Need bf advice

LegacyUser

Had a huge row with bf last night over absolutetly nothing! And now I don't know what to do.

Quick summary, he stayed in my house, asked me to make sure he was up for the cup final, (no problem), woke him up and put the match on, loud volume. Asked if he was hungry and if i could make him anything, (he didn't want anything), after the first goal, he came down and watched the match in the sitting room, got comfy on the couch and put his feet up on the table, I was cleaning the house, watched the 2nd half of the match with him and extra time, then continued cleaning up, I was sorting out my bedroom and walking past him with heavy bags and books that I could barely manage carrying, went into him (when the match was over!) and asked if he could give me a hand, I had a pile of books in my hand that were slipping, he had his feet on the table and I admit I did snap at him asking him to move his feet, I was greeted with hostility for snapping so I just got on with what I was doing, then I started to make dinner and realised there was no coke, so I asked him if he'd go to the shop or watch the dinner while I went down, he said he'd watch the dinner but then I decided that I'd go after dinner and told him it was fine. Dinner was ready, had it all laid out and then he decided that he should kill the ants crawling on the front steps, this really irritated me because I'd spent ages cooking a proper roast with all the trimmings and it was getting cold(which I said to him and felt like an old grump when the words came out of my mouth!) Dinner finished and I tidied up, bumped into him in the hall and just said that I would have appreciated a hand today, the reply was I'm not a f***ing mind reader, if you wanted help you should have asked, for f**ks sake, shaking his head and going back to the sitting room where he resumed his position on the couch with feet up. I had tea with my sister in the kitchen, went into him and sat beside him, ads came on and I muted the tv and told him that I wanted to talk. Reply, there's nothing to talk about, tried to talk to him while he stared at the muted tv, when the programme came back on, I handed him the remote, he put the volume on and I went out of the room. At 1am I went back into him, tired of being ignored all day, tried to talk to him but he was still watching tv which he had done since 3pm so I turned it off, he turned it back on and so on, I felt like we were kids. I hate cursing, but I did call hima couple of names because I was telling him that I was upset that he had ignored me for the day, and I was annoyed that he didn't offer to help me at some point, and he was laughing!! I felt so hurt. He told me that I was making a big deal out of nothing, which I agreed, it shouldn't be a problem or a big deal, I just said, all you had to do was ask me if I was ok? That was all I wanted. He told me to cop onto myself, that it was the weekend and his day off and he was entitled to watch tv if he wanted and that he was going home because he's not taking this s**t! Like an eejit, I stood in front of the door and tried to talk calmly, explaining that if he left, it would make things worse and that we should try sort things out now. He sat down and I tried to explain how I felt as calmly as I could and then I moved from the door and sat down, waiting for him to respond, he leapt up and went about the house getting his things. Like an eejit again, I asked him for a hug, he gave me a hug that you'd give an elderly relative that you hated, walked down the stairs, said its best I leave and walked out the door. I turned my phone off so that I wouldn't text him but turned it on an hour later and texted to see he got home alright, which he did.

I've had my phone off all day so i didn't speak to him or text him. He sent me a text saying 'hey, how was your day? apologies for walking out last nite BUT i had to.'

As far as I'm concerned, a BUT should never follow an apology. We've been together over 3 years and we had a rough patch last summer but we've been fine the last while, as far as I know anyway! I really don't know what to do, he made me feel like I was the bad guy and that I was wrong, of course maybe I could have approached it differently but he just doesn't see that he has done anything wrong himself. I'm just looking for some advice, even if I could get a male opinion on it to shed some light! Honestly, was I wrong? And am I wrong to ignore his texts now, I'm doing it because I just don't know what to say!

Any advice would be much appreciated? Thanks everyone, sorry the post is so long but I wanted to show both sides of the story if I could.

Thnaks

DOLEMAN

It sounds like a totally ridiculous argument over nothing!

I don't fully understand it to be honest...

Sounds like he just wanted to be left alone for the day, and got very ratty with you when he felt you were "getting in his face".

I don't think you did anything wrong.

Is he depressed at the moment?

Patricide

Yea, every couple has to have the odd row, and a lot of the time its good for a couple.Ill put it this way better to have a row over nothing than a row over somthing important, it lets ya blow off a bit o pent up steam.Sounds perfectly normal to me.i wouldnt worry bout it.

Ruu_Old

Yeah like the previous posters said, its a bit mad how that all turned out. He wanted to have a lazy day and you got snappy and he fought back. A bit ignorant that he wouldnt talk to you and laughed when you were talking to him, but maybe he was tired or annoyed. Ask him when hes ready to sit down and talk, then talk it over.

Exon

He could talk calmly and sensibly about it instead of acting like a little child

Kermitt

Patricide wrote:

Yea, every couple has to have the odd row, and a lot of the time its good for a couple.Ill put it this way better to have a row over nothing than a row over somthing important, it lets ya blow off a bit o pent up steam.Sounds perfectly normal to me.i wouldnt worry bout it.

I wouldn't call it perfectly normal to sit with your feet up all day while your partner does everything around the house and then complain when she asks you to do anything. I've seen men in their 50's do this to their wives and just giggle to themselves as they slouch in front of the TV, and I think it's disgraceful behaviour. Fair enough he wanted to watch the match ,but he could have made some effort when it was over. Whats worse is that he refused to talk to you. If there's no communication then there could be a problem. I think you need to determine if this is a regular pattern of behaviour and if you're happy with it?

Rows are normal, being a lazy unhelpful slob isn't.

chump

Nothing wrong with being a lazy slob on your own turf but he seems to have overdone it a bit...

TBH if I was lovelifehell! i wouldn't have pandered to his every need the way she has.
From my reading of it, it seems like he may have gotten used to being waited on, and then lovelifehell! started getting aggravated by the things he maybe usually does... maybe it was because her sister was over and she felt embarassed, or because she'd just gotten fed up...

She's prefectly right for getting mad and all that, but TBH it seems to me like maybe she had been putting up with it for too long and blew her gasket... Moral of the story, start out as you mean to go on

fuzzywiggle

Yep.. sounds familiar to me! Stupid agrument over nothing and then afterwards your just like ''how did that happen?!'' and wish it never did because it was so ridiculous. Ok so at least he text you.. I would reply, then meet up with him and say it was stupid but at the time you were angry etc etc don't get into another argument but just have a little talk about it! and then make up! No point in making an even bigger issue of it!!

Ickle Magoo

In my experience people only treat you badly/inconsiderately/ignorantly/etc if you let them....if he was ignoring you, refusing to help, being childish, then why on earth are you still tidying the house & cooking a sunday roast?!!

It sounds like you have a communication problem....why didn't you ask for help? Why choose to do these things on Cup day when you knew the last thing your b/f would feel like doing is housework? Why didn't he tell you calmly and politely that he wanted the day to himself to have a slouch & he would help you tomorrow?! You really need to sit down & talk to each other....

Ignoring each other, ignoring texts, laughing when one person is talking - it sounds like pretty immature behaviour to me & until you have rectified that & you can communicate well, then you will keep rowing about "nothing"....."nothing" being the games people play with each other to try and convey feelings & score points without having to communicate openly.....best of luck

I don't care how long you've been going out, you don't go over to someone's house to watch tv for 10 hours and snap/laugh at them when they ask you to stop. That kind of carry-on is just not on.
He sounds like a big child to me, tbh.
At the same time, there's also no way I'd work around them and make them a big sunday roast while they were behaving like that. He did it because he knew he'd get away with it.
You both need to shape up and start some kind of communication.

Miss Fluff

^^^ Agree with everything Ickle Magoo says tbh

Zombrex

lovelifehell! wrote:

Any advice would be much appreciated? Thanks everyone, sorry the post is so long but I wanted to show both sides of the story if I could.

Your boyfriend sounds like a typical Irish "mammy's boy" ... we aren't all like that, but a lot of us are .. I lived with a guy in college who would, despite living on campus, go home each night for dinner and then come back. This guy could not boil and egg.

He wants to relax and watch TV all weekend while someone else, be it you or his mother, looks after him for the weekend. And he gets annoyed if you interupt this, as I'm sure he does when his mother (if she dares)

The whole "Its my day off" is a sure sign of that. Seriously WTF does that mean. I wonder if you put your feet up on the couch and watched TV all day and said you ain't cooking dinner because its your day off would the roast still get magically cooked.

The whole "I would have helped if you had asked" excuse is bullsh*t, I know I've used it myself. He knew perfectly well what you were doing, he just didn't want to help.

So really you have to ask yourself are you prepared to put up with that crap, either doing it all yourself or nagging him to help and feeling like the bad guy for ruining his "day off".

I totally agree with Ickle.

Stop being his mother and I bet he will notice. Probably around 5pm when he notices he hasn't eatten anything all day.

Chinafoot

I'd have to agree that you need to stop pandering to him. From the moment he woke up you were doing everything for him and while I think it's great that you're so caring towards him, this is pointless unless it's reciprocated in some way.

I don't agree that this was a stupid argument and that you should just forget it. There is a serious communication problem here and if you let this go he'll think it's fine for him to act this way because all that'll happen is that you'll get snappy and then it'll all be sorted the next day.

You've been together for three years. Sounds to me like he's just taking you for granted at this stage.

Don't fall all over yourself to do stuff for him. He was staying in your place and should have had the respect to give you a hand. He sounds pure ignorant tbh.

Also, if my boyfriend ever laughed at me when I tried to talk things out I would be seriously reconsidering the relationship. It's so disrespectful. I think thats what this whole thing comes down to. There's a lack of respect on his part and you need to get it sorted, otherwise you'll be miserable.

And yes, you're right. A "but" should never follow an apology. If it does, it's not an apology.

Best of luck.

Gone West

Seems like he has no respect for you.

The_B_Man

Is he a West Ham fan?

ye, sounds like yis are well into the routine now of u doin all the work and him gettin looked after. it angers me that theres men like this, though im probably guilty of it sometimes (not always though, hehe).

wat u need to do is what every parent does to their child: dont spoil them! i know its hard but if he starts crying for the "sweets" dont give him them, else he'll expect them all the time.

paulac

communication problems are the hardest thing to fix in my experience! its hard to change patterns that have been embedded since childhood

LegacyUser

Hey everyone, thanks for the advice. Communication has always been a problem, well, all our arguments stem from poor communication. He'd never normally behave like that, thats why it caused such a reaction in me and trust me, if he went on like that on a regular basis it would so be over! I couldn't take that. I've haven't spoken to him but I've replied to some texts. Basically I told him that I would not tolerate laughing when i was trying to talk to him, I said that if that was the type of relationship that he wanted to have, then he'd better have it with someone else. He apologised, through text and I'll be meeting him on wed and we'll try and fix it up then. He said that he should have helped me and that he was sorry, he was tired and just being lazy. I apologised for calling him names and said that I'd ask for help in the future.

I appreciate all the responses I've gotten. It's made me laugh!

He's a man u fan and just didn't want liverpool to win!
And thinking about it now, when I went to talk to him sitting on the couch, the programme he was watching was the greastest goals ever scored against man united! Probably bad timing for a heart to heart!

Cheers

The Ritz

Quick summary, he stayed in my house, asked me to make sure he was up for the cup final, (no problem), woke him up and put the match on, loud volume. Asked if he was hungry and if i could make him anything, (he didn't want anything), after the first goal, he came down and watched the match in the sitting room, got comfy on the couch and put his feet up on the table, I was cleaning the house, watched the 2nd half of the match with him and extra time, then continued cleaning up

Wanted: Middle-age man, tired of modern marriage, hankers after a life of Irish 1950's values, seeks Mammy, preferably answering to the name "Minnie"........

.....Seriously ? Yes it's a "row over nothing" on one level, but you should sort out communications, it doesn't sound like the guy has any respect for you.


Ritz.

Chucky the tree

lovelifehell! wrote:

He's a man u fan and just didn't want liverpool to win!
And thinking about it now, when I went to talk to him sitting on the couch, the programme he was watching was the greastest goals ever scored against man united! Probably bad timing for a heart to heart!

Cheers

Thats probaly the reason right there. Bad enough your arch rivals win the FA cup, but for them to be the winners of the greatest ever FA cup final would of been a right kick in the sack for him.

Especially considering we were so close to losing it! haha, i bet he was raging when gerrard scored that rocket in the 90th minutes! Us winning on penos would of made it worse too.

If as you say, he isnt usually like that then i would put it down to the match. I know most women/non-footie fans will think that its a pathetic excuse(it probaly is) but thats just the way it is.

TerrorFirmer

Kermitt wrote:

I wouldn't call it perfectly normal to sit with your feet up all day while your partner does everything around the house and then complain when she asks you to do anything. I've seen men in their 50's do this to their wives and just giggle to themselves as they slouch in front of the TV, and I think it's disgraceful behaviour. Fair enough he wanted to watch the match ,but he could have made some effort when it was over. Whats worse is that he refused to talk to you. If there's no communication then there could be a problem. I think you need to determine if this is a regular pattern of behaviour and if you're happy with it?

Rows are normal, being a lazy unhelpful slob isn't.

I was about to pretty much type this.

Arguments are common, arguments over nothing even more so, but it's not quite as the situation described above.

Firstly, he was at your house, and the way he acted it shows he had zero respect for you, if this is how he behaves in YOUR house, how an earth does he carry on in his own palce? Secondly, why did you continue to cater for him? If I did that at my gfs house, not alone would I not get a meal, I'd probably be kicked out pronto and banned

You have to lay down some ground rules, which you shouldn't have to do, but obviously this guy is too ignorant to comprehend without someone explaining to him.

edit: I see above you mention he doesn't normally behave like that....but football is no excuse, that adds insult to injury imo! You should treat him like absolute ****e someday, and then say something vague like oh my favourite character died in home and away....sorry, its been a tense day...men who are big into football and expect their other halves to just somehow automatically accept the dedication are often strangely hostile to the same treatment thrown back at them!

OrangeOranges

Yer man sounds pig lazy!!!!!
But also you could of behaved better than playing the "poor me" martyr role all day. Subtle hints and grunts, cold looks..............speaking personally I would of been tempted to do the same thing. Or else said "if you have something to say dearest, its easier to say it"!!!

Snapping, getting yourself all worked up. No-one in the world reacts well to that.
The fact that he watched the match got under your skin. You blood started boiling from then on.To me its sounds like you actually didnt want him around to watch the match crashing in your place for the day.

And if he did come round then why didnt he want to spend time with you?, cook together,? or at least make nice conversation while ye both watched it!!!!! (that aint watching football lady and never gonna happen so for the month of JUNE/JULY send him to the pub and tell him bring take-out round after)

The fact that he did come round. You found the first thing that you had a "right" to be pi**ed about and started snapping. Typical woman.

You were absolutely raging before any argument even happend. And he probably had enough of your (gritted teeth) smiles all day!!!

Then in fairness he went town on it. Any bloke no matter whats on the box should be jumping up to help his little lady with nice manly haulage tasks.:> The reward is always worth the effort. :>

As someone said before ye both acted like a pair of kids and a little honest communication/conversation at any stage that day would of sorted things.