Man always using phone won’t text me back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I’ll ask it, what exactly is his work and family responsibilities that he needs to *always* hop to it whenever he gets an email or text? Are you sure he’s single and that his work is legitimate? This sounds very odd if it’s to the point that you are eating in silence while he types away on his phone.
Having said that, it’s also strange that he’s got *both* family and work doing this at the same time. My dad was in a situation kind of like this when I was a baby, and then again when I was about 12, the first was family, the second was work. Still, they happened years apart, everybody knew what was going on, it wasn’t a vague “be patient with me” dramafest.. and both events ended well before six months. When is this stress going to end?
In my dad’s situations, they were concrete, finite and transparent. this dude wants to have you around, you are referring to what you do as “dates”, he needs to tell you what’s going on, or you need to end it. I’m already skeptical of the work *and* family, yet he still had time to find a woman and call it a romantic relationship? You don’t deserve this, op.


To the poster who said op had better put up with it because nobody will show her grace when she is struggling, that’s nonsense. It actually comes across as a bit bullying, “do what he wants or you’ll be alone at your most vulnurable”.. Why would you suggest such a thing? All that will likely happen is op will put up with this guy, text him after say a car accident and he “won’t see the text” or “didn’t have service” or “thought he hit send”, in other words, he won’t be there for op. That’s how people like this dude roll. Giving people who act weird grace only means you get a bad boyfriend, a bad employee, a bad friend, and when you tell someone about what’s going on, you get people telling you to “be understanding” or “give grace” where frankly, none is deserved. Even my dad has said “I’m real grateful for the people who stuck around.. and I also understand those who didn’t, they weren’t mean, they just couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with the situations.. which is their right”.
Nobody has to put up with behavior from another person that they aren’t comfortable with, and the reason doesn’t much matter. As a side note, I’ve only heard the “People deal with stress differently” in the context of “put up with whatever bad behavior they dish out.. because they’re stressed, grieving, worried.. whatever it is. In some cases you find out that these badly behaving people are people you’d prefer not to associate with, into drugs or drinking, married when they present as single, say they work in a profession when they really do not. In extreme cases, you end up on the news, think Chris Watts girlfriend or Scott Peterson’s girlfriend, both of which who claim to believe what their respective boyfriends were saying. I even think that Scott Peterson along with some of Amber’s friends told her to “be understanding,, he’s grieving” well before Laci died. Nobody told Amber “He’s single, he wants to date you, you let him pick up your kid from school on your second date, why doesn’t he spend Christmas with you guys”. If they had, she might have started to wonder just what Scott was doing when he was “traveling”.. again weeks before anything bad happened to Laci. Amazing with all the true crime podcasts out there, people still give someone acting strangely the benefit of the doubt.

OP: First of all, thank you so much for these incredibly thoughtful replies, everyone. I can't tell you how much I appreciate people taking time out of their Friday to talk some sense into me. I apologize for the length of this, but so many of you have given me such incredible insight, I wanted to take the time to respond to your questions.

To get into the meat of the questions, he is a nurse. He has a set schedule, and no one is texting him questions from work during times when he's not working. Period. It doesn't happen. What he is getting from work, however, are messages from his 20-something, gorgeous nurse colleague girls. I say "girls" because I've met some of them, and they are still very much chaotic, immature girls. (I think this is where a lot of his social media obsession comes from. This is what they do, so he does it too.) So, what are they doing? They're texting and chatting about stuff. I try very hard not to eavesdrop when he's texting because I feel like that's rude, but I do occasionally catch a glimpse and it's not uncommon for it to be from one of them. It doesn't appear flirtatious or sexual in nature, but we all know what he's doing in chatting with them outside of work.
Second, he has a side business. He is the only employee, so all correspondence goes through him.
Third, he has 2 kids with his ex-wife. They also have a set schedule of visitation, and he does not get along with the ex, so they're definitely not texting throughout the day.
Fourth, he has a best friend (female) who is obsessed with him. This is the bulk of his phone communication from what I gather. She watches his dog for him when he's at work and texts/Snapchats him constantly. (I've posted on here about their relationship before. I can dig up the post subject title if you're interested in that.) They meet up regularly for dinner, drinks, and hanging out. She caused his last relationship to end. She is a problem, and I have told him she is blocking our ability to develop an intimate attachment because she's acting as his confidante and girlfriend already. Since we chatted about this, he has stopped spending so much time with her, but the virtual communication remains near-constant.

So, for the tl;dr version, where is this urgent communication coming from?
1. Work friends
2. Side business
3. Kids
4. Best friend who is a woman

In my mind, none of that feels like particularly urgent communication to me, aside from the children. I would never, ever ask him to delay responding to an issue related to his children. They come first, now and forever.

Before I get totally roasted for having no self respect, let me also say that I'm not typically a very insecure woman. I do not try to control my partner in a relationship. If he has female friends, he can have at it. He wants to go out with them? Have a great time. If his best friend is a woman, fine. You should be your most free and happy self in a relationship. I have no problem with any of this until a problem becomes evident. Then, because I give such a great deal of trust to my partners, I'm done when it's abused.

The issues I have are three-fold:
1. The excessive phone use when we're together, which has already been talked about extensively here.
2. The fact that when I try to be understanding of his his excessive phone, I'm not receiving communication consistent with someone always on their phone.
3. He seems to be prioritizing communication with his female friends over communication with me.

No, you aren’t done though. You’re still there wasting your breath trying to talk this out. He sees you are not a woman of your word and has no reason to respect you for it.

Self-respect has nothing to do with being ‘the cool girl’ who doesn’t care if a man has female friends. Self-respect means you would have ditched this guy a long time ago for trampling over your boundaries.

OP: Good point, honestly. I am here for the accountability, so I appreciate this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you want to be in a relationship with him?

+1 - DTMFA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I’ll ask it, what exactly is his work and family responsibilities that he needs to *always* hop to it whenever he gets an email or text? Are you sure he’s single and that his work is legitimate? This sounds very odd if it’s to the point that you are eating in silence while he types away on his phone.
Having said that, it’s also strange that he’s got *both* family and work doing this at the same time. My dad was in a situation kind of like this when I was a baby, and then again when I was about 12, the first was family, the second was work. Still, they happened years apart, everybody knew what was going on, it wasn’t a vague “be patient with me” dramafest.. and both events ended well before six months. When is this stress going to end?
In my dad’s situations, they were concrete, finite and transparent. this dude wants to have you around, you are referring to what you do as “dates”, he needs to tell you what’s going on, or you need to end it. I’m already skeptical of the work *and* family, yet he still had time to find a woman and call it a romantic relationship? You don’t deserve this, op.


To the poster who said op had better put up with it because nobody will show her grace when she is struggling, that’s nonsense. It actually comes across as a bit bullying, “do what he wants or you’ll be alone at your most vulnurable”.. Why would you suggest such a thing? All that will likely happen is op will put up with this guy, text him after say a car accident and he “won’t see the text” or “didn’t have service” or “thought he hit send”, in other words, he won’t be there for op. That’s how people like this dude roll. Giving people who act weird grace only means you get a bad boyfriend, a bad employee, a bad friend, and when you tell someone about what’s going on, you get people telling you to “be understanding” or “give grace” where frankly, none is deserved. Even my dad has said “I’m real grateful for the people who stuck around.. and I also understand those who didn’t, they weren’t mean, they just couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with the situations.. which is their right”.
Nobody has to put up with behavior from another person that they aren’t comfortable with, and the reason doesn’t much matter. As a side note, I’ve only heard the “People deal with stress differently” in the context of “put up with whatever bad behavior they dish out.. because they’re stressed, grieving, worried.. whatever it is. In some cases you find out that these badly behaving people are people you’d prefer not to associate with, into drugs or drinking, married when they present as single, say they work in a profession when they really do not. In extreme cases, you end up on the news, think Chris Watts girlfriend or Scott Peterson’s girlfriend, both of which who claim to believe what their respective boyfriends were saying. I even think that Scott Peterson along with some of Amber’s friends told her to “be understanding,, he’s grieving” well before Laci died. Nobody told Amber “He’s single, he wants to date you, you let him pick up your kid from school on your second date, why doesn’t he spend Christmas with you guys”. If they had, she might have started to wonder just what Scott was doing when he was “traveling”.. again weeks before anything bad happened to Laci. Amazing with all the true crime podcasts out there, people still give someone acting strangely the benefit of the doubt.

OP: First of all, thank you so much for these incredibly thoughtful replies, everyone. I can't tell you how much I appreciate people taking time out of their Friday to talk some sense into me. I apologize for the length of this, but so many of you have given me such incredible insight, I wanted to take the time to respond to your questions.

To get into the meat of the questions, he is a nurse. He has a set schedule, and no one is texting him questions from work during times when he's not working. Period. It doesn't happen. What he is getting from work, however, are messages from his 20-something, gorgeous nurse colleague girls. I say "girls" because I've met some of them, and they are still very much chaotic, immature girls. (I think this is where a lot of his social media obsession comes from. This is what they do, so he does it too.) So, what are they doing? They're texting and chatting about stuff. I try very hard not to eavesdrop when he's texting because I feel like that's rude, but I do occasionally catch a glimpse and it's not uncommon for it to be from one of them. It doesn't appear flirtatious or sexual in nature, but we all know what he's doing in chatting with them outside of work.
Second, he has a side business. He is the only employee, so all correspondence goes through him.
Third, he has 2 kids with his ex-wife. They also have a set schedule of visitation, and he does not get along with the ex, so they're definitely not texting throughout the day.
Fourth, he has a best friend (female) who is obsessed with him. This is the bulk of his phone communication from what I gather. She watches his dog for him when he's at work and texts/Snapchats him constantly. (I've posted on here about their relationship before. I can dig up the post subject title if you're interested in that.) They meet up regularly for dinner, drinks, and hanging out. She caused his last relationship to end. She is a problem, and I have told him she is blocking our ability to develop an intimate attachment because she's acting as his confidante and girlfriend already. Since we chatted about this, he has stopped spending so much time with her, but the virtual communication remains near-constant.

So, for the tl;dr version, where is this urgent communication coming from?
1. Work friends
2. Side business
3. Kids
4. Best friend who is a woman

In my mind, none of that feels like particularly urgent communication to me, aside from the children. I would never, ever ask him to delay responding to an issue related to his children. They come first, now and forever.

Before I get totally roasted for having no self respect, let me also say that I'm not typically a very insecure woman. I do not try to control my partner in a relationship. If he has female friends, he can have at it. He wants to go out with them? Have a great time. If his best friend is a woman, fine. You should be your most free and happy self in a relationship. I have no problem with any of this until a problem becomes evident. Then, because I give such a great deal of trust to my partners, I'm done when it's abused.

The issues I have are three-fold:
1. The excessive phone use when we're together, which has already been talked about extensively here.
2. The fact that when I try to be understanding of his his excessive phone, I'm not receiving communication consistent with someone always on their phone.
3. He seems to be prioritizing communication with his female friends over communication with me.

Those are some pretty huge issues.
Any one of those on its own sounds like a deal breaker.

All three together kind of sounds trollish.

OP: Truthfully, when I typed it all out and reread it, I had one of those "What the hell am I doing?" moments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I’ll ask it, what exactly is his work and family responsibilities that he needs to *always* hop to it whenever he gets an email or text? Are you sure he’s single and that his work is legitimate? This sounds very odd if it’s to the point that you are eating in silence while he types away on his phone.
Having said that, it’s also strange that he’s got *both* family and work doing this at the same time. My dad was in a situation kind of like this when I was a baby, and then again when I was about 12, the first was family, the second was work. Still, they happened years apart, everybody knew what was going on, it wasn’t a vague “be patient with me” dramafest.. and both events ended well before six months. When is this stress going to end?
In my dad’s situations, they were concrete, finite and transparent. this dude wants to have you around, you are referring to what you do as “dates”, he needs to tell you what’s going on, or you need to end it. I’m already skeptical of the work *and* family, yet he still had time to find a woman and call it a romantic relationship? You don’t deserve this, op.


To the poster who said op had better put up with it because nobody will show her grace when she is struggling, that’s nonsense. It actually comes across as a bit bullying, “do what he wants or you’ll be alone at your most vulnurable”.. Why would you suggest such a thing? All that will likely happen is op will put up with this guy, text him after say a car accident and he “won’t see the text” or “didn’t have service” or “thought he hit send”, in other words, he won’t be there for op. That’s how people like this dude roll. Giving people who act weird grace only means you get a bad boyfriend, a bad employee, a bad friend, and when you tell someone about what’s going on, you get people telling you to “be understanding” or “give grace” where frankly, none is deserved. Even my dad has said “I’m real grateful for the people who stuck around.. and I also understand those who didn’t, they weren’t mean, they just couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with the situations.. which is their right”.
Nobody has to put up with behavior from another person that they aren’t comfortable with, and the reason doesn’t much matter. As a side note, I’ve only heard the “People deal with stress differently” in the context of “put up with whatever bad behavior they dish out.. because they’re stressed, grieving, worried.. whatever it is. In some cases you find out that these badly behaving people are people you’d prefer not to associate with, into drugs or drinking, married when they present as single, say they work in a profession when they really do not. In extreme cases, you end up on the news, think Chris Watts girlfriend or Scott Peterson’s girlfriend, both of which who claim to believe what their respective boyfriends were saying. I even think that Scott Peterson along with some of Amber’s friends told her to “be understanding,, he’s grieving” well before Laci died. Nobody told Amber “He’s single, he wants to date you, you let him pick up your kid from school on your second date, why doesn’t he spend Christmas with you guys”. If they had, she might have started to wonder just what Scott was doing when he was “traveling”.. again weeks before anything bad happened to Laci. Amazing with all the true crime podcasts out there, people still give someone acting strangely the benefit of the doubt.

OP: First of all, thank you so much for these incredibly thoughtful replies, everyone. I can't tell you how much I appreciate people taking time out of their Friday to talk some sense into me. I apologize for the length of this, but so many of you have given me such incredible insight, I wanted to take the time to respond to your questions.

To get into the meat of the questions, he is a nurse. He has a set schedule, and no one is texting him questions from work during times when he's not working. Period. It doesn't happen. What he is getting from work, however, are messages from his 20-something, gorgeous nurse colleague girls. I say "girls" because I've met some of them, and they are still very much chaotic, immature girls. (I think this is where a lot of his social media obsession comes from. This is what they do, so he does it too.) So, what are they doing? They're texting and chatting about stuff. I try very hard not to eavesdrop when he's texting because I feel like that's rude, but I do occasionally catch a glimpse and it's not uncommon for it to be from one of them. It doesn't appear flirtatious or sexual in nature, but we all know what he's doing in chatting with them outside of work.
Second, he has a side business. He is the only employee, so all correspondence goes through him.
Third, he has 2 kids with his ex-wife. They also have a set schedule of visitation, and he does not get along with the ex, so they're definitely not texting throughout the day.
Fourth, he has a best friend (female) who is obsessed with him. This is the bulk of his phone communication from what I gather. She watches his dog for him when he's at work and texts/Snapchats him constantly. (I've posted on here about their relationship before. I can dig up the post subject title if you're interested in that.) They meet up regularly for dinner, drinks, and hanging out. She caused his last relationship to end. She is a problem, and I have told him she is blocking our ability to develop an intimate attachment because she's acting as his confidante and girlfriend already. Since we chatted about this, he has stopped spending so much time with her, but the virtual communication remains near-constant.

So, for the tl;dr version, where is this urgent communication coming from?
1. Work friends
2. Side business
3. Kids
4. Best friend who is a woman

In my mind, none of that feels like particularly urgent communication to me, aside from the children. I would never, ever ask him to delay responding to an issue related to his children. They come first, now and forever.

Before I get totally roasted for having no self respect, let me also say that I'm not typically a very insecure woman. I do not try to control my partner in a relationship. If he has female friends, he can have at it. He wants to go out with them? Have a great time. If his best friend is a woman, fine. You should be your most free and happy self in a relationship. I have no problem with any of this until a problem becomes evident. Then, because I give such a great deal of trust to my partners, I'm done when it's abused.

The issues I have are three-fold:
1. The excessive phone use when we're together, which has already been talked about extensively here.
2. The fact that when I try to be understanding of his his excessive phone, I'm not receiving communication consistent with someone always on their phone.
3. He seems to be prioritizing communication with his female friends over communication with me.

Those are some pretty huge issues.
Any one of those on its own sounds like a deal breaker.

All three together kind of sounds trollish.

OP: Truthfully, when I typed it all out and reread it, I had one of those "What the hell am I doing?" moments.

To OP - I'm glad we could all help you here today. It's clear where you stand and what you need to do. Good luck and keep us posted, DCUM is here for you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I’ll ask it, what exactly is his work and family responsibilities that he needs to *always* hop to it whenever he gets an email or text? Are you sure he’s single and that his work is legitimate? This sounds very odd if it’s to the point that you are eating in silence while he types away on his phone.
Having said that, it’s also strange that he’s got *both* family and work doing this at the same time. My dad was in a situation kind of like this when I was a baby, and then again when I was about 12, the first was family, the second was work. Still, they happened years apart, everybody knew what was going on, it wasn’t a vague “be patient with me” dramafest.. and both events ended well before six months. When is this stress going to end?
In my dad’s situations, they were concrete, finite and transparent. this dude wants to have you around, you are referring to what you do as “dates”, he needs to tell you what’s going on, or you need to end it. I’m already skeptical of the work *and* family, yet he still had time to find a woman and call it a romantic relationship? You don’t deserve this, op.


To the poster who said op had better put up with it because nobody will show her grace when she is struggling, that’s nonsense. It actually comes across as a bit bullying, “do what he wants or you’ll be alone at your most vulnurable”.. Why would you suggest such a thing? All that will likely happen is op will put up with this guy, text him after say a car accident and he “won’t see the text” or “didn’t have service” or “thought he hit send”, in other words, he won’t be there for op. That’s how people like this dude roll. Giving people who act weird grace only means you get a bad boyfriend, a bad employee, a bad friend, and when you tell someone about what’s going on, you get people telling you to “be understanding” or “give grace” where frankly, none is deserved. Even my dad has said “I’m real grateful for the people who stuck around.. and I also understand those who didn’t, they weren’t mean, they just couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with the situations.. which is their right”.
Nobody has to put up with behavior from another person that they aren’t comfortable with, and the reason doesn’t much matter. As a side note, I’ve only heard the “People deal with stress differently” in the context of “put up with whatever bad behavior they dish out.. because they’re stressed, grieving, worried.. whatever it is. In some cases you find out that these badly behaving people are people you’d prefer not to associate with, into drugs or drinking, married when they present as single, say they work in a profession when they really do not. In extreme cases, you end up on the news, think Chris Watts girlfriend or Scott Peterson’s girlfriend, both of which who claim to believe what their respective boyfriends were saying. I even think that Scott Peterson along with some of Amber’s friends told her to “be understanding,, he’s grieving” well before Laci died. Nobody told Amber “He’s single, he wants to date you, you let him pick up your kid from school on your second date, why doesn’t he spend Christmas with you guys”. If they had, she might have started to wonder just what Scott was doing when he was “traveling”.. again weeks before anything bad happened to Laci. Amazing with all the true crime podcasts out there, people still give someone acting strangely the benefit of the doubt.

OP: First of all, thank you so much for these incredibly thoughtful replies, everyone. I can't tell you how much I appreciate people taking time out of their Friday to talk some sense into me. I apologize for the length of this, but so many of you have given me such incredible insight, I wanted to take the time to respond to your questions.

To get into the meat of the questions, he is a nurse. He has a set schedule, and no one is texting him questions from work during times when he's not working. Period. It doesn't happen. What he is getting from work, however, are messages from his 20-something, gorgeous nurse colleague girls. I say "girls" because I've met some of them, and they are still very much chaotic, immature girls. (I think this is where a lot of his social media obsession comes from. This is what they do, so he does it too.) So, what are they doing? They're texting and chatting about stuff. I try very hard not to eavesdrop when he's texting because I feel like that's rude, but I do occasionally catch a glimpse and it's not uncommon for it to be from one of them. It doesn't appear flirtatious or sexual in nature, but we all know what he's doing in chatting with them outside of work.
Second, he has a side business. He is the only employee, so all correspondence goes through him.
Third, he has 2 kids with his ex-wife. They also have a set schedule of visitation, and he does not get along with the ex, so they're definitely not texting throughout the day.
Fourth, he has a best friend (female) who is obsessed with him. This is the bulk of his phone communication from what I gather. She watches his dog for him when he's at work and texts/Snapchats him constantly. (I've posted on here about their relationship before. I can dig up the post subject title if you're interested in that.) They meet up regularly for dinner, drinks, and hanging out. She caused his last relationship to end. She is a problem, and I have told him she is blocking our ability to develop an intimate attachment because she's acting as his confidante and girlfriend already. Since we chatted about this, he has stopped spending so much time with her, but the virtual communication remains near-constant.

So, for the tl;dr version, where is this urgent communication coming from?
1. Work friends
2. Side business
3. Kids
4. Best friend who is a woman

In my mind, none of that feels like particularly urgent communication to me, aside from the children. I would never, ever ask him to delay responding to an issue related to his children. They come first, now and forever.

Before I get totally roasted for having no self respect, let me also say that I'm not typically a very insecure woman. I do not try to control my partner in a relationship. If he has female friends, he can have at it. He wants to go out with them? Have a great time. If his best friend is a woman, fine. You should be your most free and happy self in a relationship. I have no problem with any of this until a problem becomes evident. Then, because I give such a great deal of trust to my partners, I'm done when it's abused.

The issues I have are three-fold:
1. The excessive phone use when we're together, which has already been talked about extensively here.
2. The fact that when I try to be understanding of his his excessive phone, I'm not receiving communication consistent with someone always on their phone.
3. He seems to be prioritizing communication with his female friends over communication with me.

Those are some pretty huge issues.
Any one of those on its own sounds like a deal breaker.

All three together kind of sounds trollish.

OP: Truthfully, when I typed it all out and reread it, I had one of those "What the hell am I doing?" moments.

Yeah, OP, this isn't worth it. This guy just doesnt seem available - and he doesn't sound like that great of a guy, either. You can do better, but you can't until you're out of this relationship.

[Anonymous]

https://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/ This is a great site to look into why you are even still in a situation not meeting your needs; everyone is different but it's possible you, like many of us, had things in your lives that 'trained' you to be too accommodating. It is challenging but try to put the focus back on you before you waste years becoming an expert on him!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of this guy. It has only been six months and you are having fights about him being on his phone for an entire dinner date? He's taking 5-6 hours to text you back (regularly, occasionally this makes sense if during a work day). You can do better, please move on.

OP: During the 5-6 hours, I leave him alone, but I can see him active on TikTok.

A 36-year-old man on TikTok? This just gets worse and worse.

Seriously, OP, every moment of your very finite earthly life you spend on this guy is a moment you aren’t using to meet someone who wants to be with you and who will treat you with respect. Cut the cord.

[Anonymous]

Saw this recently and I think it speaks volumes.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpM65kYgeQE/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of this guy. It has only been six months and you are having fights about him being on his phone for an entire dinner date? He's taking 5-6 hours to text you back (regularly, occasionally this makes sense if during a work day). You can do better, please move on.

OP: During the 5-6 hours, I leave him alone, but I can see him active on TikTok.

Yeah, nope! These clowns really only want to be in a relationship with their precious phones. I regret the years I wasted with this guy's long lost clone. Consider yourself lucky that you're able to see the real him now and cut your losses early. Mine managed to conduct himself like a normal person for awhile, then at some point before I knew it, we had progressed to him running his "joke bot" on Twitter right in the middle of a formal holiday dinner. This will not get better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I’ll ask it, what exactly is his work and family responsibilities that he needs to *always* hop to it whenever he gets an email or text? Are you sure he’s single and that his work is legitimate? This sounds very odd if it’s to the point that you are eating in silence while he types away on his phone.
Having said that, it’s also strange that he’s got *both* family and work doing this at the same time. My dad was in a situation kind of like this when I was a baby, and then again when I was about 12, the first was family, the second was work. Still, they happened years apart, everybody knew what was going on, it wasn’t a vague “be patient with me” dramafest.. and both events ended well before six months. When is this stress going to end?
In my dad’s situations, they were concrete, finite and transparent. this dude wants to have you around, you are referring to what you do as “dates”, he needs to tell you what’s going on, or you need to end it. I’m already skeptical of the work *and* family, yet he still had time to find a woman and call it a romantic relationship? You don’t deserve this, op.


To the poster who said op had better put up with it because nobody will show her grace when she is struggling, that’s nonsense. It actually comes across as a bit bullying, “do what he wants or you’ll be alone at your most vulnurable”.. Why would you suggest such a thing? All that will likely happen is op will put up with this guy, text him after say a car accident and he “won’t see the text” or “didn’t have service” or “thought he hit send”, in other words, he won’t be there for op. That’s how people like this dude roll. Giving people who act weird grace only means you get a bad boyfriend, a bad employee, a bad friend, and when you tell someone about what’s going on, you get people telling you to “be understanding” or “give grace” where frankly, none is deserved. Even my dad has said “I’m real grateful for the people who stuck around.. and I also understand those who didn’t, they weren’t mean, they just couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with the situations.. which is their right”.
Nobody has to put up with behavior from another person that they aren’t comfortable with, and the reason doesn’t much matter. As a side note, I’ve only heard the “People deal with stress differently” in the context of “put up with whatever bad behavior they dish out.. because they’re stressed, grieving, worried.. whatever it is. In some cases you find out that these badly behaving people are people you’d prefer not to associate with, into drugs or drinking, married when they present as single, say they work in a profession when they really do not. In extreme cases, you end up on the news, think Chris Watts girlfriend or Scott Peterson’s girlfriend, both of which who claim to believe what their respective boyfriends were saying. I even think that Scott Peterson along with some of Amber’s friends told her to “be understanding,, he’s grieving” well before Laci died. Nobody told Amber “He’s single, he wants to date you, you let him pick up your kid from school on your second date, why doesn’t he spend Christmas with you guys”. If they had, she might have started to wonder just what Scott was doing when he was “traveling”.. again weeks before anything bad happened to Laci. Amazing with all the true crime podcasts out there, people still give someone acting strangely the benefit of the doubt.

OP: First of all, thank you so much for these incredibly thoughtful replies, everyone. I can't tell you how much I appreciate people taking time out of their Friday to talk some sense into me. I apologize for the length of this, but so many of you have given me such incredible insight, I wanted to take the time to respond to your questions.

To get into the meat of the questions, he is a nurse. He has a set schedule, and no one is texting him questions from work during times when he's not working. Period. It doesn't happen. What he is getting from work, however, are messages from his 20-something, gorgeous nurse colleague girls. I say "girls" because I've met some of them, and they are still very much chaotic, immature girls. (I think this is where a lot of his social media obsession comes from. This is what they do, so he does it too.) So, what are they doing? They're texting and chatting about stuff. I try very hard not to eavesdrop when he's texting because I feel like that's rude, but I do occasionally catch a glimpse and it's not uncommon for it to be from one of them. It doesn't appear flirtatious or sexual in nature, but we all know what he's doing in chatting with them outside of work.
Second, he has a side business. He is the only employee, so all correspondence goes through him.
Third, he has 2 kids with his ex-wife. They also have a set schedule of visitation, and he does not get along with the ex, so they're definitely not texting throughout the day.
Fourth, he has a best friend (female) who is obsessed with him. This is the bulk of his phone communication from what I gather. She watches his dog for him when he's at work and texts/Snapchats him constantly. (I've posted on here about their relationship before. I can dig up the post subject title if you're interested in that.) They meet up regularly for dinner, drinks, and hanging out. She caused his last relationship to end. She is a problem, and I have told him she is blocking our ability to develop an intimate attachment because she's acting as his confidante and girlfriend already. Since we chatted about this, he has stopped spending so much time with her, but the virtual communication remains near-constant.

So, for the tl;dr version, where is this urgent communication coming from?
1. Work friends
2. Side business
3. Kids
4. Best friend who is a woman

In my mind, none of that feels like particularly urgent communication to me, aside from the children. I would never, ever ask him to delay responding to an issue related to his children. They come first, now and forever.

Before I get totally roasted for having no self respect, let me also say that I'm not typically a very insecure woman. I do not try to control my partner in a relationship. If he has female friends, he can have at it. He wants to go out with them? Have a great time. If his best friend is a woman, fine. You should be your most free and happy self in a relationship. I have no problem with any of this until a problem becomes evident. Then, because I give such a great deal of trust to my partners, I'm done when it's abused.

The issues I have are three-fold:
1. The excessive phone use when we're together, which has already been talked about extensively here.
2. The fact that when I try to be understanding of his his excessive phone, I'm not receiving communication consistent with someone always on their phone.
3. He seems to be prioritizing communication with his female friends over communication with me.

Those are some pretty huge issues.
Any one of those on its own sounds like a deal breaker.

All three together kind of sounds trollish.

No they don't. Enough with running into every single thread to type about why the OP is a "troll", folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of this guy. It has only been six months and you are having fights about him being on his phone for an entire dinner date? He's taking 5-6 hours to text you back (regularly, occasionally this makes sense if during a work day). You can do better, please move on.

OP: During the 5-6 hours, I leave him alone, but I can see him active on TikTok.

Yeah, nope! These clowns really only want to be in a relationship with their precious phones. I regret the years I wasted with this guy's long lost clone. Consider yourself lucky that you're able to see the real him now and cut your losses early. Mine managed to conduct himself like a normal person for awhile, then at some point before I knew it, we had progressed to him running his "joke bot" on Twitter right in the middle of a formal holiday dinner. This will not get better.

OP: I was feeling sick earlier today and asked if he could drop off some meds for me on his way to work. He came inside, sat on the couch, and started texting his drunk colleague and was smiling from ear to ear. So considerate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m so sorry, but he’s not that into you. Dump, block, next please!

OP: Why won’t he just tell me this? How can I ask him this directly to get a real answer?

Actions speak louder than words - cliché for a reason. His behavior tells you that you are not a priority. You go out to eat and you sit in silence while he’s on his phone? It doesn’t really matter the reason - that’s unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

OP, if you're not a priority now, during the early courting period, it's never going to happen. If he was enamored of you he'd be present, he'd pay attention, he wouldn't be rude (leaving you to eat your dinner in silence while he's on the phone). And you've had arguments already and have told him when phone/text stuff is bothering you and it hasn't solved it. Try and reclaim some dignity and dump him and move on.

[Anonymous]

He feels like other things are more urgent than responding to your (probably mundane) texts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get rid of this guy. It has only been six months and you are having fights about him being on his phone for an entire dinner date? He's taking 5-6 hours to text you back (regularly, occasionally this makes sense if during a work day). You can do better, please move on.

OP: During the 5-6 hours, I leave him alone, but I can see him active on TikTok.

Yeah, nope! These clowns really only want to be in a relationship with their precious phones. I regret the years I wasted with this guy's long lost clone. Consider yourself lucky that you're able to see the real him now and cut your losses early. Mine managed to conduct himself like a normal person for awhile, then at some point before I knew it, we had progressed to him running his "joke bot" on Twitter right in the middle of a formal holiday dinner. This will not get better.

OP: I was feeling sick earlier today and asked if he could drop off some meds for me on his way to work. He came inside, sat on the couch, and started texting his drunk colleague and was smiling from ear to ear. So considerate.

Sorry but caring for a sick person is not fun, it’s learned behavior and it’s basically a chore. Also when caring for someone who isn’t on their deathbed (presumably) and who is not your child is annoying tbh
he probably didn’t learn how to do this chore when he was a teenager