My partners never care about my feelings

[Anonymous]

Was he flirting or is he an extroverted, charismatic person?

Are you sure he was actually hitting on women with you present?

If he was actively hitting on other women with you present, why would you give him another chance at all?

And there is no need for a fight - when it happens, you bring up what you observed and ask for his perspective. You don't attack or accuse based on your interpretation. Your feelings don't necessarily mean he did anything wrong. He isn't responsible for your feelings. He did care about your feelings which is why he reached out to ask what was bothering you. Just like you aren't responsible for his feelings about you or his fury. You can ask him about it, but his feelings are his own responsibility, as are yours.

And silent treatment and going dark is very manipulative behavior.

[Anonymous]

If the way you acted is typical then I can see how prior relationships may have played out the same way.
Freezing him out for 2 days then expecting him to listen and cater to your feelings...what about his? He is justified in feeling angry and hurt.

[Anonymous]

I think you are the emotionally immature one and this is something you need to work through in therapy. I don't feel like others should care about my feelings. It's not on them to make me happy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. He was definitely flirting. In terms of not icing out, what would have been a better way to handle this? “Hey. Your flirting tonight upset me. I’m gonna take a few days to myself. I’ll reach out on Monday.” Something like that?

Yes, address it. Silent treatment is NEVER ok, and can be abusive, and absolutely quickly deteriorates a relationship.

[Anonymous]

You should move on. I've dated a couple of the flirty guy types and tried to express how it upset me and have them change. They don't change. Y'all are not a good fit.

But your reaction. - silent treatment / ghosting - was not appropriate. The fact that you don't realize that the silent treatment is not ok is a red flag that means people should not date you, either.

[Anonymous]

You really should not need "a couple of days to myself" after a mature conversation. Therapy if you need it or to understand you are using withdrawal as a punishment.
Use "I" language

Hey, I felt disrespected. Were you flirting? It looked that way to me and I felt disrespected and hurt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just had a big fight with my boyfriend. It’s our first fight. We went to an event a few days ago and I felt like he was flirting at it and it upset me. I shutdown for two days. And then reached out to say what bothered me. He was furious with me and said it was not ok that I didn’t talk for two days. I’m open to talking about how we fight in the future and what the parameters are.

During the fight I wanted him to pause and just listen to me and understand how his behavior made me feel insecure and humiliated. But he just didn’t have bandwidth to care about my feelings.

This scenario is familiar to me from my past. In the heat of a disagreement my partners can never show up for me and say I hear you, I’m sorry. Am I expecting too much?

You're the common denominator if this sort of thing happens to you frequently. And your toxic and puerile behavior is getting normal reactions from your boyfriends.

You say he was "flirting." Would you care to give an example? Because if you're as jealous and insecure as you see to be, it sounds like you might interpret any sort of interaction he has with another woman as "flirting."

Then, you went all passive-aggressive and gave him the silent treatment, both of which are huge red flag behaviors. I've dumped women if they did that.

And then, you're saying that "my partners can never show up for me."

Have you considered the very real likelihood that your feelings aren't valid? Because you seem to have those feelings a LOT.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you for the perspective. I will not take space without communicating in the future.

His flirting consisted on gushing over how nice a woman looked to her face and in front of others, touching her while talking, making jokes for her exclusively, and talking to her more than me at the event.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just had a big fight with my boyfriend. It’s our first fight. We went to an event a few days ago and I felt like he was flirting at it and it upset me. I shutdown for two days. And then reached out to say what bothered me. He was furious with me and said it was not ok that I didn’t talk for two days. I’m open to talking about how we fight in the future and what the parameters are.

During the fight I wanted him to pause and just listen to me and understand how his behavior made me feel insecure and humiliated. But he just didn’t have bandwidth to care about my feelings.

This scenario is familiar to me from my past. In the heat of a disagreement my partners can never show up for me and say I hear you, I’m sorry. Am I expecting too much?

You went dark on him for two days. You don't get to unilaterally dictate when and how someone shows up for you and apologizes to you. I mean, seriously? You think you can just not talk to him for two days (which is incredibly childish, especially for something as innocuous as you thinking he was flirting with someone!) and then get mad that he doesn't immediately tell you he cares about your feelings.

You have A LOT of growing up to do, so I suggest you do it before getting involved in another relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont think a lot of guys want to talk. Thats my experience in life. They will likely never talk things through like a girlfriend. If you act annoyed like you disapprove and have higher expectations they might come around. Generally have low expectations for men and be ready to leave if they cross a boundary which is already low.

Ugh, no, don't do that! Keep your standards high and find a guy who will meet them. That's what I did and why I'm not on DCUM complaining about my husband.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for the perspective. I will not take space without communicating in the future.

His flirting consisted on gushing over how nice a woman looked to her face and in front of others, touching her while talking, making jokes for her exclusively, and talking to her more than me at the event.

So if that bothered you then why are you with this guy?

This has been a rare DCUM consensus as to your behavior. I hope you appreciate that and do something with it.

[Anonymous]

Lots of people are naturally flirty. Verbally. They like the back and forth. But 98 percent of the time it doesn't mean anything. They just like a witty conversation.

If you have a partner that's attractive and engaging and social, it's going to happen all the time. Human nature.

But it rarely means anything. Some people have "flirt" as their default setting.

[Anonymous]

There are two issues here:

1. You perceived his behavior as flirting and don't like it.

2. You stonewalled him for 2 days.

Only you can decide if #1 is a dealbreaker for you - for many people, it would be. For #2, stonewalling is extremely toxic and one of Gottman's 4 Horsemen predicting divorce in married couples. Can you share a little more details on how you went about the 2 days of silence? Did you tell him you were upset about the flirting and needed time to cool off? Did you storm off and refuse to take any calls or texts? Did he try to contact you during that time and you ignored him? I agree with PPs that you should have brought up the issue that night (or the next morning if alcohol was involved) and had a calm discussion with him. Then, if you still need time to cool off, you can communicate that to him along with an expected time of resolution. Going incommunicado with someone without any notification is the abusive part.