09-08-2013, 11:36 PM
Hey guys. I'm new to this forum. I sort of hate to jump right into things, but... well, crisis is crisis.
I've been with the man of my dreams for just over three years now.
For some basic background info, we are a gay male couple in a monogamous relationship in our late 20's/early 30's respectively, we do not live together (I live with my mother whom I take care of, he lives with his brother as a roommate since his parents recently relocated out of country).
Until last February I thought everything was going according to plan. There were talks of moving some things around in both of our lives and approaching moving in together at the start of 2014, sex was and always has been great and fairly frequent, we spend a healthy amount of time together and hadn't really ever experienced much problem just being around each other. Until January, when things became a little distant (mostly due to me being under incredibly pressure from work) - and then February, when my paranoia got the best of me and I went through his phone and found a couple of weeks worth of very explicit sexual communications and plans to meet up between he and 3 other men he had come into contact with via the same dating website we met through.
Things fell apart, for a bit. But we worked through them. We vacationed in paradise together in July, communication had improved. But by the beginning of August around the time of our three year anniversary, he confessed he was feeling distant again. He describes it as an 'emptiness'. It affects everything; not just us. He feels wary about life, becomes anxious over small details of existence. He promised he would not use this feeling to try and speak to other men again because he realizes this time around that it is an issue with life/stress in general and not solely based on any particular thing within our relationship - and I believe him. But my trust issues, they've grown in this time.
See, his parents live out of the country most of the time now, but when they come back, they come back for extended visits. And this extended visit happened to begin right around the time we were most deeply involved in repairing our relationship, which was around March, about a month after the "incident". His parents, not being comfortable with us or our relationship, effectively banned me from the house. The pressure of their visit and it making me unable to be around my boyfriend in what I thought of as this crucial time to mend our relationship really took a toll on me.
When they went away for a week (this past week; they arrived back today) we were supposed to spend time together both Friday and Saturday night; the first weekend we would have completely to ourselves in almost half a year.
I was excited, but he told me he had a business-related meeting he couldn't blow off on Friday night, so we would have to postpone. We exchanged some words, and he knew I was upset, but he convinced me he couldn't blow it off as he would be letting down quite a few people and might not have the opportunity again. I felt badly, and dropped the issue. Long story short, I later found out it was a regular old hangout night with the same people he goes out with every weekend, at the same bar they go to every weekend. I was very upset, but didn't want to bring it to his attention just yet. I decided to vent to a mutual friend and ask his advice; but this morning my boyfriend saw the text message I had sent to that friend. By the time I woke up, he was at the grocery store. When I texted to ask where he was, he replied only that he had packed my clothes for me and he would be taking me home as soon as he arrived back and that he didn't want to talk about it.
After dropping me off, he said only "We'll talk about it tomorrow." and drove away. The entire car ride was in silence before that.
So I'm here almost 8 hours later with my head spinning.
I've never really seen him this mad, and I'm not sure why. There are a lot of reasons, actually. In hindsight, I shouldn't have spoken to his friend about this. I only reached out because I wanted someone who knows both my boyfriend and myself well who could offer some insight. I also should not be going through his texts anymore (but does this cancel out, since obviously even though I've never spoken to another man [he once confessed to me shortly after we had decided to give things another try that he worried I might try to revenge-cheat on him] he also felt a need to go through mine?).
I feel like his making up a story about a meeting to cover up his regular hangout night with the guys means he doesn't find spending time with me to be very important, since time together for the last several months has been very hard to come by indeed. And my fear is that, if this is the case, maybe he just plain doesn't want to spend time with me. A relationship where one person doesn't feel a need to spend time around the other anymore can't survive.
What can I do? How can I convince him that I had only good intentions contacting our friend, and genuinely just needed advice?
I was not planning on throwing anything in my boyfriend's face or I would have done so simply with the knowledge of finding out that his meeting wasn't a meeting after all. I love him and I want to stay with him, he's just so hard to figure out sometimes...
I've been with the man of my dreams for just over three years now.
For some basic background info, we are a gay male couple in a monogamous relationship in our late 20's/early 30's respectively, we do not live together (I live with my mother whom I take care of, he lives with his brother as a roommate since his parents recently relocated out of country).
Until last February I thought everything was going according to plan. There were talks of moving some things around in both of our lives and approaching moving in together at the start of 2014, sex was and always has been great and fairly frequent, we spend a healthy amount of time together and hadn't really ever experienced much problem just being around each other. Until January, when things became a little distant (mostly due to me being under incredibly pressure from work) - and then February, when my paranoia got the best of me and I went through his phone and found a couple of weeks worth of very explicit sexual communications and plans to meet up between he and 3 other men he had come into contact with via the same dating website we met through.
Things fell apart, for a bit. But we worked through them. We vacationed in paradise together in July, communication had improved. But by the beginning of August around the time of our three year anniversary, he confessed he was feeling distant again. He describes it as an 'emptiness'. It affects everything; not just us. He feels wary about life, becomes anxious over small details of existence. He promised he would not use this feeling to try and speak to other men again because he realizes this time around that it is an issue with life/stress in general and not solely based on any particular thing within our relationship - and I believe him. But my trust issues, they've grown in this time.
See, his parents live out of the country most of the time now, but when they come back, they come back for extended visits. And this extended visit happened to begin right around the time we were most deeply involved in repairing our relationship, which was around March, about a month after the "incident". His parents, not being comfortable with us or our relationship, effectively banned me from the house. The pressure of their visit and it making me unable to be around my boyfriend in what I thought of as this crucial time to mend our relationship really took a toll on me.
When they went away for a week (this past week; they arrived back today) we were supposed to spend time together both Friday and Saturday night; the first weekend we would have completely to ourselves in almost half a year.
I was excited, but he told me he had a business-related meeting he couldn't blow off on Friday night, so we would have to postpone. We exchanged some words, and he knew I was upset, but he convinced me he couldn't blow it off as he would be letting down quite a few people and might not have the opportunity again. I felt badly, and dropped the issue. Long story short, I later found out it was a regular old hangout night with the same people he goes out with every weekend, at the same bar they go to every weekend. I was very upset, but didn't want to bring it to his attention just yet. I decided to vent to a mutual friend and ask his advice; but this morning my boyfriend saw the text message I had sent to that friend. By the time I woke up, he was at the grocery store. When I texted to ask where he was, he replied only that he had packed my clothes for me and he would be taking me home as soon as he arrived back and that he didn't want to talk about it.
After dropping me off, he said only "We'll talk about it tomorrow." and drove away. The entire car ride was in silence before that.
So I'm here almost 8 hours later with my head spinning.
I've never really seen him this mad, and I'm not sure why. There are a lot of reasons, actually. In hindsight, I shouldn't have spoken to his friend about this. I only reached out because I wanted someone who knows both my boyfriend and myself well who could offer some insight. I also should not be going through his texts anymore (but does this cancel out, since obviously even though I've never spoken to another man [he once confessed to me shortly after we had decided to give things another try that he worried I might try to revenge-cheat on him] he also felt a need to go through mine?).
I feel like his making up a story about a meeting to cover up his regular hangout night with the guys means he doesn't find spending time with me to be very important, since time together for the last several months has been very hard to come by indeed. And my fear is that, if this is the case, maybe he just plain doesn't want to spend time with me. A relationship where one person doesn't feel a need to spend time around the other anymore can't survive.
What can I do? How can I convince him that I had only good intentions contacting our friend, and genuinely just needed advice?
I was not planning on throwing anything in my boyfriend's face or I would have done so simply with the knowledge of finding out that his meeting wasn't a meeting after all. I love him and I want to stay with him, he's just so hard to figure out sometimes...