The Boyfriend Rant

The BBQ Pit
1

I just gotta vent somewhere, and since none of you know me or Jack (the boyfriend) in real life, I figure this is as good a place as any.

I’m so upset right now:

First, since he’s working evenings now instead of days, he’s decided to change his sleeping schedule so that he sleeps from 6AM to 2PM. He knows–he’s always known–that I am definitely NOT an afternoon person. In the afternoons, my battery just dies: I have no energy at all. But, I can do hardly anything while he’s asleep because any noise or light will disturb him (we live in one room; there’s no door to shut off the sleeping area). So if I try to be asleep when he is, I spend my waking hours feeling like a zombie. If I try to follow my normal schedule, I feel like a prisoner. Geez, I don’t even know what day it is anymore! He knows it bothers me, but he doesn’t care; he’s convinced himself that I’m “adjusting.”

Second, he went off about 4PM this afternoon to visit his friend and the friend’s girlfriend who lives down the alley. I’m not crazy about this guy, so I didn’t insist on tagging along–besides, I firmly believe that he has a right to have friends. About 5, he ducks in the door, grabs a CD, and tells me they’re off to the new mall. Bye, see ya later! So here I am, stuck in a 12x15 foot room, bored shitless–while he at least gets to get out of the house. Did he even think of asking if I wanted to ride along? HELL, NO. (And the reason I’m not going somewhere by myself is that we are flat broke until next week.)

I feel like a piece of the furniture. I feel like the only reason I’m here is to cook and do the dishes and split the expenses. Yes, he’s affectionate; yes, he’s kind–but does it matter if it seems like he never wants to spend time with me?

Our sex life has gone downhill, too. :mad: I’ve always had a higher libido then his, but when I can’t even remember the last time we had sex–geez, and he’s only 26! WTF?!

Urrrrgh.

So, ladies and gentlemen, feel free to rant about your significant other, if you please.

Sigh.

2

So break up with him if you don’t like the way you’re being treated.

3

Seriously, you two need to sit down and talk about EVERY issue you’ve brought up. He may think you’re “adjusting” because you haven’t clearly voiced your feelings to him. I’m not saying to you, “Start a fight with him,” I’m just saying that a good relationship always has an open line of communication. When you lose the communication, problems don’t get resolved. If the problem can’t get resolved without fighting to the point where you can’t stand being with him in that apartment, then break up with him. It’s that simple.

4

Ah, but smith, sometimes he’s downright wonderful–and sometimes, like now, he’s a dolt.

As far as communicating–well, I first introduced him to the concept in the first place. But he’s not very empathetic… his response will likely be either, “you don’t want me to be friends with Shane,” “Why didn’t you say you wanted to go along?” (because I don’t like intruding where I’m not wanted), or “What do you (specifically) want me to do?”–and I don’t have an answer to the last one.

5

Bitch about my SO?

She’s prude.

She’s nice, she’s funny, she’s kind, she’s affectionate, she’s smart, she’s hot, she’s assertive, she doesn’t play games, she’s confident, she’s not afraid to talk about something important, she’s not afraid to talk about something stupid, she has a cool family.

She’s Christian. Really and in totaly. A cross isn’t a fashion accessory for her. She doesn’t even wear one.

Damnit.

Anyway.

Advice?

6

Squish, I don’t mean to be too ‘glass is half empty’ here, but if you have problems that can’t be solved without good communication, and you can’t communicate with him, what are you going to do? Also, I’d recommend having a look here.

7

Noise

Light

If communication doesn’t work, it seems like you have three choices here: behave normally and upset his sleep, behave quietly and upset yourself, or leave while he’s asleep. Ask him to decide which one he wishes, and then decide what his answer tells you about his priorities.

I think this one falls on both of you. He should have asked if you wanted to go, but since you are living together, you should have felt comfortable enough to let him know that you wanted to.

I can’t stress enough the important advice others have already given. You have to communicate with each other about this, as it seems like your relationship is suffering badly.

I can’t really do a lot of ranting, as my wife is pretty much perfect for me. We seem to be able to settle all our differences in unique, but very friendly ways. For example, she recently joked about “her list” and which famous celebrities would be on it. I said “A list? Great, I’ll make one myself. Let’s see there’s the waitress at the restaurant I go to every day. The girl at the dry cleaners…” (and so on, but all were females that I see on a regular basis). She laughed it off, but her list is now history.

Relationships are made up of mutual compromises, but based on your side of events, it seems like you are doing all of the compromising. That’s not healthy.

8

erm…I sound a lot like your boyfriend.

So, in behalf of myself and all my clones, sorry…

the weird sleeping habits can be fixed if you give him a sleeping pill one hour before you go to sleep (or as soon as he comes back from work, whichever one come first) Worked for me and my wife. (she hated going to sleep without me…)

You feel he treats you like furniture. That’s exactly what my wife told me (quite a few times). The truth is I love her and appreciate all the things she does for me. I do NOT take them for granted. I just fail to show her that…

About the libido…well. You should be having sex at least once a week. If not, be worried. Be very worried. Some guys tend to get sexually bored when they are with the same woman for a long time. Try to make yourself sexier maybe? Sucks as an advice but that’s pretty much your only choice. You could try to get him a bit jealous but who knows how he might react.

And I don’t have any friends (sad but true) so the situation you described is not something I’m familiar with. Sorry.

9

And now, I’m very embarassed about this rant. Call it a momentary lapse of reason or whatever. He came home much earlier than I’d expected, bringing a nice dinner with him (put it on his credit card, naughty boy!), and asked if I’d play cards after we ate. Gosh. :o And when he asked as he came in the door, “How ya doin’?” I told him that I was bored and stressed at being cooped up in this room and that I felt like a piece of the furniture. Those blue eyes got all big and he said, “I’m sorry! I don’t mean to treat you like that; I appreciate everything you do.”

That sounds like Jack. He’s just not verbally “gushy”–neither are his parents.

He’s just got a really low libido, something I find odd… but that’s him. It just gets frustrating for me.

DMC, you wrote:

That’s true. I have a dread of being ‘clingy,’ though. Most of my friends are men and the most common complaint I hear from them about women deals with clinginess.

Thanks for the support and advice, though, everyone. Sometimes, no matter how much you love a person and no matter how wonderful they are, there are little irritations that build up and you just have to vent. Well, at least that’s been my observation.

So, uh, well… I’m sorry.

10

>> The Boyfriend Rant

Oh, I thought it was the boyfriend pant and I was looking forward to some titillating tales of your panting boyfriend.

reminds me of Allan Sherman who used to sing something like: If you fall in love (then something or other) . . . then you’ll pant, and you’ll pant again, and that’s a pair of pants!

11

Titillating tales? :smiley:

Howza bout: One day I was in the (communal) kitchen and the girl (about 18) from upstairs was there with her boyfriend. She sez to me: “We heard you last night!” I responded, “What can I say? He’s a talented man.”

“Must be,” she sez, looking daggers at her boyfriend.

<e,eg>

12

Just out of curiousity, why aren’t you at work while your boyfriend is sleeping? Is it possible that you could get a job working the same hours as he does?

13

sailor

“…With all your heart and soul…”

I have too much useless junk floating around in my brain.

14

On the different schedules issue…

When I met my boyfriend, almost a year ago, he was working nights. I work days. This continued up until a week ago.

Some of the problems we noticed:

Loss of libido. Not completely; it’s just that we had completely different ‘horniness schedules’. I’d be raring to go just as he walked out the door; he’d be lusting for me just when I got home from work. Didn’t work out well.

Loss of sleep. Especially after “I’ll stay up late to spend more time with him”/“I’ll get up early to do stuff with him” weekends. Both of us were regular insomniacs.

Loss of time. We had big chunks of time alone, when each other were at work. Not big enough to go out and do something by ourselves, but big enough to be boring.

Having different schedules is tough; any couple that’s gone through it will tell you that it takes a lot of work to make sure that the pressure stays bearable. How long will he be on this schedule?

Meanwhile, in the week since my boyfriend’s gone back to normal human time, it’s been like a whole new dawn in our relationship. We can go out, have fun, hang out together, all without the constant pressure of one of us having to go to work shortly. It’s blissful.

Good luck; sounds like you’ve got yourself a good one.

15

Then keep him…I don’t know. Sometimes guys get bored of their girlfriends and don’t put any effort into the relationship.

Are you gaining a lot of weight? I’m not trying to be mean, but that can be a source of “loss of libido” (as in he doesn’t find you attractive anymore). Of course working the late shift is probably the more likely culprit.

16

Naw, smith, I look the same as I always have. :slight_smile:

MrVisible, I think it is the schedule thing. I don’t want to be too crude for y’all, but <blush>…er… I “got lucky” this morning. <blush><blush><blush> And then about 8AM the phone rang and it was an offer of a part-time day job. So now, he’ll be working one 3/4 time job and two 1/2 time jobs (don’t worry, he’s a workaholic–in fact, he’s much happier when he’s rushing from one job to another). He is a good one! That’s why I’m embarrassed about having started this.

ultress, I don’t work because I’m on disability; because I did work for so long, I get the same amount of money as I would if I were working full-time at minimum wage.

17

I’ve heard a lot of comment about your boyfriends lack of libido.I agree with you, some guys just have less then so called "normal’ guys. When I was first married I always thought something was wrong with me. Nope that’s just the way my husband was and is. I’d have rather given up sleep for sex anytime, anyplace. Not him. But to be fair he works twelve hour shifts and the poor guy is plain old tired. I’ll never forget the first time I was too tired to have sex though, after never turning him down (even when all my kids were still in diapers and sleep was non existant)He was so suprised he thought I didn’t love him anymore.I had never turned him down,I was always horny.After convincing him that no I really was tired, and it wasn’t him, our sex life has turned out to be even better.He’s not as pressured and I’m not as demanding.I’m sure age has something to do with it :slight_smile: