Is this a good tactic?

LegacyUser

My boyfriend and I have been together for a while now. I love him very much. When we're together, it's great and I couldn't be happier. But we have a long distance relationship and frankly he can be really crap at contact. Often he won't reply to my texts/tweet/FB comments. He's always been like this, so I don't think it's a symptom of anything. I'm aware that I can be terribly passive-aggressive at times - when he doesn't reply to me, or when he does something else to annoy me, I tend to not say anything but give him the cold shoulder or whatnot instead. I know it's childish, but I thought that my only other option was letting it go. But it's recently come to my attention that maybe he just doesn't know that it annoys me. We were having a conversation with a male friend of ours recently and I said something something about what women want from a man. My bf looked at me and said "Why have you never told me that before?". So I've started to think: Maybe I just need to be really direct with him. My question is, if I just straight out tell him when I'm not happy with something he's done, is that a good idea for making him aware, or am I being a nag? I want to be assertive without nagging. Like I'm thinking, just sit him down the next time I see him and say "It really pisses me off when you don't reply to my texts", and then remind him every so often if I need to.

I try not to care but I can't, I just get cross. The thing is, it only annoys me when he's like that. I've several friends who rarely reply to texts etc and it never bothers me with them, so I'm not sure why I get so worked up when he does it! Any advice at all would be appreciated.

Adelie

You're right that you need to be direct, but I don't think it's fair if you never mentioned this before and then suddenly announce "it really pisses me off when...".

Why not try an approach like "I'd really appreciate it if you would reply to my texts, it makes the long distance thing easier and it would mean a lot to me to hear more from you".

He probably doesn't even realise that it matters so much to you, you need to tell him, but nicely!

gypsy_rose

Not in a long distance relationship but I still only get to see my boyfriend about twice a week. He's good enough for texting, but really I prefer to ring him when I can and talk for about an hour maybe, do u ever ring him instead? Maybe just hammer home how important the phone and internet are for contact in a long distance relationship.

hatz7

Your on the right track O! if you have something to say, say it to him straight up, your fella could prefer it like that, some of us guys can be pretty stupid when left to our own devices, he'll appreciate it