I am glad he called!

"Long and short, this resulted from his failure to communicate."

But do you see that you are at least 50% responsible for the failure to communicate? Again you are putting the blame on him. You know how he is, why attribute him not calling as often as you think he should ...to "rejection of you", though it would be easy to do that.

Please:

Call him more to make communication easier with him, he has a weird job with strange hours and is often tired, so in this case, both of you have to make more of an effort to communicate. He cant always have that communication responsibility/burden.

Dont worry if he does not call you for a week. If you start to worry if he is OK, then you two can develop a s"ystem of you calling a special number or a secret ringtone" in order to touch base.

Keep learning and strengthing your self confidence honey. Good luck!

Let me explain a bit furthur.

IF you are conducting the communication in the relationship this way, by letting him do all of the calling,, initiating, etc, then it will be UNUSUAL to YOU and to HIM if YOU FINALLY BREAK DOWN AND CALL HIM>

So, it is better to share the calling and initiating together so that when you call him it is NOT CONSIDERED SOME BIG AND RARE DEAL.

After all, if you are married, you both will have to share the communications equally. Why FAKE it (and hold back on calling him) now during dating just to MANIPULATE him into chasing you.

People see thru all those games and see red flags.

This counselor telling you not to initiate calls to him. Well, I would go one better. She should tell you to get some inner self confidence and then any " holding back on calling... games" are no longer needed.

It appears to me that one of the problems here is how you felt when not hearing from him in the time you expected to. Your assumption was that he'd decided to dump you without so much as a word. While you gave some thought to his work obligations your feelings of insecurity lead you to take the leap that he'd decided against continuing your relationship.

Whether this feeling comes to you based on previous experience or on how you feel in this relationship is what you need to concentrate on understanding.

You're getting good advice. I urge you to step back and realize this 'problem' is ALL your doing. Not his. He is living life the way he thinks it's supposed to be; the way he is comfortable. I see a lot of frustration ahead, if you keep on thinking the way he is doing things is wrong, and the way you do things is right.

Really, that is what you are saying. From his side of the fence, you're probably starting to look like more trouble than you're worth.

Seriously, if you can't handle the slow, easy pace he takes, you might as well just get out now. He's happy with it, or he wouldn't be doing it. You sound like one of the infamous women who loves her man - as long as she can change him into the way she wants him to be. Not happening.

And this:
you need to sit down and wrestle with. Big time.

He has done nothing wrong. He has not participated in your relationship the way YOU think it is supposed to be, using YOUR level of contact considered acceptable (not his level, obviously). Nothing more, nothing less. Like I said, if you can't deal with his take on things, you might as well just spare the both of you the agony I see ahead.

And look at getting a good IC to find out about all your issues of abandonment. No matter who you date, it will continue to rear its ugly head until you address it.

On the other hand, there are those who say if contact gets more and more infrequent then "He's just not that into you."

During the dating phase you are supposed to be on your best behavior. Is this is as good as he can do?

Well, I kind of get the idea that he may not really care if he has a relationship (nothing personal). He seems to like to be on his own, so I would imagine a relationship means work to him, something out of his comfort zone. So he may just not want to be working that hard right now, and is trying to show her that.

I am taking on all your advice and suggestions. First off, I need to let you all know one VERY good thing....the snarky text I sent him that made me sound so needy never got to him and he has no idea I sent it! I do not have him loaded in the address book on my phone and have to enter his number manually each time. Turns out I sent the snarky text to the wrong number because I transposed numbers!

I think catperson has come close to hitting the nail on the head. Boyfriend was married for 10 years. Somewhere between 7 and 8 years into the marriage, he started a new job that is much more time consuming and difficult on the system because he switches from days to nights every other month. His wife filed for divorce 2-3 years after he started the new job saying they never see each other anymore. He then dated/lived with a girl for 3 years. She broke up with him to go back to an ex-boyfriend. It seems he does not like to communicate much by phone/text/e-mail and I suspect this was a problem in his marriage and other relationship. Last week, when we talked, he said that he doesn't see a need to keep in contact that way unless there's something to say. I guess what I'm getting at is M not meeting emotional needs...and, perhaps, just not being capable of doing so. I can't tell whether its that or if he's just lost/losing interest.

I do have a very good counselor - he was XH's IC, XH's and my MC and my IC after the divorce. He knows my entire history. Had a session with my counselor last Thursday. All of my past relationships took off very fast and were very intense from the outset. They were the kind where we were communicating multiple times daily, joined at the hip, etc. My counselor suggested that from this, I subconciously developed the belief that contact = security and, when my current BF doesn't make contact I feel insecure. He asked about the content of BF's and my texts and phone conversations vs. our in-person conversations. From that, he suggested that, because of my negative past experiences, I view the texts and phone conversations as a gauge of the health of the relationship. No contact = no interest. In my past and, with most BF's, a decrease in contact meant the guy was doing the slow fade or poofing. BF has done this twice now and it hasn't meant the slow fade or that he's poofing. My counselor also said that M has told me how he thinks and that its very matter of fact and his contact or lack thereof for a period of time is not an indication of his feelings for me. In fact, counselor thinks the rest of BF's actions indicate that he does feel strongly toward me. He thinks that BF is very black and white and is the type of guy that would tell me if his feelings changed and suggested that, for this specific guy, I should assume he does care until he tells me otherwise. If I do so, it then allows me to look at the frequency of his contacts not from a relationship health perspective but from a "in a long term, committed relationship how comfortable am I with that? He then likened it to an airline pilot I was engaged to and lived with. I knew I was in a committed relationship, when he would go off on trips, I would not hear from him the entire time he was gone. How did I feel then? Did this bother me? I was surprised at this analogy because that was one of the things I liked about the airline pilot - we would go off and do our own thing without it affecting the relationship. In fact, it added to the relationship because it gave us each alone time to appreciate the together time.

My counselor thinks the pace of my relationship with my current M is good because I am learning that "slow is good." In my previous relationships, because of the speed at which the relationship became intense, my infatuation and the emotional high, I would not take the time to look at the M's character, personalities, traits, etc. I could not quantify what it was that attracted me to them or what made me love them. Often times, the things I did not take the time to look at in the beginning of the relationship often resulted in their demise later on either because when I finally saw the things I did not like, I would try and change them and couldn't or because what initially was appealing to me - the intense closeness - would eventually cause me to feel smothered.


Right now, I don't know that BF thinks I am more trouble than I am worth. We have only had two discussions like this - one when I asked him to take down his online profile if we are going to be in an exclusive relationship and the other last week about more contact. I haven't heard from his since last Thursday morning when I left his house. Sent him a text Saturday night telling him a bottle of wine he gave me was really nice and asking how his evening was going. Didn't hear back and haven't pushed it any further. We are now on Day 4 since I left his house and last connected up with him by phone, text or otherwise. We are supposed to go on vacation together in two weeks and he has not said anything about not going.

Right now, I am just playing a waiting game. If he contacts me I will have to take it from there. If he doesn't, I will move on.

I think he sounds fine. He sounds sure of himself, comfortable with himself, and probably a pretty smart guy. Dependable in all other aspects. As long as you can become comfortable with his style, you should be fine togeether.

Even going 4 and 5 days without touching base? Especially, after I told him I would like more frequent contact? I'm sitting here thinking he's doing the slow fade....

It is entirely possible that for him, 4-5 days isn't too long to go without contact. However, it seems it is too long for you. Unlike your counsellor, I don't think that's something you need to work on at all. I wouldn't like 4-5 days without contact either. You have no stake in this guy. Perhaps it's time to move on?

Haven't heard from BF in 4 days. Sent him a text asking if he is working tonight and if he has time for a chat. No response.

Clearly it bothers you that he hasn't been in touch. It doesn't matter if it's fine for him, he's not in this relationship alone. Nobody is at fault, you just have different needs. If you're left feeling insecure and without having your needs met you can probably expect more of the same in the future. It's up to you to decide if you can live what you actually have not what you'd like to have.

At this point, I don't think its about what I want or need anymore. It appears that M did not have the character and integrity to tell me he was no longer interested and, instead, has done a disappearing act on me. Real nice. NOT.

I suspect its a perception of a socio economic class difference. . the clue was the feeling of uncomfortableness in your house. . .

it was good practice. . . and a good learning experience.

wiftty

Did he call you yet?

Brit,

You mentioned BF the other day when talking to Seabird about the bike ride.

Is this the same BF or a new one?

I'm in a similar situation and I'm very curious as to the outcome on yours.

Oh, yeah... That's right. What's the status BB? Did you guys make the team ride in Sealy last week? I have my kids this weekend, so unless I find someone to watch them (long odds), I will miss the Cat Springs ride. I'm really disappointed as I hear it's beautiful.