I feel like I'm just a babysitter.
My boyfriend and I have been dating for 5 months now and we moved quickly with our relationship because we both fell in love with each other very quickly. Too quickly. And I understand that our schedules are so different since he works nights and I work days, but lately the only time he and I spend any time together is when he has his son and needs help watching him. Those nights he'll call/text me the entire time he's at work.. but when we don't have his son, I'll maybe hear from him once a day, if that. We've barely talked all week, even after I told him that I was concerned about some of the things his son told me about his BM and I didn't even hear from him at all yesterday and we're supposed to have his son today, so I know he'll call/text me and suddenly have all the time in the world to talk to me. It just started to get like this in the last month or so.
My boyfriend tells me over and over how much he loves me, how important I am to him, how he has feelings for me that he didn't even have for his ex-wife, and how he prayed to god to find someone that would be caring for him and his son and the next day he met me and he knows that god finally answered his prayers. I'm also the only person he's dated that he let meet his son, no one else was allowed to spend time with his son. We've gone a long way in such a short amount of time, and I want to believe that he's sincere, but I'm just not feeling like he loves me the way he says he does. I even told him that I don't need him to tell me how he feels, I need him to show me and not be distant/absent. He promises that he'll change and that things will get better, and it will for a few days, but I don't understand why he's all of the sudden so busy at work and can't talk as much as he used to and then when I'm watching his son at night for him then he has all the time in the world to text me. Granted, I don't want to talk to him every 5 minutes, but I'm starting to feel like he's only calling/texting me when he needs me to watch his son, like I'm his personally babysitter.
And don't get me wrong, we've had a great relationship so far, he's a wonderful guy and a great father to his son.. I just feel like I'm getting taken for granted and I don't know how to say that without making it seem like I'm unhappy watching his son for him, because I'm not.. I truly love and care for his son as I do for my boyfriend. I've told him that I feel lonely most of the time because he isn't around much, I've told him that I would appreciate hearing from him at least once a day, I've told him that it's important to me that we keep in touch more, and I've told him that it's a little upsetting that we don't spend more than a day or two together each week anymore. I don't know how much more clearer I can make it to him about how I'm feeling and how he's treating me. What do I need to say/do to get it though to him that this isn't working for us :?
Any one out there had a situation like this or felt like this in their relationship? Any advice would be appreciated.
I hate to say it but if you
I hate to say it but if you feel this way after 5 months.... It will only get worse!!!! I moved quickly with my SO and we have been together 14 months. I have had those moments myself, but the difference is I talk with him about it. He sees how I could feel that way and proves me wrong!!!! After about 6 months together we reached an impasse with his kid. I told him I was considering moving out, or we could do something about it. We got into counseling to wor on the problems and it has only gotten better!!!
What do you say when you talk
What do you say when you talk to him about it? How does he prove you wrong?
Because I feel like I'm telling him what I need from him, but he's not understanding it. Or, like I said, he doesn't care. I want to believe that he's sincere because we have had a good relationship so far, but this is the one thing that keeps getting worse and worse and nothing I'm saying is getting my point across.. I'm just getting so frustrated!
It has been really hard to
It has been really hard to say what I need to say and have him truly understand. But we have great communication between us so finally I told him, I need you to be my partner during this conversation and not try to give me reasons but hear YOUR partners feelings!! That was HUGE!!! I tend to not say things I think will hurt him until I can't take it anymore. It was me crying (which I never do) asking for him to just hear my pain. It is hard, but sometimes you have to get them out of the "parent" role and into the boyfriend role.
How did he prove me wrong? He has made US a priority, he does things like ask me to walk him out wen he leaves for work, which show me he wants that 2 mins just us. He runs a bath for us an has a bottle of wine chilled and ready to go. He maintains "our" room and doesn't let her just walk in, he has stopped letting her get in between us. He works 2 hours away and he always calls me to let me know he got there safe.
She told him the other night she doesn't want us together. He told her how much I do for her and she needs to get a grip on her feelings. And than told me she is 9, her feelings on us being together don't matter.
If he only has time for you when you have his kid, something is wrong. If he just is making time at work to check on how you are handling it with his kid.. Well dear, he is checking on his kid AND YOU!! If he just can't make time while e is at work when you don't have his kid, come on... It's work. So it depends on a lot. Tell me about when he is off work? When he calls and you have his kid does e only ask about the kid or is he asking are you alright? See the difference?
When he's at work and I'm
When he's at work and I'm with his son, he'll usually ask how I'm doing and if everything is ok. Then he always complains about being at work because he says he'd rather be with me and his son. When he's not at work, then the 3 of us will do things together and he does usually try to sneak me away for a moment or two to hug me or tell me how much he appreciates me because his son is pretty attached to me and likes to sit next to me or on my lap most of the time.
It's just lately he hasn't been making the same efforts that he used. He would always text me when he woke up (he works nights), he would let me know when he was at work, and he would ALWAYS text me when he got home, even if I'm normally asleep by that time because he can leave work between 2am-6am, because he knows I worry and I like to see that he made it home safe when I wake up later that morning. He would also text me when he got home from work to see if I was having trouble sleeping and wanted to go over to his place. That was getting hard for me, so I started going over to his place when I got off work, then he would leave for work later that night and I would spend the night at his place and wait for him to come back home. But that's gone from 4-5 nights a week to barely 1 night a week.. unless he has his son, then I spend the whole time, unless I'm at work, at his house or he spends the whole time at my house, unless he's at work.
I've told him that I feel really lonely lately, I told him that it's important to me to know that he's ok and makes it to work/home safely, I told him that I don't want him to call me every 5 minutes but that I like being able to talk to him every day, and that I need him to stop just saying that he loves me and start showing me because I don't feel like he loves me, I feel like I'm just some girl he picks up a plays with when he feels like it lately. We had a big talk about it last Thursday because he went 3 days without contacting me back and I was breaking up with him because of it, but he wanted me to give him a chance to make things better again and that he would try to anticipate how I was feeling and make more of an effort to spend time with me. He was having son that weekend and I almost didn't watch him, but it was his son's birthday and he was really excited to come over and see us so I went against my better judgement thinking that if I make the effort to be around my boyfriend even though I was still upset that maybe he would make more of an effort. And he did all weekend, he did nice things and spent spare moments with me when his son was preoccupied for a few seconds with his new toys. But his son went back to his ex-wife's house on Monday and since then, we've had maybe 2 conversations and then I didn't hear from him at all yesterday. He texted me a few minutes ago to say that he wasn't ignoring me and that he just woke up, but doesn't apologize for being absent yesterday or give an explanation.
This is the first relationship I've been in since my ex-fiance cheated on me 5 years ago, I didn't want to date just anyone after that, I want to find someone who was going to be worth it. And my boyfriend came along and he was worth it because he made me worth it. But now.. this problem just keeps getting worse and I don't know how else to say what I've already been saying, it's getting frustrating! I want to be with him, but not like this. He has been busier at work, and I understand that.. but I'm busy at work all day too, I don't take breaks or my lunch hour and I still find time to contact him. I don't want him calling me every hour or anything like that, and I've said that to him. I just don't feel like a priority to him, I don't feel like I'm as important to him as he says that I am.. and I shouldn't feel that way about my boyfriend.
How did you approach the
How did you approach the conversations? I keep trying to talk to my boyfriend and I feel like I'm telling him what I need from him and what's important to me, but he's either not understanding what I'm saying or I'm not saying it in a way for him to understand. Or he just doesn't care, I don't know.
It sounds liked he asked God
It sounds liked he asked God for a nanny not a SO
He calls when you have his son, because he wants to make his child is ok. That's pretty normal.
To bad you can't speak to the exs that never met his son. I bet anything they broke up with him because they figured out what he was trying to pull
I feel you on a lot of this.
I feel you on a lot of this. DH and BM expect me to babysit whenever they ask (which is usually whenever BM screws something up). They even had me watching them when I sick with the flu. I had to text DH at work and beg him to find someone else to do it.
Lately when he makes noises about needing someone to watch them I just go 'oh' and leave it at that.
You don't offer to watch his
You don't offer to watch his kids at all? Has that helped or harmed your relationship?
He didn't get to see him as
He didn't get to see him as often because he could only take his son when he consecutive nights off of work. Then I offered, if he was comfortable with it, to watch his son while he was at work so he could spend more time with him. And that's how we've done it since.