Jump to content

Me and my boyfriend got in an argument after I hung out with my best friend

memevibes

By memevibes
in Relationship Advice

Recommended Posts

memevibes Newbie

memevibes

Posted
Posted

Hello,

 

So basically for some background info me and my boyfriend have been together for seven years and we are in a long distance relationship. I’m 22 and hes 24.

 

So now that the basics are out of the way, let me tell you what happened. On friday I mentioned to my boyfriend that I was going to be hanging out with my best friend on Sunday (yesterday) and he was fine with it. I even said “is that okay?” because I knew he had the day off and we probably wouldn’t get to hang out as much. He said “Okay”.

 

Sunday’s rolls around and I hang out with my best friend all day and then at night around 9 I skype my boyfriend and we hang out for an hour or two. I thought everything was okay but I could tell that he was upset about something so I asked him about it and that’s where we started to slightly argue.

 

I said I was annoyed because everytime I hang out with my best friend, he usually ends up with him acting sad afterwards and it’s really stressful for me.

 

He told me that he just felt like he shouldn’t have taken the day off, which I had no idea he wanted to hang out on Sunday, and I’d have been more than happy to switch plans around if he has just told me on Friday. He wanted a day with me because we hadn’t had one for awhile, but I mentioned that we have hung out for at least a couple hours on tuesday-thursday but he said he wanted a whole day. He said I didn’t ask, which is untrue I did ask if it was okay. I brought that up and he said it was because I said “I asked (best friend) if she wanted to hang out on sunday. Is that okay?” therefore I had already established plans with her. Which, okay whatever but my argument was that he could have mentioned it anyways. He could have communicated with me a little better on Friday and said, “Hey I want to have a day with you on Sunday, can you rearrange plans?” or something idk. He said that wasn’t something he couldn’t do because if he did that he’d feel like the “bad guy” afterwards.

 

I asked him to please try and communicate better with me im the future and then he proceeded to say “I feel this is so harsh from you. I have done absolutely nothing wrong outside of miss you.” and then brought up (and this is where it really upset me the most) the fact that he paid for me to go to an anime convention with my best friend (the same friend) two weeks ago, even though that was a Christmas gift. I don’t know why he brought it up and he knew that I felt bad about him paying for it regardless if it was a christmas gift or not. That’s where I basically just started to agree with him so the argument would just be over because he brought that up and it literally upset me so much.

 

Basically, I just wanted to know.. am I in the wrong? Am I being unreasonable for asking him to communicate better? I just don’t know what to do. In my eyes this could have all been solved if he just had told me that he wanted to hang out on Sunday instead of being sad after the fact.

 

Sorry if this is a mess. Let me know if you need clairificatiom. Thanks in advanced.

Link to comment
Wiseman2 Grand Master

Wiseman2

Posted
Posted

You have been dating since you were 15 y/o? You don't need his permission to see your friends, not see him, etc. Stop putting up with manipulative controlling devices such as intimidation, guilt, arguing, brooding etc. Talk to a trusted abut about this. Be clear about your plans, state them in advance and never 'ask permission' to see your friends.

Link to comment
j.man Grand Master

j.man

Posted
Posted

Of course it's reasonable to expect direct communication. I don't put up with passive aggressiveness or red herrings being brought into a discussion.

 

Still, having dated women my entire life, I know enough that a badly communicated issue or nonconstructive argument generally doesn't just fall down from the sky, and I've often been a guilty party in some way leading into that moment. It's important to hold your partner accountable to plainly communicate, but to also actually try to tackle the core issue at the same time. Simply changing the narrative to the fact they suck at communicating is rarely effective.

 

Him bringing up having bought the tickets, for instance, could be a couple things. Either he's just a legit jerk and feels him having invested in that gift intrinsically earns him something and he's upset he didn't get it, or it's reflective of a more overarching and nuanced theme of feeling taken advantage of in some way. I do think he's exceptionally butthurt about it, but I can kinda see why he might be upset if he did just essentially treat you and your friend to enjoy the previous weekend at the anime convention and have it still be beholden to him to make sure you two get some decent face to face time together the next weekend. Is this just some odd trend between the two of you that you ask if you can hang out with a friend and basically leave it to him to say, "No, hang out with me that day?"

Link to comment
Hollyj Grand Master

Hollyj

Posted
Posted

Why do you ask your bf for permission to hang out with your friend?

 

He is manipulative, controlling and a guilt tripper. Really tacky for him to bring up the gift. Especially, since it was a gift.

 

You will never do right by this guy. I can't not believe that you spent entire days on Skyoe.

Link to comment
DancingFool Grand Master

DancingFool

Posted
Posted

Sounds like pot and kettle situation to me. OP, you can't really accuse him of poor communication simply because he has a point that yours wasn't the best either.

 

When you ask him if it's OK that you do x, you are putting him in an awkward position. If he says no, it's not OK, that would make him controlling of your time and getting in the way of your plans. If he says yes it's fine, but really isn't fine because he wanted something else, he'll be unhappy with that too. It's a lose/lose situation for him. He chose the lesser evil of the two, so to speak, but you picked up on the fact that he wasn't happy with things. So in the future, don't ask for permission, instead ask him if he wants to do something with you and give him a clean chance to tell you directly what he wants. This situation was a failure to communicate both ways which then escalated into a full blown argument. Neither one of you is completely wrong or completely right in this. In a way you were both passive aggressive in your communication.

Link to comment
j.man Grand Master

j.man

Posted
Posted

Thing is it might not necessarily be controlling or manipulative. I do get that "letting the guy have all the power" is a pretty common theme, but I gotta be honest... a lot of time, we don't even want it. And if the BF here did in fact want it, he would have had no qualms saying, "No, don't hang out with your friend. Hang out with me." And if that sounds like a guy being an ***hole, it's because it is, and that's essentially the position you put him in when you framed the question so that he'd have to tell just that if he did want to hang out. It's frankly just strange if that's how you legitimately go about asking if he wants to make any plans for that weekend.

 

Again, I do think he's being a bit of a baby and could do a better job communicating himself, but the bar doesn't exactly seem to be set too high between the two of them.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...