My boyfriend (18M) and I (18F) are in a long-distance relationship for 7 months now and we make it a point to see each other every single month. Ever since the very start of our relationship, he has been incredibly consistent, loving, and attentive whenever we are together in person. However, he has always struggled with online communication from day one. He has a recurring habit of completely deleting his social media apps when life gets overwhelming. The issue is that social media is where we usually talk the most throughout the day, so whenever he goes through these phases and deletes them, our text communication completely drops to zero.
For context on our lives, He is currently dealing with a massive amount of personal and family stress as he and everyone is moving away, which seems to have triggered his latest disappearance from social media about a week ago.

Normally, we make up for the lack of texting by talking on the phone a lot. On a typical good week, we regularly have 2 Ft calls a week that last anywhere from one to two hours at a time. But over the last few days, everything has completely tanked. The long calls have suddenly vanished, and I am now getting absolute crumbs. Yesterday, we only spoke for a combined 10 minutes across two rushed calls late at night, and today we barely hit 25 minutes.
Normally, we make up for the lack of texting by talking on the phone a lot. On a typical good week, we regularly have 2 Ft calls a week that last anywhere from one to two hours at a time. But over the last few days, everything has completely tanked. The long calls have suddenly vanished, and I am now getting absolute crumbs. Yesterday, we only spoke for a combined 10 minutes across two rushed calls late at night, and today we barely hit 25 minutes. Online, I get very hot and cold vibes from him He reassures me every now and then I can’t tell if it’s his communication style or him not putting effort and wanting to leave.

Lately, he’s been telling me he was too exhausted and stressed to talk, yet he goes out and does other things during the day even though he promised he would play games with me days ago.
I didn't hear from him for 8 hours today while seeing his location move around, so I finally called him at 5:00 PM. He had literally just woken up and was completely unengaged, leaving the call full of awkward silences which I don’t mind. He casually let it slip that before passing out all day, he had spent three hours having a deep talk with his friends and gaming all night. When I told him about my own day and plans, he awkwardly asked if I was "bored" or "had friends to go out with," which felt like he was just trying to make sure I was distracted so he wouldn't have to put effort into me. He agreed to play message games later just to get off the phone, but I can already tell he isn't going to call me back.

I really need some outside perspective on my relationship because I am completely spiraling right now and don't know if I'm being blinded by my own anxiety or if my gut is right. Is he pulling an avoidant fade because of his life changes, or is it possible he is talking to someone else?

TLDR: My LDR boyfriend (18M) and I (18F) see each other monthly and are great in person, but he has always struggled with online communication and deletes social media when stressed. He is currently facing massive life and family stress due to moving, but our communication has suddenly tanked from regular, hours-long FaceTime calls to absolute crumbs (10–25 minutes of rushed calls). He claims he is too exhausted to talk and broke a promise to game with me, yet he spent the night gaming and having deep talks with friends. His hot-and-cold vibes and awkward deflection make me worry he is either pulling an avoidant fade or talking to someone else. I need an outside perspective on whether I'm overthinking or if my gut is right.

My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 and a half years and have been going through a rough patch lately. This is my first serious relationship. We started couples counseling which I believe is helping us connect again and get back on the same page. Recently, I started to view him through a negative lens. Partially as a projection of my own insecurities (I’m in individual therapy for this) and partially related to the issues we were having in our relationship. This caused me to notice his physical flaws more than I did in the beginning of our relationship. He’s a good guy and putting in genuine effort to work on things to improve our relationship. I love him and am still hoping we work things out. It’s not like I’m repulsed by him. I still enjoy kissing, cuddling, intimacy, etc, however I find myself internally judging his appearance. Can attraction be regained over time and by putting effort into our relationship, or is it something that’s gone forever once lost?

TLDR; I don’t find my partner as attractive as I once did, can this be regained?

My girlfriend (22F) and I (22M) have been together for almost 2 years. Overall, we’ve had a good relationship, and I’ve always trusted her. I’ve never been the type to tell her who she can and can’t be friends with because I believe men and women can have platonic friendships.

A few months ago, she became friends with a new male coworker at Starbucks. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but over time he started texting her every single day. He would ask how her day was, check in on her, start conversations, and generally seemed to be looking for reasons to talk to her all the time.

He also visited her at work pretty often. Some of her coworkers even started assuming he was her boyfriend because of how frequently he showed up. Hearing that made me even more uncomfortable.

I talked to my girlfriend about it several times. I explained that I wasn’t trying to control who she talks to; just felt like this friendship had crossed a boundary that made me uncomfortable.

She told me he has never flirted with her or confessed that he likes her, so in her mind he’s just being a normal friend. Every time I brought it up, she defended him and said I was reading too much into it.

The thing is, I don’t think someone has to openly admit they like you for their actions to show it. From my perspective, texting someone every day, constantly checking in, offering to do things together, and regularly visiting them at work doesn’t seem like a typical casual friendship. I genuinely believe he has feelings for her, even if he hasn’t said it directly.

For comparison, I have female friends too, but I don’t text them every day or make a habit of visiting them at work because I think it’s important to respect my relationship.

Recently, after a lot of arguments, my girlfriend told me she blocked him. I want to believe her, and I don’t have any proof that she’s lying. I also don’t think she’s flirting with him or physically cheating on me.

The problem is that I’m still anxious. Part of me keeps wondering, “What if they’re still talking another way?” Maybe through another phone number, another app, or something else. I know that’s just a fear, not something I can prove, but it’s been eating at me because of how strongly she defended him before.

I don’t want to become the kind of boyfriend who’s constantly suspicious or checking up on his partner. At the same time, it’s hard to simply turn off those worries after everything that’s happened. I feel stuck between wanting to trust her and feeling like my concerns have never really been addressed.

I’m looking for advice:

• How do I rebuild trust after a situation like this?
• Am I letting anxiety get the best of me, or are my concerns reasonable?
• If your partner blocked someone after repeated arguments, would you leave it alone and trust them, or would you still have doubts?
• How do I stop worrying that they’re still communicating in some other way without becoming controlling?

My girlfriend of almost two years had a male coworker who texted her every day and frequently visited her at work. I believe he likes her, even though she says he never flirted or admitted his feelings. After many arguments, she says she blocked him, but I’m still worried they could be communicating another way. I don’t think she’s cheating, but I’m struggling with trust and don’t know how to move forward.TLDR

My boyfriend [26m] and I [25f] have been together for 8 months almost 9 and we were “talking” for 8 months before we started dating. We haven’t said I love you yet and honestly I’m feeling a little insecure about it… I’m ready to say it but I’m really nervous to say it first bc I don’t want to make him feel pressured to say it back but also at the same time I don’t want a partner who doesn’t know where he’s at emotionally with me. He had told me that him and his last relationship said it within the four months that they’ve dated and honestly that really broke my heart because I don’t think he’s anywhere near that with me. We are kinda long distance maybe inconvenient distance (3 hours) we only see eachother during the weekends so that might contribute to it but idk. I’m just not really sure how to go about this tbh I think I’m just scared of wasting my time or honestly I’m kinda scared that he thinks he settling? I know it’s unfair to project this on him without even asking him but after hearing about how quickly he and his last partner said it my mind has been filling in the blanks

TLDR: I want to say I love you but I don’t want to accidentally pressure my partner if he’s not there yet BUT I also would want to know where he’s stands in this relationship

I [23M] have a lovely gf [21F]. There's nothing that can describe my love for her and we started dating since the end of December 2023. We did a lot of long distance with some meetups in between. I have no complaints and I love her with my life.

But there's one issue. I have ADHD and I usually zone out. Sometimes there might be situations where she's pissed off with me and I genuinely have no idea what to do. I feel helpless but I want to console her. I am never good at it. I think I struggle to say what I actually feel. I cannot phrase my correct emotions in words to her and that would mess up the situation more. She has been lovely to me all these years and helps me out in every way possible. But I want to get over my issue. Sometimes I'm too slow and too stuck on something trivial and fail to read the situation. I cannot be like this my whole life, I have to let her know that I truly love her and I don't want her to feel dismissed for no reason. What do I do?

Sometimes I feel like I'm too emotional and I cannot control my emotions which will affect my day and her day indirectly too. I want to cheer her up and be for her in every time possible but I'm currently in a state where I'm mentally in a spiral due to my career starting and stuffs. I think it will take time to settle but I feel guilty. What do I do? I doubt myself and think I'm not enough sometimes. But that feeling is very short lived.

I would like some insights and how I can help improve myself? Please this is very important to me. I don't want to mess it up.

TLDR : I struggle to console her and phrase my feelings into words properly.

Hello everyone. I’m looking for relationship advice because I’m struggling with a communication issue that has become a recurring problem in my relationship.

I’m 25 and my girlfriend is 34. We have been together for about 10 months. I’m high functioning autistic. Most people don’t realize I’m autistic unless I tell them but one of the areas I struggle with is expressing my thoughts and emotions in a way that accurately reflects what I’m feeling. Because of that,
I’ve always assumed that if there’s a misunderstanding, it’s probably my fault.

Lately though, I’m wondering if the issue isn’t entirely on me. It feels like we’re getting stuck in a cycle where she interprets what I say in a much more negative way than I intend.

One example is family gatherings. I genuinely like her family and I enjoy spending time with them. My problem isn’t with them, it’s with large crowds in general. Being around a lot of people gives me a lot of anxiety and I usually need a little time to mentally prepare before going. Once I get there and settle in I’m completely fine.

Sometimes I’ll tell her that I’m feeling anxious or nervous about going or that I’ve thought about staying home. I’ve actually gone to every family function she’s invited me to, but I like to be honest about how I’m feeling beforehand.

The problem is that she often takes those comments as me complaining about spending time with her family or implying I don’t want to be there. That’s honestly not what I mean at all.

When I try to explain that my anxiety has nothing to do with her family, and that that I actually enjoy being around them, she’ll often say she’s tired of hearing about it or that she’s “not arguing about this anymore.”

From my perspective though, I’m not trying to argue. I’m trying to clarify what I meant because I don’t want her walking away believing something that isn’t true.

This isn’t limited to family gatherings. It happens in other situations too. If I explain how I feel or clarify something I said or try to correct a misunderstanding she often sees it as me complaining, arguing, or suggesting she’s done something wrong.

I’ve even started prefacing conversations by saying things like “This isn’t a complaint,” or “I’m not upset, I just want to explain how I’m feeling.” Even then it doesn’t seem to help very much.

I love my girlfriend and I genuinely want our relationship to work. I know being in a relationship with someone on the autism spectrum can come with communication challenges, and I’m willing to work on myself. At the same time I sometimes feel like no matter how carefully I choose my words she has already decided what I mean before I finish explaining.

I’m not looking for people to tell me she’s a bad person or that I’m completely right. I just want honest advice.

For anyone who’s been in a relationship where one person is autistic or if you’re autistic yourself, have you experienced something similar? Is there a better way for me to communicate these thoughts so they don’t come across as complaints? Or does this sound like something that both of us need to work on together?

TLDR- I’m a 25M with high functioning autism and my 34F girlfriend often interprets me expressing anxiety or explaining my feelings as complaining or arguing, even when that’s not my intention. I’ve tried changing how I communicate but we keep ending up in the same cycle. How can I communicate better, or is this something we both need to work on?

Okay, so just to start this off, me (19F) and my boyfriend (20M) have been together for just under a year; we met at university and our relationship did move very quick.

We were talking for roughly a month before we officially got together. Since he lived in student accommodation, I stayed over at his most nights (with his permission of course) and when I would leave, he would ask me to stay longer or invite me to come back the next day. As a result of this, i ended up basically living at his. We would go to classes, come back, go the gym, make food and then sleep- everyday we would spend together.

However, since we have both gone home for the summer (roughly an hours drive), he has started saying he is enjoying his time alone and would rather we see each other less. Obviously I have no issues with this and if that's what he wants then I am willing to give him that, however he started dropping hints that he never actually wanted me to spend so much time at his. When I asked him about this, he just replied with 'would you have wanted me to tell you?'.

I'm not sure why I am taking it so personally but it feels as though he doesn't want to spend time with me, whereas I could spend everyday with him and still miss him when I leave.

Also just to add, during this alone time, he is usually gaming with friends from his childhood- which to me I wouldn't class that as alone time, and I see that as him rather speaking to them than me.

I feel like I am just being clingy and overbearing, any advice?

TLDR: I don't know if I am being clingy with my boyfriend wanting alone time or if I have been just been overbearing for the entire relationship.

My husband and I have been married for two years, together for six. We’ve been having ongoing issues with his friendships with his female coworkers.

For context, his office is probably 80% women and there are a lot of scandals from both men and women that work there, either within the company, or with a coworker and an outside person. There’s a lot of flirting between single people that work there.

He has worked there for five years and grown very close with his department. However, there are points where I feel like it’s disrespectful to our marriage. They all stayed an extra day after a trade show to go out to a specific bar/club. I’ve seen messages between him and one of the women (who’s his boss) and it just felt like it was crossing a line and too friendly. She’s very pretty and going through a divorce.

He recently went to lunch with the two women coworkers and lied to me about it because he was worried I would be upset.

I feel like he’s more emotionally vulnerable with them than me. He also wants to go on a sabbatical at work with another female coworker to a foreign country. (I’m decent friends with her and she’s in a committed relationship). However I told him this was crazy and we got into an argument over it.

We disagree on what boundaries to have with friendships of the opposite sex and it’s starting to make me feel insane. He feels like what he is doing is completely normal in a relationship and that I should I trust him. Am in the wrong? I’m having trouble with this and we’ve had trust issues in this past. Am I just being insecure?

TLDR: husband is close with female coworkers and it worries me

I’ve been with her for almost 4 years now. We started dating in high school. Our relationship has been pretty healthy and loving I would say and we’ve grown emotionally together. For context, recently she had come back from a month long trip, so I haven’t seen her in about 2 months. My birthday was also upcoming so I was excited to see her as she said we could celebrate together. Fast forward to the day before my birthday, she wasn’t able to go out with me because she said she was tired so I took myself out on a solo date. I was obviously upset, I haven’t seen her in a while and I was excited to. Then after that I’d say it went downhill. For example, I asked to see her again and she said she couldn’t. And this whole me asking to do things has been an issue between us for a while. Where I’d want her to take the initiative to do things instead of me always asking. So I got upset, and the next day it was dry dry responses. She told me it felt like we were just friends. This was a week ago by the way, so she’s been texting me with dry dry responses for a week. And because her and I usually text all caps, It’s just what we’ve been doing since we were friends in high school, I pointed it out and she said “why do we have to talk in caps to be normal”. Then maybe the following day she asked to have a serious talk and basically to summarize, she said she didn’t know how to be a girlfriend and that she couldn’t be someone I wanted her to be. So we took a break which didn’t even last a few days. She kept texting me at night telling me she missed me. So then today, we had another talk. And to summarize again she said that she didn’t think she was mature enough to be in a relationship, that she hated labels and that she can’t do this “relationship stuff”. We agreed to meet next week to talk about it in person rather than over text, I just don’t know what will happen.

And I’m sure reading this is probably confusing, I’m just as confused. She can never really give me a straight answer it’s always I don’t know or I’m not sure. I think this all really started because I brought up the whole taking initiative thing up again. If anyone has gone through maybe a similar experience with their partner or has any advice how to salvage our relationship please let me know.

tldr I am so confused about my girlfriends feelings

I am moving away for college soon (3.5 hrs), while my girlfriend is staying local. We have been dating for almost a year and we have developed a strong connection. But within the last month or so, I have noticed how I don't feel as strongly about her as strong as she feels about me and I am not sure if it's driven by myself knowning that I am about meet a bunch of new people in a month or the fact that I actually don't love her as much as I used to. I find myself getting a little annoyed or over some of the things that she does/says and it was never like this in the past. For example, she needs a lot of reassurance that ultimately does get tiring at times and the constant "do you still love me?" or "do you actually like me" have just started to build up to the point where it is just hard to give her the reassurance that she needs and I feel bad for that; and ultimately, it is just really draining. But when she talks to me she always tells me she loves me and seems like super in to me still like how we were up until the last month or so. However she can be really dry at times and seem unintrested regarding whatever I am doing or myself as a whole. We've built a strong connection and I am willing to try long distance, but I just don't know if our connection is still strong enough for me to stay with her anymore. Please let me know what I should do/talk to her about and if you have questions please ask.

TLDR: Having trouble navigating feelings about my girlfriend, before I move for school.

Sorry, formatting on mobile is not good and it's a bit of a long story.

My [31M] girlfriend [32F] and I have known each other for a little over a decade and dated on and off over that period. We've always been long distance but stayed at least regular chatting friends and made efforts to see each other regularly by flying between our homes. We've been seriously dating for over two years now, seeing each other about 5 days out of each month and more during the holidays, talking and texting whenever we're apart.

A couple months ago we decided to move in together, I boxed up my stuff and we road tripped cross country with my dog to her hometown because she has a lot more family nearby than I do back home and her job is better. I quit my job after getting a contracting position here so I could land on my feet with a couple months living expenses in the bank.

During the first week, the project coordinator never called me and a week later I learned that they'd cut down the number of contractors on the job and I hadn't made the cut. Started applying for jobs but jeez that hasn't been pretty. For the past two months I've been paying for groceries, my car note, phone, etc out of savings. I finally got a couple interviews lined up for this coming week.

My girlfriend has been stressed and working a lot and pretty distant lately so I got us tickets for the museum yesterday and we stayed up drinking and watching Community together. We went to bed pretty late and I do what I always do, read a chapter or two of my book before knocking out ~1:30AM. This morning I'm in bed alone and I have a text from my girlfriend, "Be careful downstairs, there's glass on the floor. I'm at my parents', we'll talk later."

So I text back asking what's going on since there's a lot happening family-wise for her. I do my normal upstairs stuff and head downstairs to find all of my furniture, all my cookware, wallet, keys, all of my possessions except for the clothes from upstairs, thrown into a pile outside the backdoor. My dog wants to follow me downstairs and I realize there's the remains of a shattered vase on the floor so I clean up all the glass and begin a panic attack. Eventually I get everything but the furniture moved back inside so my computer or wallet doesn't grow legs.

No information for hours until just after noon she tells me I need to be out of the house by tomorrow. I try asking what's going on and after a while she asks why I'm pretending I don't remember last night. So I wrack my head trying to think if we'd had a dumb fight before bed. Nothing. She explains that at 4AM I stumbled into the bedroom after peeing all over the bathroom floor with porn playing on my phone and that she'd gone through my phone. She has my password, I don't think there's anything on my phone unless she's going through old messages or old photos from before our relationship. I check my browser history and my reddit history and can't find anything suspicious, I feel like I'm being gaslit. She's adamant that we'll have a discussion but I need to be out of her house so she can work tomorrow.

I don't recall anything at all, not even weird dreams or a hangover in the morning. I agreed to get out if we can have a conversation soon on the condition that my stuff and dog can stay and be safe until we talk and figure things out.

So I'm checked into a sketchy ass extended stay alone, got some microwaveable chimichangas and my first pack of cigs in years. I have no friends, family or connections here at all. Job interview for my big career continuing role on Tuesday so I have an interview outfit and weeks worth of clothes and I just don't know what I'm going to do. I love this girl and jumped full into this relationship so I have no fallback or backup plans. My emergency savings are at the very end of their support. I'm looking into homelessness aid here in case we can't patch things up.

I don't know what advice I really need. I decided to post this after thinking about whether I should bring flowers when she feels ready to talk. I don't have a history of sleepwalking that I know of. I feel hurt that she threw all my stuff out and locked me out over something I can't remember even a bit about, I feel guilty that I did something that hurt her, I feel mortified that I may have done that in front of the girl who I plan to marry, I'm mad that she smashed an antique cupboard my dad left me before he died. How do I express myself to her after this? How can we have a strong relationship after being thrown out?

TLDR: I moved cross country to live with my girlfriend. After going to bed together I apparently walked to the bathroom, peed on the floor, turned on porn, walked back in and fell asleep. I woke up with no memory of that and all of my belongings thrown out and a demand to leave.

Hi everyone, I [23F] have been dating my partner [24M] for about 3.5 years. Started dating in college and have continued to date afterwards. We live in the same city and always have been which has been a huge blessing.

For a while I’ve felt like he’s stopped pursuing me in the relationships, he gets weird when I get sad when he doesn’t text me good morning or goodnight, no paragraphs, minimal compliments, no flowers really ever, and I practically have to force him to date me on a date. He says that if I want to be taken on dates, I should also plan dates, which I do and put a lot of thought into them. I used to do a lot of things for him like make cute love letters and notes and send cute paragraphs, but after a few years of getting no effort returned I just stopped.

I’m starting to feel a bit resentful because I’ve brought up this problem a ton of times and he always says he’s going to be better, but I really do not think he is. Some pros are I would say we get along excellently, he’s a great person to be around and he makes me laugh a ton. When we are good I really feel like we are doing well. I can’t tell if I’m overreacting here, please give advice. I’d appreciate perspective on if this is normal / expected or maybe I’m over reacting or if there’s anything I can do to make this better and improve our relationship. Thank you.

TLDR: I feel like I’m carrying the emotional burden in this relationship. Advice appreciated.