boyfriend is lagging

okay so i know that my boyfriend gets busy and i am usually checking my phone ALL THE TIME. like i am just that kind of person. but sometimes my boyfriend doesn’t reply to me for a bit and it makes me sad. he lags a lot, and it makes me mad when he doesn’t reply for a long time. we text and stuff but he doesn’t text me as much as he used to. and it stresses me out and i worry that it’s a red flag, or if it’s my OCD telling me to worry about it. i am the kind of person to say “actions speak louder than words “ and ive said that to him multiple times and he says he’s gonna work on things. it’s not like he doesn’t text me AT ALL, he texts me good morning everyday it’s just the lagging that makes me upset. so, is it my OCD telling me to worry about it or is it actually a concern?

truetrev

Date posted: 9w

Sounds like the whole thing is a lot of ocd

Anonymous

Date posted: 9w

Even if it's not OCD, this sounds like anxious attachment style. It's the drive to feel anxious when there is no prompt reassurance no matter how fast or consistent the love is provided, the nervous system reacts to silence and delay as if it's an alarm. The parameter of the action being of concern requires more extreme is more like he doesn't text you for two weeks with poor excuse, dismissive apologies, refusing to communicate if they will or will not continue this level of distance. Why is anxious attachment versus discernment is because anxiety is hypervigilant in trying to read the room of all the wrong signs that may be happening instead of being aware of the good that's happening. If detectives can't quickly identify criminals with evidence, it's not or job nor skill to overcome hidden deceit if anyone is actually going to change their mind to care about you ahead of time and OCD is the worst detective relying on a magic eight ball formula to be right or not. Enjoy your time with and without him. Eventually the exposure will help sync up the nervous system that is okay when there's silence in between. Anxiety just has a bad habit of emotional permanence that love exists even in these gaps of time.

anonymousgal12

Date posted: 9w

@Anonymous just like i’ve brought it up to him multiple times about him lagging, he says he understands, then he does this again. i know he cares about me and he shows it, and when it’s good, it great. but when he gets like this i can hardly stand it and i just want to send him paragraphs upon paragraphs. sometimes when i am left hanging for a long time he is on other apps and texting his friends on Snapchat (i can see the score go up, meaning he is receiving and sending messages to his guy friends) and it just makes me sick. i don’t know how to overcome this, i really am having a hard time and it’s been so frustrating to deal with. i don’t want to break up, but i feel like i deserve better but at the same time he deserves to have his own time.

Anonymous

Date posted: 9w

@jilloatman12 It's really common for any relationship feeling that strain of distance yet those with anxious attachment tend to feel is more unbearable and themselves or that the other person are incapable of overcoming such delay let alone if it gets worse. It is a hard question to really sit in that silence to ask if you are settling where your values will ever be met or is it fear based fantasy. Because many relationships work out because both people are willing to work on it to make it work which can take years and it doesn't mean someone changes their actions either. It's a change internally whether you feel you can accept that or he feels he cannot accept delays, and the behaviors and mood may change that helps regulate either people's emotions and trust. It is hurtful to see comparisons in general, to oneself and the relationships because it's hard to clearly measure humans. I've noticed the difference with the friends and people I've dated is they don't talk about paragraph upon paragraph, they make it easy to chat because there's no intimacy between them so less emotional responsibility to the point they are just sending memes and shit talk each other. It's similar how I rarely talk with my bosses compared to coworkers even though I'm supposed to spend more time with my boss to help them as their secretary and do respect and even get along with my boss more. Yet it only works out if it works out. I don't do this to all my bosses as well as not all bosses accept that kind of treatment from their secretary. That's why comparing with humans isn't accurate and messy. Plus people change all the time. I hope that you'll be able to find your true conclusion as I've tried both methods of staying and leaving. There were pro and cons but it's the regret that hurts because I wasn't aware staying or leaving is about to choose because I knew what I want rather than what I think it could have been. OCD is about "what if he could be better, what if i could change, what if i can get a better person" while healthy relationships are "i know i no longer want to put on effort at this time to find other ways to communicate the way he could understand. I want someone already and will consistently be there for be even if it costs me to be alone. This is my deal breaker." Or "even if no person will or will not change, i will still find something to be anxious about so I accept that i may not change and chose this person as i want to be with them including their flaws. I can live with this duality" The hard part is with disorders and humans it is not easily distinguishable in stressful moments to choose which action and reaction. Nothing guarantees the results to change for better or worse. Like how sometimes my exes would totally change because I leave, not that I lost or won the relationships lottery, but they were traumatized or into that sort of urgency. Even then I didn't like it because their good side didn't last for me or the next person, or i felt disrespected as my value is to grow with the person during a relationships and not only when I'm on my deathbed moments. It's okay for some others yet for me I'd like roses even if it's a bit late while I'm alive and not weeks late or after I already left.

JazzyRoses

Date posted: 19w

Being Cheated On OCD

Hi everyone! I have been having a rough time. So my boyfriend talks to his ex still as friends and I’ve been struggling with it lately and I can’t tell if it’s OCD or not but it does feel so distressing. She wasn’t texting him for about 2-3 months as she got into a relationship with this guy and they broke up. She had messaged him saying that she has no one else to talk to and needed to vent to someone. At first I felt okay, but my intrusive thoughts took over and it seemed like she was trying to get with him after the fact. It’s probably just my intrusive thoughts talking but he looks on Discord (the app where the message) constantly now and my intrusive thoughts convince me that he’s still in love with her. Then yesterday I saw one of his BeReals (a little photo app that shows a photo of the day) and I saw that he was watching one of her streams as she is a streamer. I struggled to talk about it because it made my worst thought feel like it came true where he is still in love with her. When we talked he gets a lil mad that I don’t tell him right away like straight up what I’m feeling but it’s hard to process because my thoughts flood in of all the worst things and I don’t want to come off as toxic at all and I know relationships are built on trust and I want to trust because this is literally the only thing that makes me nervous about him. It also doesn’t help that I’ve been cheated on before so I’m trying to protect myself but I’m lost. I get so depressed and so anxious because I feel like I have to grieve the relationship and it’s just so dramatic. I’ve never loved anyone like this before and I don’t wanna lose him by bringing this stuff up constantly when something occurs with his ex. I don’t know why I get triggered so easily and I just wanna heal from it and be the good girlfriend I’m supposed to be 😭

Doopydoowa

Date posted: 10w

Please help-relationship advice

Hey everyone. I hope you all are doing okay. I’m currently struggling in the worse way I have through the course of my relationship. We are doing long distance right now, and I am unfortunately in the worse place I have been in. The uncertainty is absolutely unbearable. He is doing a cool new, consuming job 7 hours a way. He loves it, but I fear him loving the job so much that he stops caring about me. I have definitely noticed a shift in the amount of time he texts me and the energy he can give to the relationship. The job actually started off with 2 weeks of no phone. He has it again now though. We saw each other a couple of days ago in person for the last time we would in about two months. I was okayish when we were in person though I knew I would spiral later. And spiral I did. He left and I broke down. I am worried I will lose him. I start a really intensive EMT program in a week. It will be all-consuming for me. I can’t sleep very much and I don’t feel like eating. I know it’s pathetic. I am constantly consumed by these fears. I think I know what I need to do to combat them. Accept uncertainty but it feels like the possibly of it ending feels more real than ever. And I literally can NOT stop thinking about it. My brain feels in danger!!! I just worry that bad stuff is actually happening. I think we are going through a rough patch, but I also just feel more alone than ever. Drowning in my mind. What do I believe? I have a past of ocd, so it wouldn’t be surprised if it’s getting intertwined. Most people would say: it’s okay to ask him for reassurance about the relationship!!! But I feel like that’s the trap for me. I don’t know how to move forward. I know things are tough for us right now. But I’ve been floating back and forth on a spectrum of well maybe I just have trust to maybe this literally won’t work out!!! Texting and communicating over text is really hard for me. I am constantly analyzing it: how much energy is he giving? How much energy am I giving? Well I don’t want to do all the emotional labor, and be the main texter. But I also don’t care about texting that much and get exhausted with this back and forth.

Relationship OCD

emmypoem

Date posted: 6d

ld relationship is the worst

Right now, my boyfriend and I are going through a tough phase. I’ve always been very clingy and dependent — I know it, and so does he. It’s really important to me that he remembers this also makes me very vulnerable. I’m trying my best to work on this relationship, but along the way, I started to lose who I am. Meaning: I pushed away my friends, I stopped reading as much, and I’m not sleeping well, all so that we could spend more time together. In today’s conversation, he told me that he wants me to do things on my own — start writing again, reading, going out with friends. He said it’s healthy and good for me. And I agree, of course I do. But it’s the other things he said that hurt me: 1. He told me that his friends and I are on the same level in his priorities. 2. He said he’s okay with not texting me throughout the day, and okay if we talk less than three hours (we’re long-distance and only see each other once every few months). 3. He would spend time with his friends first, and only then talk to me — even when he knows I have to go to sleep soon because of work. (And even if I didn’t have work, why am I still at the end of his list?) 4. I got sick, and he didn’t text me during the day to ask how I was feeling — but he did go out with a friend. It’s killing me to see how he doesn’t seem to care about this relationship as much as I do. I just want to feel loved and cared about. And sometimes im feeling like im too harsh on him. He said that sometimes I make it hard for people to love me, because I focus too much on finding signs that they don’t. But I just know deep down, that he doesn't care Or maybe he does. And maybe this is not ocd, maybe it is, idk Im just very very sad bc of it and I needed to let it out.

Relationship OCD

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boyfriend is lagging

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