Okay, I’m wandering home this weekend. I will be within shouting distance of my beautiful SO for two days. Here strikes the problems. He works both Saturday and Sunday night. Until very late. So late my mom would frown on me going out or him coming to see me.
A possible solution is him waking up early and coming out to see me before he goes to work. As much as I love him, I don’t know if he’d be willing to do this. (It is getting up early.)
Now, while I understand getting up early is a PITA, especially for my happy druggy hoodlum of an SO, if I don’t see him I am going to head back to school feeling pretty unloved and worthless. Not a good thing. Not at all.
But, if I tell him “Please come see me or I’ll feel unloved and worthless” its not even low level emotional blackmail. However honest, its some pretty amazing levels of emotional blackmail. And being me, I cringe at the idea. If he doesn’t want to expend the effort to come see me, he shouldn’t have to.
But if he doesn’t want to expend the effort to come see me, I feel really crappy.
If he cares for you as much as you do for him, and if he is as cognizent of your feelings as you are of his, then he’ll find a way.
I know that if my SO lived not-too-close to me and we had precious little time together, and then I found out she’d be pretty close, I’d make my schedule fit hers, dammit. No question about it.
Absence really DOES make the heart grow fonder, and if there’s a shred of decency in that happy druggy body and mind, he’ll wake up early - or better yet, miss work. (Hey, it could happen.)
Anyway, my advice is to follow what you’ve already laid out in your mind, I suspect. You don’t want to blackmail him, and I do think that pressuring him might cause more problems than it solves. Let him decide, but lay down some hints. Or even better, just discuss it - “I’ll be nearby for a couple of days, but I won’t be able to come see you at night…” Then see if he picks up on it. If he loves you, he’ll see you. I know I would, if I were in his position.
If I were you I would say “Please come see me. It would make me really happy.” Or something to that effect. No emotional blackmail, and it makes him feel loved because you want to see him, thus making him, maybe, a little more willing to make the effort. I don’t know your SO, but this is what I would do in your situation.
Deffinately drop some hints, but try not to make him feel like he has to. He should want to, so make him thinks he wants to, kind like heraldgwena said. My love lives on the other side of the world (Thailand, I’m in Indiana). I havn’t seen her since October. Be thankful for the time you do get, I know I am.
I probably will just drop hints. Really strong hints (I love him because he’s a wild free spirit who thinks on his own. The result is that he’s also clueless about hints and I really can’t tell him what to do.)
Thanks for your answers. Now I just need to find the Beautiful.
heraldgwena hit it on the head. “If you make time to see me, that will make me happy,” is not emotional blackmail. “If you don’t come see me, I’ll feel unloved,” is.
Just softpedal it, and follow through. If he can’t make it, don’t pout.
Say that. In those very words. If he loves you, he will dig hearing those words. Especially if there is the promise of some form of sex involved in his getting up early.
Trust me on this.
Well, my take is that mom can frown all she wants, but you’re a big girl. I don’t mean that to sound harsh, but if you can sleep in and he can’t really, why not take an hour one night and see him and then ask him to get up early the next time? Kind of meeting things half way. Does that make any sense?
In your mom’s case, is it more a matter of frowning or one of “permission?”
I know all about this - yes, you are a big girl, but your mom can make it “not worth it” for you to try to see him at night, yes? Still, I’d give it a try - I like the compromise - you see him for an hour or so late at night, he gets up early one morning and takes you to breakfast or something.
There’s a difference between feeling important and needed and feeling like you SHOULD feel important and needed. The notion of being desired should come naturally, not forced. That’s the definition of emotional blackmail. If she’s as blunt as you said, he might well be scared off, especially since he seems so laid back anyway (“happy druggy”).
I mean, geez. He has to know she wants/needs him. If he does not - and that’s possible, since I don’t know him - then I cannot imagine how any sentence containing “or I’ll feel worthless” would sway him. If anything, it might make him guilty, and then he might think, “Hey, I have no reason to feel guilty.” And then might not be convinced to see her at all.
On my mom, no she doesn’t really have the right to tell me not to. Its more a matter of I don’t want to piss her off by having people stomping around her house at 3 am (when he gets off work) Its rude.
I love my mom. I’m a big girl, but I understand when you are staying as a guest (which I essentially am) its not nice to disrupt the usual pattern of things. While I don’t need her permission to go out, I do need her permission to take the car, and I do need her to sign a lease with his name on it for the fall. Pissing her off for no real reason is not worth it at this point in time.
I think I’m just going to use 2x4 hints like “I’d mean a lot.” “its make me really happy” etc. Now he just needs to be home for thirty seconds in a row.
Thanks for all the responces people, if I keep this stuff locked up I get really riled and nuts.
At the risk of starting a great debate, get a new SO, one who isn’t a “happy druggy hoodlum”. The happy part is okay, but the rest of it…
Okay, on topic… I once drove 5 hrs (250 miles) to a place I’d never been before to meet up with a woman, only to find out through an error in communication she wasn’t there. I spent the night in the car, waited all the next day, and she finally arrived about an hour before I had to drive home to make classes the next morning. (This was my college days.)
Seems like if he cares about you, he’d suggest some alternatives for meeting you. Just inform him of the difficulties of staying out late (your transportation is limited, and bringing in company would be disruptive to parental sleeping). Explain you’d like to see him. If he’s completely unhelpful, you could suggest his seeing you before work and see what his reaction is. It is not emotional blackmail to say, “Could you possibly get up early so we could spend time together?”
Or you could do what I’ve done and go hang out at his work all night. That goes over well with the employer. :rolleyes:
Hope you don’t feel really crappy, whatever the outcome.
Don’t drop hints. Hints are annoying. Hints say “I don’t want to be responsible for asking. I’m going to play silly games and make you do all the work. I’m not going to take responsibility for my own needs or wants.” Dropping hints are more likely to make him feel manipulated, because the whole idea of a hint is to manipulate the recipient into coming up with the idea “on his own.”
JUST ASK.
The previous suggestion of saying “I’m only going to be available during the morning, and I’d love to see you. It would make me really happy” is good. First off, it’s true. Second, it’s positive. Third, it means you assumed responsibility for trying to get what you want in a forthright manner. Asking is good.
Consider logistical details here too. If you want him to wake up and come over, he might just oversleep and miss it. Better if you wake up and go to his house. You can pound on his door and wake him up if necessary.
ahh…going over, breaking in, tickling his nose with a gentle finger until he opens his eyes and…
Oh sorry… yea that’s what I normally do. However, that requires a car. Getting a car requires berating it out of my parents. See above about not wanting to piss them off this particular time. (Besides they actually need it for this time frame. Silly people having lives that aren’t set up to serve my every wish.)
Can’t hang out at his work. But my mom is being a dear and saying we could get together for an hour or so after I get there Friday night, evidentally I misjudged where her “too late” line is and how pissy she is about him. So a morning deal is no longer vital, it’d be an extra time thing. (Still would make me really happy, but as long as I get to see him at some point I won’t feel totally ignored.)
And Irishman. Let me try to be polite about this, its a sore spot with me. I know very, very (all too) well what types other people think I should be dating, and most agree its not him. However, until I agree with the rest of the world on this issue its not going to happen. And if my saintly mother can’t manage to get me away from him after four years of trying everything including threatening to kick me out of the family, your helpful comments aren’t going to do much more. Thank you for sharing.
I don’t like that he’s a druggy hoodlum. But I love that he’s a powerful strong free spirit who can make me feel safe and free at the same time. I love that he is the only person I know who accepts me as I am and adores me, faults and all. He shows me how strong and wonderful a person I am. However, for the purposes of this discussion I though I could leave that I love him as a given and that the other aspects of his life needed to be more explained.
Anyway, thank you all again for your thoughts. Like I said, I think I’m pretty well togetehr on what to ask…now I just need to find him.
Okay, here’s how its all going to work out. He’s going to hang with my family Friday night and come fetch me from teh airport. Depending on parental pleasure we’ll a)rent a pile of movies and hole up in the bacement and he’ll spend the night down there while I sleep chastely upstairs in my room or b) go out to a late dinner and I’ll be back home by 1:30-2ish.
And then he’s taking Sunday off of work to spend time with me. If I’m lucky I’ll drag him to a play at my old high school.
