u/Flimsy_Weekend9907

tl;dr:I love my boyfriend but feel conflicted about emotional effort, communication, and whether our future together is right for me.

Me (f18) and my boyfriend (m19) have been together for two and a half years. He’s genuinely kind to me and loyal. It’s not that he doesn’t do anything at all we’ll go out for meals, go on walks, and I’ll get presents and cards for Christmas and birthdays.

But I think I’m struggling with the level of natural thoughtfulness and emotional effort in the relationship.

For example, the most he’ll usually do for special occasions is what I’ve either hinted at or directly mentioned beforehand. With birthdays especially, I often have to tell him exactly what I want because otherwise he says he doesn’t know what to get me. I understand not everyone is naturally good at gift giving, but it sometimes makes me feel like he doesn’t really know my interests or pay attention to the little things about me in the way I try to with him.

I also feel like a lot of romantic effort only really happens after I’ve brought things up. For example, Valentine’s Day has been difficult, last year he rushed to get something last minute after saying it was a “made up holiday,” and this year I had to bring it up myself before realising he hadn’t planned anything. He then ended up quickly getting flowers, chocolates, and a card on the day. I don’t want expensive or over the top things, it’s more the lack of planning or thought until I’ve said something that hurts.

I also notice a bit of an imbalance in effort overall. I’ll do small thoughtful things like staying up late to make him food because I know he likes it, or going out of my way to pick up things he needs, like L plates when he was learning to drive or a charger when his broke. I don’t do those things expecting anything back, but I guess I’ve started to feel like the effort isn’t always matched in the same way emotionally.

I don’t want to stop being kind or doing nice things for him because I do love him, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m always the one carrying the “thoughtfulness” side of the relationship.

I also feel unsure about the level of emotional support and communication in our relationship at times. While he does wish me well and is kind in many ways, I sometimes feel dismissed when I try to bring up serious conversations. For example, when I’ve tried to talk about my mental health or relationship concerns, he has occasionally responded by joking or not taking it seriously, which leaves me feeling like I’m not fully being heard. I know he may use humour to deal with uncomfortable situations, but for me it can make it harder to feel understood or supported when I’m trying to communicate something important.

At the same time, I keep feeling really conflicted about my future in general. I see a lot of content about women living alone in their 20s and it looks so peaceful and independent, and I think I crave that sense of calm too.

I can picture a future with my boyfriend marriage, living together, even kids,but he’s in the navy, so realistically I’d likely be on my own a lot of the time and potentially taking on most of the responsibility day to day. I also grew up watching my mum essentially become a single parent after my dad betrayed her badly, so I think that’s made me really cautious about ending up in a situation where I feel emotionally or practically alone in a relationship.

I also find myself doing this thing where I set little “timers” in my head, like if he doesn’t do something thoughtful in a certain amount of time I’ll leave, but in reality I don’t actually want to leave him.

I guess I just feel stuck between loving someone who is genuinely kind to me, but also questioning whether the emotional effort and future lifestyle is right for me long term.

Has anyone else experienced this feeling ? loving someone but still feeling unsure about whether the relationship dynamic and future is actually sustainable for you?

i’m so sick of my neighbours parking their cars in front of my house. They have a driveway where they could easily fit two cars plus their third one in front of the house which they also own.

No. They decide to park one of the drive and the rest all over the road.

Then comes the weekend. And apparently half the fucking country is their family cause the whole street ends up blocked with these huge SUVs.

Not only this but we end up being woken up at 12ish every Friday/weekend night by these family members leaving with their kids crying.

I’m not the only one bothered by this as i’ve spoke to neighbours and they expressed their annoyance about this too saying there’s nothing worse than coming home and not being able to park infront of your own house.

Also i realise you can get a dropped curb but im freshly 18 and can’t afford 1.5k for that PLUS a drive and im sure my parents have better things to spend their money on than this when neither of them drive so it will be useless after i move out.

Honestly idk what to do cause im tired of parking halfway down my street.

Recently I’ve been feeling really strange and I don’t know how to explain it properly. I know I’m real obviously, but I feel distant from my own life, like I’m disconnected or dissociated from everything around me.

For example, I’ll be at work doing my normal daily tasks, talking to people etc, but everything feels kind of foggy, distant and meaningless. It’s hard to describe. I keep thinking “this didn’t used to feel like this”.

I used to only get this feeling after drinking heavily because my hangovers are awful and seem to last nearly a week mentally. The weird thing is the only time I didn’t get it after drinking was when I’d eaten a huge meal beforehand and randomly drank green tea too lol.

But recently this feeling has started happening completely sober and constantly.

The timing lines up quite closely with my boyfriend joining the Royal Navy in November. At first everything was fine and he came home at Christmas, but around February things started affecting me emotionally more than I realised.

Nothing dramatic happened, but I started noticing his effort in the relationship didn’t really match mine. He’s nice to me and does the basics, but there’s very little thoughtfulness, romance or emotional effort unless I specifically ask for it.

For example, on Valentine’s Day he admitted he hadn’t got me anything because he “didn’t think about it early enough” (same thing happened the year before too). He did rush out later that day to buy flowers/chocolates/card after I mentioned I just wanted to feel appreciated, but it still upset me.

Straight after his passing out parade he had to leave again for another training base, and the whole weekend felt hectic and emotional.

A couple of weeks later I suddenly noticed this constant detached feeling and ever since then I’ve been hyper-aware of it every single day. Every morning before I open my eyes I genuinely wonder “will I feel normal today?”

I’ve even self-referred myself for talking therapies because I don’t know what to do. I originally even booked an eye test because I thought maybe it was something visual causing the distant feeling.

What confuses me is that I haven’t isolated myself or stopped living my life. I still work, see friends, bake, garden, shop, do crafts etc, so it’s not like I’m completely dependent on my boyfriend or sitting at home spiralling all day.

I just wanted to know if anyone else has experienced this “detached from reality” feeling from stress/anxiety/emotional overwhelm? Did it eventually go away?

Recently I’ve been feeling really strange and I don’t know how to explain it properly. I know I’m real obviously, but I feel distant from my own life, like I’m disconnected or dissociated from everything around me.

For example, I’ll be at work doing my normal daily tasks, talking to people etc, but everything feels kind of foggy, distant and meaningless. It’s hard to describe. I keep thinking “this didn’t used to feel like this”.

I used to only get this feeling after drinking heavily because my hangovers are awful and seem to last nearly a week mentally. The weird thing is the only time I didn’t get it after drinking was when I’d eaten a huge meal beforehand and randomly drank green tea too lol.

But recently this feeling has started happening completely sober and constantly.

The timing lines up quite closely with my boyfriend joining the Royal Navy in November. At first everything was fine and he came home at Christmas, but around February things started affecting me emotionally more than I realised.

Nothing dramatic happened, but I started noticing his effort in the relationship didn’t really match mine. He’s nice to me and does the basics, but there’s very little thoughtfulness, romance or emotional effort unless I specifically ask for it.

For example, on Valentine’s Day he admitted he hadn’t got me anything because he “didn’t think about it early enough” (same thing happened the year before too). He did rush out later that day to buy flowers/chocolates/card after I mentioned I just wanted to feel appreciated, but it still upset me.

Straight after his passing out parade he had to leave again for another training base, and the whole weekend felt hectic and emotional.

A couple of weeks later I suddenly noticed this constant detached feeling and ever since then I’ve been hyper-aware of it every single day. Every morning before I open my eyes I genuinely wonder “will I feel normal today?”

I’ve even self-referred myself for talking therapies because I don’t know what to do. I originally even booked an eye test because I thought maybe it was something visual causing the distant feeling.

What confuses me is that I haven’t isolated myself or stopped living my life. I still work, see friends, bake, garden, shop, do crafts etc, so it’s not like I’m completely dependent on my boyfriend or sitting at home spiralling all day.

I just wanted to know if anyone else has experienced this “detached from reality” feeling from stress/anxiety/emotional overwhelm? Did it eventually go away?

i need a reddit title for a post for this: Does anyone else get confused or annoyed when people ask them why they’re upset when they’re just resting their face?

For example,at work my colleagues will ask me why i’m sad or upset when i’m just not busy and sat daydreaming and my face is just resting. I don’t know what they expect me to do?Smile 24/7😭

I work in a nail salon and the longer I’ve worked there the more I realise how insane some of it actually is.

After I finished college I started working basically full time during my gap year, around 45 hours a week. I agreed that I was happy to continue training while working, but suddenly I was being paid about £2.50 less per hour than I should’ve been because they basically claimed it was “like an apprenticeship.” Except no apprenticeship paperwork was EVER done, no forms, nothing official at all.

My manager’s husband also has a really bad temper. One time he got angry and literally threw a pot of chrome powder across the reception desk. He’s constantly getting visibly annoyed at customers if they request things.

There are also cameras all over the salon that record sound too, which I’m pretty sure isn’t even legal here in the UK unless employees are properly informed.

The atmosphere is also just weirdly isolating sometimes. Most of the staff are actually nice enough and can speak English well enough to have conversations, so it’s not really a language barrier issue. But a lot of the time everyone will sit talking with each other all day and I just won’t be spoken to unless someone needs me to do something, and even then it sounds more like an order than normal conversation.

The only time it feels more relaxed is Saturdays when another English girl is working because she’ll actually chat with me normally. It’s mainly my manager and her husband, who create the hostile atmosphere. They constantly seem annoyed or irritated even when nobody’s done anything wrong.

One thing that really confuses me is how the behaviour switches. Every few weeks it’s like they suddenly become completely normal for a short period of time, they’ll be nice, talk to me properly, act friendly for a day or even a week,and then it goes straight back to being cold or hostile again. It makes it really hard to understand what I’m even doing wrong, because it feels inconsistent and unpredictable.

The communication is also really strange. For example, when I’m trying to take payments I’ll ask something simple like “how much were this client’s nails (manager’s name)” so I can charge them properly, and my manager will literally just ignore me. Not even like she didn’t hear me,I’m standing right next to her and she clearly hears me , she just won’t respond at all. Then I end up stuck waiting while trying to do my job properly.

The worst part is management never defends staff. At Christmas one regular customer spent nearly TWO HOURS repeatedly telling me to “smile love” every single time she walked past me while I was already stressed running around helping everyone. It got to the point I ended up crying at reception and nobody stepped in.

Another time a customer got annoyed because I forgot to mention her partner’s coffee would cost extra. Meanwhile regular customers’ husbands had literally been given free coffees before, so the rules clearly just change depending on the person.

One of the newer girls got publicly humiliated by a customer because one nail tip went on slightly wonky. The customer loudly said “No, take it off” and then “Someone else do my nails, she’s TOO SLOW.” Instead of backing the employee, my manager immediately rushed over to “fix” it in front of everyone.

The thing that frustrates me most is the lack of proper training. They had everyone else trained on BIAB except me. I only tried it first on my mum after asking permission. Apparently I did a good job because the next thing I knew I was being asked to do BIAB infills on actual clients with basically no training.

At first they praised me loads, took me out for dinner, kept saying things like “I don’t know what you are but you’re not human” because apparently I picked it up really quickly. Obviously I was proud of myself because I genuinely was trying hard. Then once it got busy after Christmas and we were understaffed, suddenly every time my manager looked at my work she’d sigh in Vietnamese and take over halfway through instead of actually teaching me what I was doing wrong. Like sorry I can’t perform at the level of someone with 10 years experience after 2 months?

They also only take cash payments and openly make jokes about tax evasion. One time my manager literally said “the tax people only care about big companies, not businesses like ours.”

And despite working 45 hour weeks, I’m apparently not allowed more than 10 days holiday a year, while family members of the owners can disappear abroad for months.

I’m leaving in a few months to start nursing and honestly I cannot wait to get out.

My boyfriend is joining the Royal Navy and I’m curious about how common cheating actually is during deployments/port visits.

I know cheating is ultimately down to the person, not the job, and if someone’s going to cheat they probably would anywhere. But I’ve seen a lot of stories online about strip clubs, hookups in ports, “what happens on deployment stays on deployment” culture etc.

I’m especially curious about whether there’s actually pressure to join in when groups go out together, even from people who normally wouldn’t. Have any partners or serving/ex-serving people experienced this? Is the internet exaggerating it or is it genuinely common?

Not looking to bash the navy or accuse my boyfriend of anything just trying to get realistic perspectives because social media makes it sound terrifying sometimes.

Hi everyone, i was recently invited to a house party. I was added to a group-chat and i didn’t mention anything to my girlfriend although i was going to before i went. I initially didn’t say anything cause when we’d gone out with our friends before she had been quite clingy but not overly she would just spend some time with me and then also with her friends.

About a week before the party one of her friends was added to the group chat as the girl who was hosting it was open to more people coming.

I thought that if my girlfriend’s friend was in the groupchat she would make my girlfriend aware of me going. Apparently this was not the case.

Fast forward to the night of the party and i still hadn’t mentioned it to my girlfriend. We share our locations so when she had seen that i was at some random house she asked what i was up to. I told her where i was and she got upset with me saying why didn’t i mention anything to her and why i hid it from her. I didn’t want to admit that i felt like she had been too clingy before so i just said that i thought her friend had mentioned it to her as she was in the group chat.

Anyways we’re currently not on speaking terms as she felt like there was more to this especially since i had been in this group chat for a few weeks prior and she also said i had multiple occasions where i could have told her about it or even invited her.

Idk what to do… am i in the wrong?

My boyfriend joined the Navy and I’m struggling to work out whether what I’m feeling is “normal military relationship stress” or if there are underlying relationship issues that the Navy lifestyle is just making more obvious.

I genuinely love him a lot, which is why I almost feel guilty even writing this, because I don’t want to seem unsupportive or like I’m trying to pressure/rush our relationship. We’re still young. But at the same time, I also don’t want to blindly ignore concerns and only think about these things years down the line when bigger commitments (living together/kids etc) are involved.

Before he joined, we already had some issues around communication and emotional effort. For example, he made the decision to join pretty suddenly after we’d already been together over a year, said we’d properly sit down and talk about it, but then never really did. Since then, I feel like our whole relationship revolves around the Navy and his schedule/availability.

I also struggle with trust sometimes. I’ve never caught him physically cheating, but I found Tinder in his deleted apps before and he said it was because his friend used it on his phone. I’ve also found certain things online that made me uncomfortable. What makes it harder is that when I question things or try to communicate worries, he tends to get defensive or annoyed instead of reassuring me calmly, which makes me overthink more.

Another issue is emotional effort/romance. He’s affectionate physically and compliments me etc, but he doesn’t naturally do thoughtful things unless I ask. Even on Valentine’s Day this year, he admitted he didn’t think about doing anything for me at all because it was around his passing out. I know that sounds small, but it hurt because I’ve explained before that little thoughtful gestures mean a lot to me, and I’d already had to practically beg for effort the previous year too.

I think part of my anxiety is also about the future. He wants kids eventually, and I know military families make it work all the time, but I’m also going into a demanding medical career myself. Sometimes I get scared that military life will eventually leave me carrying most of the childcare, household responsibilities and emotional labour alone while also trying to work.

He says that once training is over he should mostly be able to come home at night apart from duty/deployments etc, so in theory we’d still have a fairly “normal” relationship. But then we’ve also spoken about settling down somewhere long term, and I keep thinking about what happens if he gets moved to a completely different base somewhere else in the UK. If we had a house somewhere and he got drafted elsewhere, we could suddenly end up barely seeing each other anyway.

He’s also mentioned me moving around with him if needed, but honestly I think that would stress me out a lot. I don’t want to build my entire life around constantly following somebody else’s career. I’ll have my own career, friends, routines and life too, and I think I’d end up resenting the situation if I felt like I was expected to uproot everything whenever the Navy moved him.

I know support systems/nannies/family help exist, and part of me genuinely likes the idea of being very home/family-oriented one day, but realistically with the economy now I can’t imagine how difficult one-income households might become in the future either.

I think what I’m struggling with most is the feeling that I’m constantly adapting to his life/career while my own emotional needs end up pushed aside. I don’t know whether I’m overthinking and catastrophising because military life is intimidating, or whether these are valid compatibility concerns that I shouldn’t ignore.

I’m not looking for “just break up” comments. I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from people who’ve been in military relationships or recognise this kind of dynamic. How do you tell the difference between military life simply being difficult vs someone genuinely not meeting your emotional needs properly?