How to get my boyfriend to stop looking for something wrong and relax?

My boyfriend and I have been together for over a year and have had some rough patches lately. I'd say we've gotten over the majority of them but now, maybe because of how I've handled them, he literally always thinks there's something wrong when it's usually not at all. In the past when I'd get upset at him, I usually wouldnt talk for a while because i'm bad at communicating and it takes me a long time to express myself and come up with the right words to say. So now I think he associates me being quiet with me being upset with him. Last night, I had just come home from work, was tired, a little annoyed etc but it was one of our date days so i was trying to get over it. I guess I was a little more quiet than usual so he starts asking me if I'm okay/mad at him, etc. I say I'm fine just tired, not mad at him at all. Time passes and he starts asking me these crazy questions "You don't want anything to do with me? You don't care about me? Do you hate me today?" I was SHOOOOOK it all happened so fast and I was genuinely confused. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, repeated that I just had a long day, and told him it had nothing to do with him! As the night progressed I ended up getting genuinely annoyed with him because he kept thinking I was annoyed with him if that makes sense. I told him I was never upset with him but NOW I'm annoyed because he kept making all these things up in his head and depressing himself and confusing me. I just repeated myself a million times that my mood had nothing to do with him, like I kept explaining myself, being as blunt as possible, but he kept asking me "why are you annoyed? what did I do" etc it's like he couldn't get it through his head and then he ended up driving me home early (speeding and being dramatic), sitting in silence, with a sad puppy dog look on his face the whole time. He literally bummed his self out. He didn't even want to kiss me goodnight because he really thought something was wrong and felt bad and was maybe upset with me? I take some of the blame because when i'm genuinely upset I'm much quieter and colder but like.. I told him several times it had nothing to do with him and explained my reasoning for being quiet but then ended up getting genuinely annoyed because he wouldn't listen and kept making it about our relationship instead of dropping it. He overthinks a lot and obviously tends to see things that aren't there and when he gets like that I try to tell him to just RELAX and drop it before he upsets himself but he just keeps going and I think convinces himself that somethings wrong with us. What else can I do/say to make him feel like our relationship isn't in shambles whenever I get quiet or I'm not in a happy go lucky mood 24/7?

If you feel grumpy, tired, annoyed or a bit moody after work or whenever, why not just reschedule the date if you know you are just going to sit there giving someone a mood/attitude and not be very good company?

It's fine to say you're tired, had a rough day, etc and reschedule. It's not fine to sit and pout or give someone one the silent treatment or curt one word "fine" answers. Either be up for the date... or not. And you know best when that is. You seem to realize "you're not good at communicating" so be at peace and just chill out alone when you need alone time.

I had just come home from work, was tired, a little annoyed etc but it was one of our date days so i was trying to get over it. I guess I was a little more quiet than usual so he starts asking me if I'm okay/mad at him, etc. I say I'm fine just tired, not mad at him at all.

If I had rescheduled he would have just called or texted me asking if something was wrong and it would have been the same deal just on the phone. I feel like the bigger issue is whenever I'm not in the greatest mood, hes just always going to assume it has to do with relationship problems and turn it into something bigger than it is. We only get to hang out about twice a week so I was excited to see him and be with him I was just a little more quiet than usual.

I told him I was just tired because of work and it had nothing to do with him and I thought he'd understand and that'd be the end of it but he just kept pushing it. I don't think i was very pouty or short with him or anything until the end of the night when he annoyed me with the same questions after I had answered them already.

Is he clingy? Does he expect you to entertain him no matter what's going on for you? His line of questioning seems like "badgering the witness" and "asked and answered". Why is he so insecure about the relationship? Do you think he's using passive-aggressive techniques to keep pushing and being irritating once he has already been told you're tired or stressed or whatever? Your question is "how to get him to...", however you can't change him, only your approach, so if you reward him with your company when he's crawling up your butt with annoying badgering, then he'll just keep doing it. Up to you how to change what you do about it.

He sounds very insecure. Does he do this often? I knew someone like this, and I have to tell you, it never went away. Unfortunately, you can only reassure someone so many times. It’s up to you if you want to continue to live with it or not.

I see two issues here. First, the guy definitely seems insecure and, yeah, pretty annoying. But if you're the type who has a regular shut-down over whichever relationship issue happens to be the flavor of the week, this guy is pretty much the extent of your opportunity. It's either him or the guy who finds your misery funny, or at the very best is completely apathetic toward it. Obviously neither is a prime candidate. Not a lot of healthy and marketable men who make a conscious decision to settle for a reliably brooding presence.

And this is coming from someone who wishes more people did take the necessary time and space to collect and articulate themselves before broaching a sensitive or contentious topic. My relationship and marriage certainly haven't been exempt from one or both of us needing to spend some time to ourselves before an important discussion. Difference is it happens maybe once in intervals that are as long as your entire relationship.

There's also a right and wrong way to assert your space and collect yourself, the former not including making a bee-line from the front door to the bedroom or walking in and out of the kitchen huffing to yourself, or just generally being a toxic presence in a common or shared space. If by your admission, you've repeatedly gone silent over relationship issues in recent months, he's got zero reason to assume or have confidence in you having simply taken on work as the next best excuse to chill the air.

"Not being happy 24/7" occupies a pretty big buffer between "happy" and "cold." While, again, the guy doesn't sound incredibly healthy to me, I'd hesitate to put it all on him when you seem to have installed a switch for your emotions rather than a dimmer.

I agree with the other posters. Your boyfriends behavior would be annoying, but it’s a result of your actions.

It’s incredibly frustrating when you’re happy to be hanging out with someone and they’re clearly upset but insist they’re “fine”. My husband used to do that and it absolutely infuriated me. If you want to insist that you’re fine, or just tired, or whatever, then your issues are your problem to deal with. Don’t dampen my evening with your lingering gray cloud. However, if you’ll just admit what’s bothering you, then I could extend a little bit of empathy, understanding, maybe try to cheer you up, etc.

Also, how is your boyfriend supposed to know the difference between crybabylmaoo who is quiet because she’s mad at him, and crybabylmaoo who is quiet because she’s tired from work? Don’t make it his job to try to figure that out. That’s cruel and selfish, and of course that will result in his insecurity.

You want to fix the problem?? Challenge yourself to be honest when you’re upset, even if it’s just “I’m really grouchy right now, not sure why.” Be honest when you’re upset with him, WITHOUT him having to pump you for information. Only then can he rest assured that when you say you’re not mad at him, you’re really not mad at him.

He sometimes says he knows that he's super clingy and things like "how do you put up with me" but honestly I don't find him to be clingy at all he loves me a lot and he shows it a lot but it doesn't make me feel like smothered or anything. I dont think he wants me to "entertain" him but I guess because we don't see each other everyday, he expects me to always be in the best mood when we're together and when i'm not, it worries him. And yes he does do this often, it just drives me insane when I'm maybe thinking about someone that annoyed me at work and he hits me with a "you hate me". I'm not trying to put all the blame on him, because of how I've handled things in the past, its harder to figure out when im upset at him vs when i'm just moody or quiet over something that i'll probably get over in an hour. I said said this like verbatim to him. He just hates when im quiet because it makes him assume the worst. I love that he's so open about his emotions but it's like once he's on, he can't turn himself off like when he's sad he's saaaaaad and it'll usually be because of something he just made up in his head. He loses sleep because of things like this like I called him this morning and he told me he didn't sleep much and was really tired because of all the thoughts he had running through his head. I've been trying to be more open about my feelings instead of just shutting down but whenever I try to explain to him that I'm upset over something that has nothing to do with him, he keeps questioning it and then I ACTUALLY get upset or just irrated at him. I tried explaining this to him like "I wasn't upset with you but now you are actually annoying me by thinking I was" and then he'll start asking me why i'm annoyed!! like he didn't just hear everything I said to him. It's like an endless cycle. If I'm repeatedly telling him that my negative feelings have nothing to do with him or that i'm okay/will be okay what else can I say or do? I'm sharing the blame but my biggest concern is just what can I DO about it now that its all out in the air. Like what else is there to do in that sort of situation it's like he doesn't listen to anything I say and starts questioning things that have already been answered several times. I guess I just want to know how I can diffuse the situation before it turns into something way bigger than it is.

Walk in and say "I am in a quiet mood because of work. I will take 30 minutes to diffuse and then I'd like us to watch a movie together/go out for dinner/play a board game/go for a walk."

All these head games would make me want to blow my brains out.🤯😱

Honestly, how often are you coming home in a ****ty mood? I don't get how this is such a repeating issue. And, reading your follow-up post, you mention you don't see each other any day. I'd assumed you were living together, so I was willing to give you some benefit for having that fixed proximity. But, what, you're showing up to dates in a tiff? Why not meet up a couple hours after your daily grind to afford yourself some mental wind-down time before you go out or meet up at each other's place? It is a rather crappy thing to do to selectively show up and drag the environment down with you.

Like it or not, you set the tone where you clamming up and brooding (which is annoying in its own right) equals him having goofed up somehow. For as obnoxious as he's being about it, he's actually making a pretty reason-based assessment given this behavior of yours hasn't stopped despite you claiming things have changed. Combine that with no one wanting to sit across the table on a date or even just chilling in a living room with someone who can't do anything but ho and hum, and yeah, there's a good chance you're gonna get poked and prodded about it.

Again, I'm not discounting his acting like a bit of a pest. But so long as this is the attitude and dynamic you present, this is the guy get. Assuming it isn't in fact you being annoyed with him and just not being able to cope with every day life, you're gonna get nexted by anyone better.

If you don't want him assuming you're upset with him, then drop the behavior you were exhibiting when you were upset with him. Employ better internalization techniques and factor in your propensity to be in a mood when deciding when and wear to hang out. And ditch the whole "happy/Eeyore" dichotomy. Once you've managed to stop being a pretty constant negative presence and he's still acting like a freshman English major, I'll be more than happy to throw my full support toward Team Lmao.

Being realistic, though, I think it is his presence that's annoying you. I doubt it ever stopped from whatever was going on the previous months. In which case it would be pretty crappy further holding it against him for accurately identifying the reason.

I'll try to explain better soo back when we were at our worse I'd probably get upset with him like once a week and wouldn't want to talk to him. I made another post here in like June or July but long story short, whenever he'd make plans with me, he'd cancel them last minute and there was a point when it happened EVERY single time we were suppose to have a date and it was driving me insane. We talked about it, it got better for a while but then time passed and instead of canceling our plans he'd just take forever to get to me. Like we'd have a date scheduled for 6pm, he'd tell me he was getting ready at 5:30 but then take literal hours to come get me or meet me. Basically he was putting off seeing me to do dumb ish he could do anytime.

It was the worst, and one day I just let it all out like ranted, we talked about it, and its better. All of that was a few months ago and I've gotten better (not the best) at talking about my feelings when I feel them and not days, weeks, months after when I've like bottled it all up. Im hardly ever in a bad mood on physical dates in fact being with him always cheers me up if I was previously in a bad mood. I didn't mean I only get upset when we're on dates, I used our date as an example because it happened just last night. We have like a routine where we text throughout the day, call each other when we're home and then watch a movie or whatever together at night until we fall asleep. Even when we're not physically together we're pretty much always doing something together. So when ive had a bad day or whatever the case he can usually tell. He goes into the "are you mad me" thing whenever he senses something is different. I don't just get ready for all our dates with the thought of killing myself everytime we're together lmao that'd be a waste since we only see each other about twice a week. But in last nights instance, yes, I was in a poor mood on one of dates. lol I don't need you to become team lmao im just trying to figure out how i can stop this from happening in the future because we ARE planning on moving in together next year and if I'm ever in any sort of weird mood I don't want him to think he or our relationship is the reason and end up in that cycle where he swears something's wrong again. But I guess all of this helps.

 

So now I think he associates me being quiet with me being upset with him. Last night, I had just come home from work, was tired, a little annoyed etc but it was one of our date days so i was trying to get over it. I guess I was a little more quiet than usual so he starts asking me if I'm okay/mad at him, etc. I say I'm fine just tired, not mad at him at all. Time passes and he starts asking me these crazy questions "You don't want anything to do with me? You don't care about me? Do you hate me today?"

 

A bit of a different spin but do you think it's possible he's projecting and that HE is the one who is actually mad at you?

Before I became more self-aware, I used to project quite a bit, not just with my boyfriends but with everyone close to me.

For example, I would actually be mad at my bf for something, and instead of expressing that I would ask him if he is mad at me?

My current bf used to do this with me a few times in the early stages of our RL when I was quieter than usual, or withdrawn, wanted to be by myself.

He would say "is everything okay, you upset with me about something"?

And I would respond "no, why should I be? Are you upset with me"?" Turning it around.

At first he would say no, but we've gotten to the point where there is so much trust, he would actually admit that my being quiet and needing to be by myself sometimes would upset him, throw him off balance, caused him to feel insecure, pissed him off!

We've moved past all that now cause he understands my nature and doesn't take anything personally, but do you think your bf gets mad/upset with you, for coming home a bit moody, annoyed not wanting to engage and instead of telling you that, he projects and starts asking you if you're mad at him, do you hate him today, etc etc?

When the reality is that is how HE feels?

I dunno, projecting is sort of a complex phenomenon and difficult to wrap one's head around, but it makes sense to me in a weird sort of way.

I've come to understand it.

So just a thought but the next time he starts in with "are you mad at me?" just respond with "no, why are you mad at me"?

And gauge his response.

You might open up a dialogue and discover lots of things about each other you never knew before!

And create a path to better communication and a new understanding of each other.