My partner (F30) and I (M29) started dating 4 years ago and I moved away from where she lives so we have been long distance for a year. My partner wants to have a lot of texting communication that I’m struggling to keep up with. She prefers to keep people updated by text regularly throughout each day and I’m more of a call at the end of each day kind of person, and text a little here and there. Recently, she has been getting frustrated with me for not responding to her messages in a timely manner. Now, I’m also someone who likes to really be present when I’m in person with people and almost always do not text my girlfriend or anyone else much or at all when I’m seeing friends or going out somewhere to interact with others, like friend hangouts or family time. She has gotten pretty frustrated with me on a lot of occasions now and while I have gotten better it’s still not enough for her.
We will usually talk on the phone every few days and discuss what we’re doing that week, so she has an idea of what I’m doing (e.g. not off with other women). What happens is that I will be texting her and just tail off/stop texting because I had dinner with a friend or am hanging out with my family, without telling her why. This can happen anywhere from an hour or two, up to a half-day depending on what I’m doing, but I will always update in the evening if I don’t chat earlier. She has gotten frustrated to the point of angry recently because I tend to do this often when we are texting, and I try to but don’t always mention that I am having dinner with \_\_\_ today and won’t message for the next few hours, so from her perspective I just go blank for a few hours without her hearing from me. I think that’s normal to not have to be texting all throughout every day because we still call often (once every day or two so we generally know each other’s schedules) but she gets really frustrated and angry and starts to not tell me what’s going on in her world because she thinks that she’s not important enough to me anymore because I’m not responding in a texting way that works for her.
The way for me to pretty much solve this is to tell her every time I have something going on that I will be busy with \_\_\_ and can’t message in the next \_\_\_ hours. But life moves fast and I don’t always remember or plans change and I don’t have the time for messaging her. But I understand her concerns of not feeling important when I don’t message, but also want to just have the ability to live my life and hang out with people in person without worrying about updating her every hour of what I’m doing. Life gets busy and stuff comes up and it’s not that I don’t want to chat or am not thinking of her, it’s that I need to be present in my life too.
AITA if I don’t specifically give her a heads up before every time that I can’t chat for a time?
Edit: It’s still generally a lot of messaging every day, just not when I have something going on, or coworkers want to go to dinner after work and I get busy doing other life stuff. I’ve also never given her a reason to distrust me from a cheating standpoint.
NTA. She sounds exhausting. This is assuming you’ve never given her a reason to distrust you.
ESH in a very minor way. But is this relationship going to last? You both have different needs, neither of which are being met in a LDR. Because you moved away, I do think you owe her a little more than inconsistent texting and a phone call every few days. I understand her feelings, and this would probably lead to a lot of frustration and disconnect. However, it’s also incredibly unfair of her to demand that you be available to text whenever she wants. She cannot control your life, and constant communication is very unrealistic. It’s important that you set better expectations about when you will be available to chat, rather than dropping off randomly, without warning. Imagine her looking forward to talk to her boyfriend who she rarely sees, just for the conversation to stop with no warning and resume 6 hours later. I get her frustration, too- she’s not as important to you if you frequently forget her in your day-to-day, and you need to communicate that. Imo, it’s either find a way to compromise or move on from the relationship, unless there is an end date to the distance in sight.
Tell her the truth; that’s she’s not as important as the real life stuff you have going on right in front of you.
Part of long distance is taking a back seat.
NTA
Omg, suffocating and exhausting, is she really 29 and not 15? NTA!
NAH but I think this would be a really great opportunity for you and your partner to discuss and maybe re-align on expectations, communication strategies, and how willing you are to make long-distance work for both of you.
Yeah, this is a bit much. I mean, there is no compromise here from her end. You are doing your best, but this is an exhausting thing to do AND live your own life. I WOULD go along the lines of suggesting “oh wouldn’t it be nice if we caught up not-so frequently and have like a catch up omnibus after a couple days? Because we both got shit to deal with… absence makes the heart….blah blah”… But I don’t think this would work here. I kinda know this type of person…. Sorry. Not trying to be disrespectful to her here, or suggest this a terminal thing….but you cannot sustain this. It’s going to put you both on edge. People should try writing letters or something. I digress. Oh….NTA.
NAH but this sounds like you two are incompatible.
There’s more to unpack here than just regular texting.
Yes it is exhausting to have to worry about your phone, but it also sounds like the way you communicate is never going to satisfy her.
Is she the jealous type? Is she afraid you are hanging out with females? How often do you just stop texting in the middle of a conversation? Daily, a few times a week/month? Have you always been like this and it’s just becoming a problem?
Long distance relationships can either make you or break you. Because you guys don’t see each other as often, your phones are the replacements.
Lastly, I don’t think this is a situation of who’s right or wrong, it’s a lack of understanding and communication on both ends. What is your ultimate goal? Do you want to make it better or are you wanting to let her know that she’s wrong/right?
So youre texting her and then cant be bothered to tell her what youre about to do and why you cant text for a couple of hours?
YTA I guess.
Long distance relationships take work. More work.
She’s exhausting. I would see this as major incompatibility. NTA.
ESH
She sounds really needy and immature, but it also wouldn’t kill you to say “Gotta go–I’ll touch base later” when you need to stop texting. Just dropping off is rude.
You also need to triage your text. “I’m thinking of you” types of texts don’t require an immediate response.
NTA: Sounds like she’s feeling insecure, and the present arrangement is not working for her.
Have a simple conversation about what you want, and why, what she wants and why. The why part is key to understanding each other.
Listen with kindness, even if you don’t agree with what she is saying. She probably wants some regularity – and wants to know you want to talk with her.
You get to decide what feels right for you. You don’t owe her frequent daily updates. People don’t even do that for bosses at work.
But if she’ll be open about how she feels and you make it easy to do that, by listening and not being defensive, then you’ll have enough info to figure out what to do.
I think its super hard to juggle a bunch of stuff and typing, imo shes way too picky about messaging
The man I’m dating is more like you, and I’m more like your girlfriend. I can totally understand her frustration when you simply disappear in the middle of a conversation.
Neither of you is “wrong” in your texting style: it’s just a completely different mindset.
The last time I dated this man, I actually ghosted and blocked him, I was so frustrated. I also felt that he obviously was disinterested in me because he took forever to answer my texts, and sometimes seemed to ignore questions I’d asked him.
We met up again on a different dating site and tried again. We talked about the texting thing and I found out that he had just learned that his mother was incredibly ill. He also had had no idea that I had found his texting style so brutal. To him, not texting didn’t at all mean that he was disinterested, he just is not a texter.
Now, we’re each working to meet the other on the middle. He’ll try to tell me “Busy” even if that’s all he types, and I accept that, while I text little stories and touchpoints, he only texts basically single sentences but tries to kind of let me know what’s going on. I accept (and it’s hard!) that often he’ll just disappear, but this time we agreed to talk about things and that I would have more faith in him this time round. For him, not texting is *not* “out of sight, out of mind” but just that he’s present in real life.
For your girlfriend, she probably feels that you not sharing what you do is because you don’t *want* to let her into your life fully. I can understand that. I struggle with the same feelings of feeling like he doesn’t trust me enough to tell me what he’s up to, though now I recognize that it’s not that at all. I also know that, even when he doesn’t respond, he values my check-ins and my little stories and he wants me to feel that I can text freely according to my texting personality. Meanwhile, he texts more than he otherwise would, and I know that he’s trying, too.
It’s still not easy, because our texting approaches are so completely different: it requires patience on each of our parts.
So. Neither of you or both of you are the assholes here. You just each need to figure out how to meet each other in the texting universe in a way that works for both of you.