Am I being a selfish ogre for not being able to deal with his schedule?

May 13, 2017 9:50 PM

Boyfriend recently changed jobs and we now have opposing schedules. To top it off, his schedule is erratic and makes getting used to it even harder...more whining inside...

We have been dating for four months and so far things have been going great. I knew from the beginning that he would be going back to grad school and he would be leaving his 9-5 job, which is also my current schedule. What I didn't know was that I would be unable to handle it.

The job he got to support his new school schedule is in the service industry, which means he works weekends, nights etc. I'm very happy for him pursuing his academic ambitions, (I was helping him in any way I could while he was applying for jobs etc.), I really, really want to be supportive and I actually thought I could, but it has been only a couple weeks so far and I already hate it.

We can't do things together on weekends because that's when he is the busiest. The days he works during the week he gets out around 9-10, but I work in the morning, so we don't really see each other besides an hour or two. While he is working he gets too busy to be on his phone, and besides a few texts here and there when he gets a chance, we don't really communicate until he's out.

I have friends and hobbies that I fill my time with, but the time we see each other has diminished greatly and it's making me question if the relationship can survive it. Before he switched jobs we talked about what the new schedule would mean and how we wouldn't let it impact us but now I'm thinking he was not very realistic about how consuming these jobs can be, and that 3-10 usually means 2-12 or worse. He expresses often that he misses me and is hoping to be working mainly week days or less hours, but he's new and has to show flexibility, and does not as of yet have much choice when it comes to his schedule.

I feel really guilty for thinking this way and I'm really embarrassed that instead of being there for him during this transition I'm acting like a needy child, but it's making me miserable. I used to work in the same industry while in college and instead of that making me more understanding, it's just triggering all these negative feelings. Although I know first-hand how helpful such jobs can be while in school, I hated working in hospitality and everything that it entails, and one of the happiest days of my life was getting out of it when I got my first 9-5 job.

I know that I should talk with him and tell him how I feel, but he just started and I can't bring myself to add to his stress further while he's going through the transition. I feel like I should be understanding and supportive, and instead I'm having these callous and self-centered thoughts.

I care about him a lot, but I don't know if I can do this and it's making me feel so disappointed with myself, on top of being upset. I don't understand where this resistance is coming from given how I feel about him, and it's only been a few weeks. I feel like I'm in the industry all over again, and all I have to look forward to are some random in-between hours when he gets out tired and I'm about to go to bed. But I love him and I feel like something is wrong with me for being so selfish.

I am unsure however if it is more selfish to talk to him now, and add one more thing to his plate of stresses, or wait it out for as long as I can and hope something changes. How do I bring this up without making him feel like I'm abandoning him when he needs me? Does me feeling this way mean this is doomed already? I would love to hear your insights or experiences if you've been through something similar.

posted by ariadne_88 to Human Relations (16 answers total)

As someone who always reacts negatively to change, I don't think it's wrong to give things a little bit of time, to help me sort out what's my "OMG THINGS ARE CHANGING!!!" internal baggage versus what's "This is a relationship problem." I think all the things you bring up are potentially valid relationship problems, but I also think you may be in the midst of anti-change freak-out. You could certainly let your partner know you're in the midst of anti-change freak-out, though.
posted by lazuli at 9:59 PM on May 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Change is super difficult. I think you should take up some kind of activity which will keep you busy for the next couple of months. Give him time to adjust to school and his new job. He's in a state of flux at the moment and it can be hard to work around your schedule when you're not used to it yet. And he is planning on trying to get a better schedule, but he has to work towards that.

Try to make the most of the time that you do have together, without putting pressure on him to try to make more time for you right now. Remember that a lot of people aren't able to text or call people while they're at work, and it's not reasonable to be upset that he can't communicate with you when he's on shift.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 10:07 PM on May 13, 2017 [5 favorites]

Welcome to adult relationships, where loving someone really isn't enough. It is totally okay to know yourself and to have needs and have requirements, and it is 100% okay if one of those needs is a partner who has time to invest in you.

My guess is that this is too hard, too early. You are not engaged or married and this is not an investment in a long-term future together. If this isn't making you happy, bail now.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:03 AM on May 14, 2017 [52 favorites]

Your boyfriend essentially has two jobs right now. He may not have enough free time for you to form a new strong bond at this time. It's ok to admit this is true. You can't form a stable relationship on wishing to support someone you don't know well yet.
posted by Kalmya at 2:35 AM on May 14, 2017 [10 favorites]

I think this would be a different situation if you guys were married or had already been together for years and were just now having to navigate this, but you've only been together for 4 months. And it sounds like you'd been dating for only 3 months before his schedule changed.

It's okay to hate the new arrangement and to want a boyfriend who has time for you. It's okay to feel disappointed because you really like this guy but now you barely ever see him. Please don't beat yourself up for having normal human needs, like wanting to see the person you are dating and wanting to talk to them regularly. It's totally okay to decide what your individual deal-breakers are, and it's totally okay to break up with a good guy because your lifestyles and needs just don't mesh. A break-up doesn't have to be over super-dramatic, Hollywood-type reasons.

Please be kind to yourself.
posted by colfax at 4:27 AM on May 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

My father worked rotating shifts, and it was brutal. Even if their marriage had been perfect in every other way (it wasn't), the issues caused by the constantly changing schedule could have been enough to set them on the road to Divorcetown.

If you decide that this relationship is worth sticking it out until he finishes grad school, that's fine, but there's also nothing wrong with you if you decide to end the relationship with happy memories of those four months.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 5:50 AM on May 14, 2017

Obviously you should do what you need to, but consider too whether he deserves to be with someone who can roll with the punches and adapt to the sort of schedule he has right now.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:23 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

If he needs to work those hours to keep a roof over his head than there isn't much you can do. He has to prioritise his basic needs. So maybe he just doesn't have the ability to prioritise you at the moment. It sounds like he needs to prove his "flexibility" at work before he gets better shifts, but realistically that is months down the road. It would be fair to him to give him a heads up that this is an untenable situation to give him a chance to come up with solutions, but you may have to let this relationship go. It really sucks, but a lot of relationships really depend on timing and this timing is off for both of you.
posted by saucysault at 7:45 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Welcome to adult relationships, where loving someone really isn't enough.

Thisthisthis. It's one of the hardest shifts but sometimes that's how it is. You want a boyfriend who is more present for you right now, and you need to take a hard look and decide if that want is greater than having this particular boyfriend in a year or so.

You are not a bad person, whichever way you decide.
posted by corb at 7:52 AM on May 14, 2017 [6 favorites]

This sounds very difficult and I would have a hard time not bailing. One risk that I wanted to surface, though, is only move on if you're willing to own that decision and not give yourself a hard time about it later. Or if you're willing to own the risk that future relationships might not measure up in quite the same way.

I have a friend who broke up with someone who just wasn't able to devote the time to the relationship that she wanted, and wasn't able to let go. Every other person she met suffered in comparison to the magical six months of yesteryear. Eventually, she realized she was romanticizing the past, but she had a tough time until then.

Good luck with your decision.
posted by dancing_angel at 8:10 AM on May 14, 2017

Would it help to start thinking of this phase of your relationship as though it was now an LTR for an unpleasant but limited time period, like a summer break or a military deployment? For what it's worth, for relatIonships that survive grad school hardships, e.g., medical residencies, often the couples look back on it as a forge that strengthened their bonds.
posted by carmicha at 8:47 AM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but most relationships don't survive those things. They lose the thread, they stop having things in common, they meet people within their own environments with whom they work closely and see every day.

OP, you would not be a bad person, at all, if you broke up with him because you can see that it isn't a sustainable pattern for you. You do not have to get to the point where both of you are miserable before it's reasonable to call it quits. You can be like, "Sweetie, I can already feel that this is making me really unhappy, and I don't want either of us to be unhappy, I want us both to be successful and able to work on our goals, and this is going to hold both of us back. Call me when you graduate, you're an awesome dude, bye."
posted by Autumnheart at 8:58 AM on May 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I have so much insight, especially your feelings about hospitality...

You've only been dating him 4 months. I don't think you should support him through this transition, I think this relationship has run it's course. Can you back out of this gracefully and wish him well?

Your needs are not being met. You deserve a boyfriend that is available to have amazing awesome great times with you, and this guy is not that guy! Plus, I'm not sure how much "supporting" you did for this fellow during the first 4 months, but it sounds like too much! The beginning is supposed to be for getting to know each other and coziness, not goal attainment. And this effort is only about his goals. Where are you in this?? Your needs are not being met by this relationship, no wonder you are angry.

His crappy hospitality hours will never leave room for your relationship. He made a difficult decision that prioritized grad school over his relationship with you. Hospitality is super rough, there's only room for school next to that effort and schedule. I think it was noble you both thought this would be different, but it turned out predictable, if we really think it through...

Prioritize yourself here. Wish him luck and pursue situations that will fulfill and take care of you.
posted by jbenben at 9:01 AM on May 14, 2017 [4 favorites]

Move on. hoooobooy. I just went through something similar. Really. Around the 3-month mark my boyfriend's schedule changed so instead of being able to spend "meals" together, we only got "snacks", and not that frequently, and it stressed me out so much that it put strain on our relationship.

Things ended, not by my choice, a month later.

My brain craves that kind of romantic attachment, and I get lots of feelings and bonding out of a good connection with someone, so I hung on really tightly and had trouble letting go of the relationship even when I knew he was right and we weren't a great match, logistics-wise.

So I know it's hard to let go, even when you know it's the rational thing to do. Breakups are easier when the endorphins have worn off, and I'm guessing they haven't for you.

Again, plan A is to pull free.

But I'm also going to share the technique I used to cope with the lack of time with my partner when I was strongly in love/limerance. (This was taught to me by my roommate, and I really hope she publishes a tool for it some day.)

I knew I was falling into a scarcity mindset when it came to quality time with my partner. The knowledge of the limits wouldn't just make me try to find more time to spend together, it would ruin the times we had together, because I was always watching the clock and thinking ahead about how long it would be before we saw each other again.

I did a lot of thinking to figure out the specific narratives that were playing in my head, then I bundled them together into a persona in my head. I called her the Panicking Princess. Whenever she speaks up, I can treat her as a slightly separate part of myself and interact with those thoughts more objectively than just calling them part of my core self.

I already knew what I wanted to change my mental narrative to be: "This time is a gift. There will be more." I needed to replace the idea of scarcity/neediness with appreciation, mindfulness, and trust. At the time, I was trying to trust that my partner would make time for me when he could, that he did want to spend time with me. My roommate, who was walking me through this, said that "There will be more" can also refer to other connections and relationships in the future, in the case that my current (now former) one didn't work out.

Once I had identified the the ideas I didn't want to be dwelling on and the ones I wanted to replace them with, the process was pretty simple. When I found my thoughts going down a path I didn't want to travel, I could acknowledge the Panicking Princess persona that I didn't want to be. I would spend a short moment validating that fear, soothing that part of myself, then consciously switch over to the appreciation path.

It worked very quickly for me. Having the framework in mind helped me focus more on being at peace whether I was with my partner or doing my own thing. I still definitely preferred time with him, but I was less anxious about always trying to make it happen and make it good.

But even being at peace with the amount of time we had together didn't make it work, no matter how much we liked spending time together.

You and I both deserve partners who can give us fulfilling quantities of quality time.

It's only been four months. Don't treat it like you have intertwined lives.
posted by itesser at 10:16 AM on May 14, 2017 [11 favorites]

It's entirely reasonable for a grad student to keep crazy hours, have no time to socialize, and sacrifice personal relationship events in favor of long-term career goals. And it's entirely reasonable for a romantic partner in a different field to be unwilling to put up with that lifestyle and to demand more than a student who's also working an outside job could possibly be expected to provide. Don't expect his schedule to change significantly while he's in school. And don't feel bad about not wanting to sacrifice your own needs for his.

His schedule won't change, and your feelings probably won't change. If the relationship has so many other benefits that it's worth putting up with years of open frustration in this specific area, then accept that things will be shitty for years and look for hobbies to fill your evenings. If not, wish him well and find someone who has weekends free. (As an academic who's had relationships with 9-5 partners in the past, this is a familiar and brutal conflict. Finding someone with the same lack of work-life-balance as me and seeing my former partners find people who shared their approach to life were both well worth the momentary heartache of work-related breakups.)

Sometimes relationships are untenable even though it isn't anybody's fault.
posted by eotvos at 12:40 PM on May 14, 2017 [2 favorites]

Do you happen to be female? If so, I know there's a lot of cultural "stand by your man" bullshit that you may have accidentally marinated in that has affected your beliefs. Upthread someone suggested waiting a bit to see if you are having transition feels rather than "I hate this" feels. If you feel better after a couple of weeks, yay. If not, walk away.

Sometimes things that were a good fit become a bad fit. It's nobody's fault, it's just how it is. You aren't obligated to keep attempting to pound a square peg into a round hole because you care about this person. You can care about him and still step away because the relationship's new structure doesn't work for you. You job is to care about yourself more than you care about that guy or any partner. Usually we don't get that memo, but it's true. Make yourself number 1 and walk away if that is what you need to do. Do it with kindness, but do it. That doesn't make you a bad person. That makes you a person who knows what s/he needs and acts accordingly.

And if you do walk away, try to feel proud of yourself rather than guilty. So many people stay trapped in relationships for years and years because they are afraid of change and afraid to look for what they need. If you can handle the new situation, fine. If not, that's just how it is. Embrace that reality and move on.
posted by Bella Donna at 3:21 PM on May 14, 2017 [8 favorites]