Hi all,
I'm new to the forum but in serious need of some advice, any advice and full honesty is appreciated.
I've been with my boyfriend for almost a year. I love him to death, he is a wonderful friend, will be there for me no matter what, makes me laugh, is very passionate and driven and we have all the same goals in life. Before him I only ever had relationships that lasted for 3ish months because I'd never met anyone that fit any of these categories. When I started dating this particular person I was blown away by how strong my feelings were for him. With my track record I honestly never thought that I would fall in love and I was []< this close to giving up just before I met him.
But there is one particular thing about him that really grates on me. He has many annoying habits that I just let go because they're not that important to me but him and I were raised very differently and this has meant that he hasn't had the same sort of manners instilled in him as I have. Funny thing is his table manners are fine, he is a very tidy person and cleans up after himself. He isn't a loud chewer or anything. It's just that he doesn't seem to have a very strong grasp on social ettiquette. To give a few examples - he always serves himself food / drinks before offering them to someone else, if he goes to get himself a cup of tea or a drink he rarely offers to get anyone else one, he rarely apologises when he accidentally hurts someone unless he agrees that he was at fault, for example we were entering a store the other day and I was following behind him, we had to enter through the security gate and he pushed it open but let it swing back in to my leg, when I said that it hurt he just stared at me. I spoke to him about it afterwards and he said he wasn't going to apologise because it wasn't his fault. That was the first time we ever had a conversation about social ettiquette. That day he also answered a phone call from his dad when we where on a date, despite having a previous conversation with him about this being an issue and to this day he still lets the door close in my face when he walks through it first.
He also has a tendency to, when we're doing things with his friends, agree that we'll do things without checking that I'm ok with it first. He tends to make decisions for the both of us without asking me and it always makes me feel a bit powerless and a bit controlled. I've also had issues with being left out of the loop and feeling like I was being dragged around. I usually have to ask him a lot of questions to finally get the information out of him that i needed. I don't feel like I should need to pump him for information to work out what i'm doing with my day and i resent finding out that he's agreed for us to do something with his friends on a spur of the moment without consulting with me first.
And he never refers to us as "we", if we're going out somewhere he'll always say to his friends "i'll be there at...
or "I'll see you soon...". I'm not sure why this last one bothers me so much though, he says I'm reading in to it too much and mabye I am.
The reason I'm asking for people's opinions on this is because of how much it does effect me, if I'm right to be bothered by this and if there's anything that I can do about it. When it does happen I spend ages thinking about how it makes me feel when he isn't considerate of others and how he may be perceived by others because of it. Keeping in mind that the above examples are only a couple of the behaviour issues but they mostly effect our relationship. I don't want to be too hard on him because he is a good guy and just doesn't know about these things. I know his intentions are good and i'm confident of how he feels about me but these issues do make me feel a bit lousy about our relationships. It's enough to say "you know how i feel about you" but actions speak a lot louder than words.
I guess I should add that we are in a long distance relationship. He lives with friends about 4 hours away from me and we visit each other on the weekends so we do have to make the most of the time that we have together.
If people can give me their opinions on this, if I'm being a spoiled princess then let me know. If you want more information then i'm happy to know about that too. I have a very over active mind and tend to dwell on things a lot and I also, like most people, have self esteem issues that can effect a relationship but that I'm trying hard to resolve. He means a lot to me and I really want to make things easier. We have been fighting a lot, although he considers it not to be, and I would like to find out a better way to handle things or to see things from a different perspective.
Sorry for the long post