AITBF for thinking my boyfriend is cheating on me
I (18M) have been dating my boyfriend for a little over a year now, and for context, we share our locations with each other because we both agreed it helped keep things open and transparent.
Recently, I lost my job at Amazon after only being there for about a month. After that happened, he got really upset and started acting like I “can’t hold a job,” even though the job I had before Amazon lasted almost two years. Since then, things have just felt… different.
He told me he needed space and time to himself, and honestly I didn’t really know how to handle that. I tried to respect it by backing off and not messaging him much, but after about three days of barely hearing from him, I started getting really anxious and paranoid, so I reached out. He told me he just needed until the next day.
The next day came around and things seemed okay at first, but after that his behavior completely changed. His responses became super short and emotionless, or he’d just ignore my texts for hours. Whenever I call him, it either goes straight to voicemail or he says, “I’ll call you back later,” and then never actually does unless I call again myself.
Lately, I’ve also noticed he’s been spending a lot of time away from both his house and his friend’s house, which is unusual for him. Today I noticed my messages were being read immediately after I sent them, but he still wouldn’t respond, and then I realized his location sharing had suddenly been turned off.
The thing is, this is the longest relationship I’ve ever had, and I know I have issues with anxiety and attachment. I have a really irrational fear of being abandoned or ending up alone, and a lot of my past relationships ended either because I overreacted emotionally or because I was with people who genuinely just didn’t care about me. Because of that, I genuinely can’t tell if I’m seeing real red flags or if my anxiety is convincing me something is wrong when it isn’t.
What makes this harder is that every time I ask him if we’re okay, he genuinely seems sincere when he tells me everything is fine between us. He reassures me, but his actions lately feel completely different from the way he used to act, and it’s messing with my head badly.
Am I overreacting because of my attachment issues, or do these actually sound like warning signs?