A lady, 30, who is dating a 36 years old man wants to know if her boyfriend is living double live before she makes a decision to end their relationship
My boyfriend and I have been together for 8 months. We live a little over an hour away from each other. He is very much intertwined in my life. Me on the other hand, I am not.
When we first started dating, we went on a few dates. After that, we mostly hung out at my place. Because we live a bit far away and both have jobs with very early schedules (we both have to wake up around 4 AM) we never see each other during the week. Only weekends. However, I feel as though there are ample opportunities for us to see each other during the week.
I’ve told him numerous times that I am ok with him bringing his dog to my place. He says he cannot, because of my large puppy and that he does not feel comfortable with his dog around my dog. He also uses our schedules as an excuse for never seeing me during the week. But, often times, his work sites are much closer to me than they are to him. He could easily spend work week evenings with me and have a short drive to work instead of over an hour. His dog is very old and barely moves, and I could easily keep him in my extra bedroom in a play pen.
Not only that, he always leaves his dog alone for days at a time and he’s always at my place. I’ve only been to his place a few times. He has a bedroom that he keeps locked and won’t let me go into. He also stopped hanging out with me for the whole weekend at a time and we now only see each other Saturday evenings, with him leaving in the early afternoon on Sundays.
Seeing my partner four times a month just isn’t enough for me. I’ve expressed this and his response is usually, “yeah I know it sucks. One day….”.
He is always unavailable on Fridays. He claims he is working every Saturday, but he texts me early when he wakes up every morning during the week (when he does get up early) but never on these Saturdays. On Saturdays I get no morning texts at all, until it’s near noon.
Another issue I’ve brought up is that I am the one to always put effort into the relationship. He is not matching the effort. I’m always the one responsible for our good mood, our food, etc. he does not take me on dates. I’ve expressed this a few weeks ago and also the fact that I’m never at his place. When I expressed that he should take me on a date, he brought up the fact that he already did for my birthday. My birthday was two months ago. And for half of my birthday, I took us out and created the atmosphere.
He then came up with a solution: we can go on a date for dinner out of state. I asked, why would we drive three hours out of state for dinner to a basic steakhouse? His response: “ok, I tried”. I felt like he set up an unnatainable date idea that would take extensive planning and scheduling on purpose, as a manipulation room and as weaponized incompetency. I told him if he thinks this is “trying”, we are going to have some issues.
After that, he took me to a small local joint for dinner. He gave me the silent treatment. We sat awkwardly at the restaurant with him glaring at me. I had to initiate the conversation about his behavior. When I did, he ignored what I said and told me I arrived to his place and “didn’t even say anything to him”. I did though. And I gave him a long hug. I then expressed that unless everything is jolly and perfect, and unless I make it jolly and perfect, are we not going to have a good day? Why is our mood always up to me? I expressed that the only reason we do have a good relationship is because of my efforts.
There are other weird instances with money too. I’m always the one spending it. He’s invited me to an out of state trip far away for an all day event he wanted to go to. I had to look up the hotel and pay for it, he said he trusts my judgement and would not respond to me when I asked if he’d like to split the hotel costs. During this date, he told me he never wanted to get a hotel (which was inexpensive and humble, by the way) and that he wanted to drive four hours to the event, stay there for 8 hours, and drive four hours back. When he told me he prepped snacks for this event for all day, he actually only got cookies and I had to pack the rest of the food for us. Also, he decided late at night that he wanted to leave for the trip an hour earlier than planned and also woke me up at 2 AM to get intimate. I got no sleep that night.
Overall, he cannot take charge, cannot initiate, cannot plan. It is all up to me.
Regarding the double life, I recently (finally) spent time at his place. I noticed that he had *orn magazines right next to his bed, a huge stack of them, and I felt super uncomfortable and ended up going to sleep on the couch. He claimed “I see you’re done with me” and went back to bed. When I went back to his bed a half hour later, he had his glasses on and his phone out, and he was errect. I asked him why he’s turned on in the moment and he said it’s because I came back into the room, but it was clear to me that he was watching *orn.
Now, his texting style has completely changed. I no longer get goodnight texts. Last evening, he said he took a nap earlier so he probably won’t be falling asleep any time soon. I responded immediately after, but he didn’t text back for the rest of the night.
If I am not giddy and jolly, or if I express any of my concerns or things going on in my life, he will often change his tone and bring the conversation back to something sexual.
Before me, this man was single for a very long time, despite claiming he was in a relationship the year prior. I met him through a friend and I know he was single, or at least in nothing serious.
At this point, I don’t think he actually likes me, or loves me, I think he likes having someone to vent to, to cater to him, and to use for intimacy. I feel as though I’m in a situationship rather than a relationship, and I think he may have something else going on, on the side, given that he is always busy Fridays, always “working” Saturdays, and will not text me the way he usually does on those days.
I also believe he is manipulative with his behavior. If I express my feelings, I am given a silent treatment or a different mood. He is quite different from the man he was showing in the beginning. I think he didn’t want me to see too much of him, and now that I have, his mood about the relationship has gone down.
This coming weekend, he is taking me to a concert that he wants to go to. It is actually on a Friday. But he expressed that he has an event that he has to go to early Sunday morning. In other words, he’ll leave around noon on Saturday. For someone that doesn’t have many friends, he is sure has a lot of events to go to half the weekend.
TDRL: I think my boyfriend is living a double live and uses manipulation tactics to not put any effort into the relationship. Is it time to end it?
