Oh my, what shall I do?

[Els]

Summary: The bf is back in my country for these three months. He spent two with me and returned to spend one in his parents' state (still in my country, but a 6-hour bus ride away).

 

Now, I'd been bugging him to book his tickets early so that he could stopover at my place before flying off to NZ when term begins. We'd had quite a few bad experiences before with late flight tickets, being unable to get flight tickets, etc etc, so I was trying to prevent that.

 

He kept telling me not to worry, he would settle it, I worry too much about him. To be fair to him, though, he had been incredibly busy with summer internship, and his family, friends, and relatives in his parents' state. But yesterday I had a really bad feeling about it, so I looked up the flights (it was already too late to take a direct flight, so I had to get a roundabout one with a few stops) and emailed a few potential itineraries to him.

 

Today, he informed me that his mother had already booked his tickets without his knowledge while he had been at his internship during the day. Apparently she checked the flights, freaked out at there being no flights available, and booked one with no stopover at my place! If I don't see him before he flies off, the earliest possible time I could see him again would be in 4 months' time. And even that is no guarantee.

 

And then, before I could freak out on him with the 'I told you so' mantra, he told me that since he had 2 days between the end of his internship and his flight, he would take a 6-hour bus down, spend the night with me, and then take a 6-hour bus back.

 

Well, that certainly did the trick, because I can't exactly bear to be harsh to a guy who'd just shown that he was completely willing to take a 12-hour round trip to spend a night with me!

 

But still.. it is a recurring problem. Every time he tells me I shouldn't worry, I'm only burdening him by worrying about his problems, but my lack of early intervention has proven detrimental many times, including this time.

 

Also, this trip to see me isn't guaranteed. His mother might throw a fuss and guilt-trip him into spending his last two days with the family (even though his father will have left on a business trip by then).

 

Also, I'd planned to have a serious talk with him about a few longterm problems in our relationship, the day before he left (I'd planned a two-night stopover). But now, I really don't feel like I should do it, since we'd only have one night together and he would have travelled all the way... only to be greeted by a relationship-talk?! (which he, oh typical caveman, fears and tries to avoid as much as possible)

 

Should I just do the talk long-distance and save that one night for unblemished intimacy and passion? The issues aren't really fatal, but they should be addressed sometime.

 

Should I tell him 'see, this is why you should let me worry about your problems' regardless, or just tell him how touched I am that he would put up with the 6-hour ride just to come and see me for a night?

 

No, he can't fly here and back for several reasons, mostly financial.

[Els]

Oh yes, and if you only had one night (well, evening, night, and the next morning...) with an SO in between months of absence, what would you spend the time doing? Besides sex and cuddling, of course.

[Ronni_W]

Elswyth,

No - I wouldn't recommend any version of "I told you so." We (women) hate to hear it and they (men) hate to hear it even more. It just makes one feel completely incompetent, useless, inadequate and like a little kid.

 

Any chance that you can do the round-trip bus ride? Ask if he can share the cost of a 2-night hotel/motel stay?

 

One problem of doing serious-difficult relationship conversations over the phone is you can't be sure that you have your conversation partner's undivided attention, you can't see each other's smiles and fears, and you can't give or receive hugs and comfort at the times they will be needed.

Er...okay so, three of the problems of not doing it in person

 

If at all possible, you may want to consider leaving it until you see him in about 4 months -- if you can't swing going to spend the 2 (or more?) nights with him.

 

It's tough no matter how you look at it. I hope you guys will come up with something that works well for both of you.

[Els]

Ugh, I'm not sure if this happened to anyone else, but LS seemed to crash when I was submitting my post (and remained down for like 6 hours...), so I'll retype a short summary.

 

I can't go to him for various reasons.

 

I agree that using Skype for serious conversations isn't the best for the reasons you listed, sigh. However, it still is possible, and we've sorta gotten used to it since we'd been 6 months apart the last time. Whereas, surely I don't want to spoil the last night of intimacy that we may have in God knows how long? Besides, it's completely impossible to do that online instead.

 

However, the issues really are rather important. But I suppose instead of taking the easy way out and doing it IRL, we should learn how to talk them over as well as we can online as well? We certainly have improved since we started on our LDR, and that certainly didn't come from keeping all of them to blurt out only when we meet each other - and considering how 'often' we meet each other, keeping all of it in til then would probably result in colossally miserable meetings.

[Finissima]

The "I told you so" doesn't really work...because there's nothing he can do now. But I know it's frustrating when you want to plan in advance and he doesn't...especially when the result of your planning is good for both of you. Honestly, I find I have this problem with my bf too...after the fact nagging doesn't work, but if you can, push harder at the actual time you want to make that decision. Try to get him to take action on whatever it is while you are talking on the phone/Skype/whatever...be like "ok well now that we've talked about this, why don't you just do it now while it's all in your head?"...that way he can't go off and then not do anything and have situations where his mom books the flights instead! He should want to minimize your worrying - tell him this will do that!

 

Honestly...if I only had one night...I wouldn't bring up the problems at all. I feel personally that if visits are so far apart...it is important for the relationship to make them as happy and special as possible. Especially if these are large issues that are unlikely to be resolved in a night, you and he both might walk away from the visit with a bitter feeling that will affect the long distance part of the relationship. This visit needs to get you feeling good for the 6 months ahead! Try to just enjoy the night and unfortunately, I think you are going to need to address them long distance.

 

You could let him know after the visit, when you are back to long distance, that there are some things you need to talk about and maybe send him an e-mail with kind of an outline of what the problems are, and then plan to talk later that day/night? That way he can look at the email, see your issues, think about anything he has to say or wants to bring up about them, and then you can talk about them more calmly maybe. This way too you dont have to get worried that you will blurt something out that is hurtful or whatever - I find this is way easier to do when you are not physically with the person, unfortunately.

 

That's my suggestion...

[Els]

Thanks! Yes, that was exactly what I had planned, heh. Complete with the email thing and such. That always has the benefit of irking him less - but he doesn't usually respond as much as he does when I'm talking in real-time. Instead, there will just be one response to the whole thing.

[Els]

Just to provide more detail..

 

The main issue that I want to talk about (and that has been bugging me) is really a huge argument that we had a few days before he left the last time he was at my place. On that day, he basically said in a fit of anger that our living styles were just incompatible and that this just wasn't going to work (refer to my 'living together' post - we were in a small room together for 2 months). He apologized on that day itself, and took back many of the things that he said... but I guess I don't trust that he doesn't completely mean it, because some of our 'resolved' arguments have come back to haunt us before. Also, it just... still hurts.

 

But sometimes I wonder if I really should bring it up since it was almost a month ago, and he had already apologized and said that he didn't mean it shortly after the argument.

 

But then I wonder if I could truly enjoy our time together with this at the back of my head. Maybe I should just email him before he visits? But he's so very busy now, he might not even have the time to read and respond properly before the visit.

 

But then (heh, bear with me), I figure that what I truly need is reassurance that he actually does want to be in this, that he's willing to fight for our relationship and isn't just ready to drop us like hot coal. Yet, shouldn't the mere act of him coming be reassurance enough? He's taking the only two free days of his time there, not to go out with old friends, but to make the long trip to me to see me before he leaves.

 

Tentative date of visit is in 4 days. I confuddle myself sometimes.

Edited February 20, 2010 by Elswyth

[hats]

This is just my point of view, coming from a guy's perspective, so I guess it's a little baised but...

 

I think it would be better if you just don't try to intervene and accept that sometimes he'll screw up. Don't try so hard to control everything and just go with the flow, and maybe you'll find that you'll both enjoy the relationship more. If your bf is willing to take a 12 hour drive to see you I'd say that he definitely values the relationship. Try to be more trusting of him, and he'll love you even more for taking some of the pressure off him. Guys don't have a lot of emotional needs, all they really want is a girl who believes in them.

[Els]

Thanks for your POV, hats.

 

The thing is, he would not even have to make the 12 hour round trip if he had booked the tickets earlier. And this isn't even for certain - he may not be able to come, depending on his family.

 

And the last time he booked tickets late, we lost 1.5 weeks of time together (in LDRs, time is extremely precious)

 

And the time before that when he booked tickets late, we nearly lost a week of time, but fortunately there was a travel agency willing to accommodate for a higher price.

 

It's not really a one-time thing. For someone who learns amazingly well from many of his mistakes, he's amazingly stubborn in other ways.