I started crying and he said "Oh god!!"
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I had a coworker scream at me a few mins ago for something I didn’t do (fun fact he never sent me the email with the info to do it so I did not even know the task existed). When he left I just was emotional about being screamed at and my BF happened to call a few mins later. I wasn’t hysterically crying or anything but I sniffled, he asked if I was crying, I said yes and his response is “OH GOD!”
I am/was so offended. I am not about to pretend I never cry, I do, but he probably has seen me cry 5 times in 2.5 years and two of those were from a family member passing and once when I slipped down the stairs and broke my wrist (no socks on carpeted stairs for me anymore). I just am so hurt/angry/want to scream into my pillow. Who says that!! I just said I had to go and would talk to him later, was not about to get into it.
Now I am not a huge Valentine’s person but I appreciate an effort (99 cent card), heart shaped pizza and a movie. I am fairly easy to please just like to know someone cares. I got him (already gave it to him because he was supposed to be out of this week but that suddenly changed) a new Tumi suitcase, some boxers he likes and took him to San Diego for three days (he paid for meals since I had arranged the rest). Not that Valentine’s Day is the point of his rude comment but now I just don’t want tomorrow to come at all. Anything he does will just feel like a ruse since he said something so cold, yet I know I will have to smile and be nice. I am not good at hiding my emotions. Worse he just ignores me, no card, etc. since I know he knows I am upset with him. I didn’t say anything but he knew when I hung up I was upset.
I want to hide under the covers tomorrow…plus I just got new amazing sheets so double incentive to not leave bed.
“I know I will have to smile and be nice.” What the…!?! Why? No you don’t!
You have every right to express your feelings, including telling him point blank that you are upset with him for how he reacted yesterday. It was an insensitive and, frankly, dickish thing to say and he owes you an apology. If you say this to him and he still ignores you, then you know without a doubt he is not someone you can count on for emotional support. Or even someone with whom you can relax and be yourself enough to show your feelings in front of him. But I suspect you already know this and are just choosing to ignore it – thinking either that he’ll change or that your feelings don’t really matter and so you can continue to stuff them down. That’s not the kind of relationship I’d want to be in, but if that’s what you want then you should probably figure out how you’re going to try to keep smiling and being “nice.”
On its own, a comment like that isn’t necessarily a red flag to me. He calls you at work, not expecting you to be crying, and you’re crying, and he’s not there to help or try to “fix” it, and he doesn’t know what to do so he just says, “oh God.” Without any larger context, that doesn’t sound so bad to me.
But there is larger context, right, or that seems to be what you’re saying? You’ve been together two and a half years, which is long enough, and you feel like you can’t get emotional in front of him, or “not be ok” in front of him. You defend the fact that you’ve cried what, a couple times a year during the course of your relationship, like that’s something you have to defend (it’s not). And you feel like you have to smile and act like nothing’s wrong (you don’t).
You also say you have low expectations for Valentine’s Day, yet you set the bar pretty high with expensive luggage, a trip out of town, and other gifts. Again, nothing wrong with that, in itself, but it sounds like you’re expecting to have a bad Valentine’s Day. You’re expecting him to do nothing for the holiday, be COLD to you, and you have to smile and pretend everything’s great because he “knows you’re upset.” THAT is a red flag.
I think you should have talked to him after you cooled down a bit. If it were me, I’d call him back (if I wasn’t going to see him in person), and say, hey, sorry I got off the phone quickly before. Joe screamed at me for missing something he never emailed me about, and I was tired and got upset and was sitting at my desk feeling shitty when you called. And because I was already feeling shitty, when you said “oh God,” I felt like I shouldn’t be crying, and that hurt my feelings. I don’t want to feel like I can’t show emotion in front of you. Can you tell me what you meant when you said “Oh god?” Maybe I took it wrong?
Or something like that, anyway. You shouldn’t feel like you can’t talk to him and now he’s going to blow you off on Valentine’s Day and you’ll have to pretend everything’s fine. Communication seems to be an issue here. What do you think? Also, curious about how he’s celebrated the last two V-days you were together.
I’m totally with Kate on this.
If he’s never seen you cry except when someone died or you were injured and he calls you at work and you are crying I would assume he thought someone died. “Oh God,” is very appropriate when thinking that something awful has happened. I also don’t think you should assume he knows you are upset at him because you were already crying when he called. Why would he assume that when you hung up you were angry with him? All he knows is that he called and you were crying and instead of telling him about whatever awful thing happened you hung up on him. He couldn’t be emotionally supportive because you didn’t give him the chance. You hung up on him. Now you seem to expect him to chase you around asking why you are upset with him. That isn’t how emotionally healthy relationships work. He shouldn’t have to chase you around asking/begging you to tell him what is wrong. When you were composed and could talk, so maybe after work, you should have called him and told him what was happening when he called. That would have given him the chance to be emotionally supportive and would have built a better emotional connection between the two of you. That’s how you build emotional connections. At this point you seem to hide your emotions from him and then expect him to read your mind and know when you are upset with him and why. That’s a relationship destroying approach. You must use your words.
As far as Valentine’s Day goes you say one thing about celebrating it but do something different. Your words and actions don’t match. If you don’t expect much you shouldn’t be taking him on a trip and buying him luggage and boxer shorts for Valentine’s Day. You are probably hoping that a big gift before Valentine’s Day will show him that he should make a grand gesture. He may be thinking that the trip was Valentine’s Day and that his gift to you was paying for meals. Don’t say that you expect very little for Valentine’s Day unless you mean it. If he follows what you say but you actually expect something else then you have set him up to fail. You are already saying that you do more for him than he does for you and your attitude is that he fails you. At the same time you say you expect little. You have to use words to say what you really mean. You are giving confusing, contradictory signals. What is he supposed to do?
On the other side of the issue — you need to talk to your boss, or your boss’s boss if your boss was the yeller, or HR. Yelling at you to cover his own mistake is unacceptable. You need to address this for several reasons. First, such attempts at intimidation are very unprofessional and not acceptable in modern business organizations. It effectively sets you on edge and demotes you. Second, I’m sure lots of workers heard what he yelled at you. He turned his error into your shirking of responsibilities. If you don’t correct this impression with the higher ups, his error becomes yours come review time. Finally, if you just shrink away from this and do nothing about his bad behavior, then this likely becomes a pattern as he has learned how to control you and deflect blame onto you.
You and your bf may not be a good match in how you handle emotion and what you expect by way of gifting.
One other thought… Social media right now is chock full of pictures of two hands clasped, the smaller hand with a brand new diamond ring on it and a caption like, “wasn’t expecting this when we went for a walk in the snow!” Right? Every other commercial on TV is a jeweler shilling diamonds. And you two are going on 3 years deep… it’s about that make it or break it time. If there is anything going on in your head about anticipating a proposal, and it’s making you react to things differently than you normally would, it’s something to be aware of.
This….seems like a massive overreaction to me. Massive. He said “oh, God,” when you told him you were crying and now you’re dreading Valentine’s Day and assuming it’s going to be awful and he’s not even going to get you a card and anything he does is going to be fake? I’m not trying to invalidate your feelings. You feel what you feel. But the two don’t seem connected. It’s like saying “He didn’t laugh when I told a joke and now I’m afraid he’s going to push me down the stairs.”
Unless he has a history of mocking or belittling you when you show emotion, and/or a history of ignoring you on Valentine’s Day after you go all out and spend hundreds of dollars, I’m really confused.
Personally, I think he felt awkward and was trying to be funny, or trying to make you laugh when he said “oh, God.” Or else he thought something really bad had happened, because he’s only seen you cry when really bad stuff was going on.
Talk to him about it. Calmly. Just say “You kind of caught me off guard when you said that when I was crying. What did you mean?”
Well, I see what people are saying about maybe he meant it a different way, but none of us really have any idea because we don’t know the guy and we don’t know the tone he used. It might have been oh god as in “oh god not this shit again”, you know? In which case she definitely isn’t overreacting, because that’s a pretty crappy way to treat your SO of 2.5 years.
Basically if you’re sure that that’s how he meant it, and you know that because this attitude is typical of him, then I’m not sure why you’d still want to be in this relationship, seriously. Who wants to have their emotions dismissed like that? By someone who supposedly cares about you?
But if you’re not sure how he meant it, then I agree with some of the other advice above. And it does sound like you’re the one “trying” in this relationship and he’s just along for the ride. If you stop trying, does it fall apart?
I don’t get dreading Valentine’s Day because of a tiff. I think this is a good make it or break it point for your relationship. If he cares about you – as someone should for a 2.5 year relationship – he will focus on the love and not the recent drama. If he doesn’t show any love on Valentine’s Day then at best, he is petty, and at worst, he doesn’t have the love to show.
You talk about having low expectations for gifts, and then you give a lot. Did you tell him you didn’t expect anything? If you did tell him you don’t expect much, then any lack of gifts is on you, not him. You should get better at saying what you want and really mean, and making your actions match your words. If you just want pizza and a movie, then ask for it. And reciprocate by making a dessert to go with the low key evening.
Last week I told my husband I hadn’t done anything for Valentine’s Day yet. His response “me either.” We decided to skip it this year, and we decided this together and explicitly. It’s V-Day as I type this and a dozen red roses was just delivered to a co-worker. I am happy for her. I am not expecting such a delivery for myself. Clear communication so you are both on the same page with expectations is crucial to maintaining a happy and healthy relationship.
If he can’t deal with your emotions now. And you have to hide your emotions now… how is this going to get any better? Life is filled with ups and downs. You can’t expect things to go wonderfully every day.
A good relationship is one in which there is a mutual sense of respect and support. You can’t expect someone to carry your emotional burden all the time – that’s not fair. And you are not asking that. You’re asking that someone accept the fact that you have both positive and negative emotions and that they support you through both. Having a person support you only when you’re happy is not sustainable. Giving you the cold shoulder because they either don’t want to deal with a fight, your negative emotions or acknowledge that they are a shit head? Not acceptable.
You need to have an open discussion about the fact that people have more emotions than “mellow” and “awesome”. There’s pissed, aghast, disappointed, irate, angry, furious, overwhelmed, sad, grief-stricken, a plethora of emotions that are yours to use as needed.
Thanks guys for the input. No boss to talk to, he is my boss, technically, but we are equal in the company. Anyway, yes I over reacted but it was more about tone. And YES I do feel like I can’t express myself to him. Honestly I am over it with him.
The Valentine’s day annoyance was because I just simply don’t feel like pretending not to be annoyed then being more annoyed when I am let down. I did a big thing for him because he does A LOT of big things for me. Trips, shopping, etc. I don’t expect the same, as he does a lot and frankly has a lot more to spend than I do, but I enjoyed and wanted to do something special for him. I am glad I did really.
The comment really made me realize “ugh this guy sucks I am over it!” I am way too nice to him and he just behaves selfishly. Even called me this a.m. “Why do you sound annoyed?” Massive eye roll on my part.
Bye bye buddy! Moving on to someone who appreciates me more. Side note, his one daughter drives me nutso (although I am always nice and polite to her just internally annoyed, she is 20) so I have been thinking I don’t want to continue have that in my life for a while.
You shouldn’t pretend not to have emotions. You also shouldn’t pretend that you don’t want much, when you do…no one is a mind reader.
