u/AdSweet662

To cut to the chase, my boyfriend of about 5 months has a communication problem. As in I can text him over and over and I won’t receive a reply for weeks. I’ll text him a “good morning” and a “how are you” maybe once per day, when that wasn’t working, I tried to start up a conversation by asking absurd questions to simply get a “wtf” from him but again, nothing. The only way I can get him to respond is by confronting him. To be honest, this annoys the shit out of me because I feel discarded and ignored when he does this but on the other hand I know he doesn’t try to do it and he has some personal reasons for doing it which he has told me which has made me believe he’s more avoidant attachment but still.

I have talked to him about this and afterwards he actually responds but it only lasts a few days. I’ve tried asking if he needs space or if I’m bombarding him but he’s said no. I don’t know what he wants me to do or what I’m doing wrong. I’m just lost, love is hard

The title kinda says it all. I feel this constant self imposed need to be this perfect beacon of goodness to people because I’m terrified of hurting them to the point I feel like I’m lying or manipulating them into feeling bad for me accidentally which makes me feel worse then when I ask them their thoughts on what I could do better, they just smile, nod and say “nothing” and the cycle continues over and over until I’m in my room at 3am overthinking everything. This becomes especially apparent with my boyfriend who has a habit of only texting me back 10% of the time so I feel like I’m not doing enough and I want to do more but he won’t tell me what more I can do whilst I’m constantly telling him to communicate his feelings with me and set boundaries because I’m terrified of crossing them and potentially causing him to leave.

I fucking hate this. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Then there’s my god forsaken need to psychologically analyse people. Whenever someone tells me what’s going on, I think telling them specifically what caused their problem and that it’s not their fault (because it’s usually not) will help them feel better but I feel awful afterwards because I think I come across like I’m treating them more like patients or subjects. And I have this constant need for attention and this feeling that people need to bend over backwards and hang out with me which I luckily suppress (the latter) because that is awful to think about other people yet in the back of my mind I think “I deserve it because\_\_\_” which sounds more like a spoilt kid talking in comparison to anything else.

I just…I don’t know. I know what’s wrong with me. I know what I need to do to fix it and better myself. But no matter what I do, I always go back to my bad habits.