world to me if you could think ahead and realize how your actions are going to affect my life”
Dear Miss U,
The guy that I’m interested in, I’ve never met. It seems crazy, but I have to decide what to do. He’s in the USMC, 4 hrs from me. We met on Christian Mingle, and we’re both very avid about our faith. I hadn’t paid to sub. in a long time because of finances and he pursued trying to find a way to contact me anyway for almost three weeks. We eventually had to put riddles in our descriptions and found each other that way. Everything almost too good to be true, the chemistry between us was amazing. All day, every day, he asked about me. We skyped, etc, and I tried to play it cool and let him take the lead. We eventually began to discuss when we would meet, etc. He seemed excited about it all. This all went on, with me only ever txting him first, a total of 3 times in the whole month and a half we talked then all the sudden, he stopped answering my texts. I let it go and he went back and forth with txting me, and then not, and eventually, he stopped mid-day about 4 days after it started, and since I’d txted last, I decided to leave it go. I waited a week without hearing anything, before I asked what was going on, and he just said he was busy. I ignored it, played it cool, and we talked normally like before for 5 hours, and then he didn’t answer again, it’s been almost 3 weeks. Maybe he thought my logins on CM was me not interested? He never logged in while we were talking. I was just deleting notifications, but we had talked before that commitment is his relationship peeve. WTD?
– Faith
Dear Faith,
I think you need to call him and actually speak to him rather than relying on texting; be honest with him and sort it out. Life is way too short to wonder what someone is thinking or to play games where your heart is at stake. So just pick up the phone and call him. Tell him you’re interested and you miss him. Texting is convenient, but it’s not the best platform to conduct your relationship on. It’s too easy to get distracted and not text back – too easy to read more into a forgotten or delayed text than actually exists. There’s nothing wrong with being forthright or taking the lead, so if you’re keen on him it’s time to let him know.
