Am I really as bad as it sounds?

I won’t be able to completely vent/accept replies without writing an essay, so here it goes:

Be me.
Boyfriend of half a year.
Live in a country with a different language, bf speaks that language. Not much english. We speak that one language.

Me and my bf are doing the thing of trying to keep distance for a medical reason beside corona. We basically speak over discord every day.

Today I visited someone’s house (yeayea corona doesn’t allow but we didn’t have any contact. This is not the issue) and i spent a long time there. Basically all day until 9pm.
When I came home, I wrote to my bf that I came home but didn’t call him, because I saw my online group of friends were hanging out in a voice channel (which is pretty rare lately). I decided to join them, have a bit of conversation, talk about how sunburnt I got from spending one day outside…

I told my bf that they were online and he was welcome to join them. He said he didn’t feel like speaking english and that he can’t talk with me in a group, like when it’s just the two of us and that he wiuld go to sleep soon anyway.
This tears me apart because I understand his standpoint, but I’d also like him to get to know my friends more. (+ before getting a boyfriend, I complained a lot about people being less active because they’ve got a relationship and just ditch their friends. So I feel like it’s not right for me to ditch my friends now when I’ve got the relationship.)

At midnight my bf went to sleep and at 2am he sent me that he was upset because I was still hanging out with one guy. Sounding pretty jealous in the way he wrote, but that’s also me speculating about it. He said: “You couldn’t find 5 minutes to say goodnight to me?” And now I feel terrible. I love him with all my heart.

At the time it felt it was maybe better to guide him to get in the vc with my friends. I didn’t want to leave my friends behind either. I have such mixed feelings. I feel like I’ve been a lot in his situation with ex-boyfriends (without an invitation to join though). But on the other hand it should be okay to have a day without speaking so much. I just don’t like the guilt he gave me. And now I can’t sleep. Because I’m breaking my head over how bad ecactly of a person I have been to him today. What is the scale? Am I not allowed to be egoïstic once? Is it really bad to want to hang out with my friends, while still inviting him?

While writing this, I am thinking that maybe I’m just looking for someone to say that I was not wrong :c

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I would meet your bf in person, breaking the rules to see him will show that you really love him.

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Hey @Astroly,

No, of course, it’s not bad to hang out with your friends or to have your conception of how to have friends and a boyfriend. It’s not unrealistic at all - at least from my own perspective. it sounds that there is a need for some communication here. To clear the intentions of everyone and, maybe, make some adjustments together. Just because misunderstandings can happen very quickly. It’s objectively not easy to learn to deal with the distance, with different ways to communicate. You are certainly both learning, still, and there is a need for some grace here and forgiveness.

I understand how you feel. But nothing wrong happened that discussing with your boyfriend couldn’t resolve. Maybe he was just missing you, maybe he wasn’t feeling okay at the moment and it was his own way - not the best one - to say that he cares about you and he needed a private moment with you. Now, it will be important to have an honest discussion, when you are both calm and collected, so you can both focus on what is essential. And… you said it:

I love him with all my heart.

Try to start with that. Explain him how you felt in regards of this situation. Ask him to help you and work together on this matter because you don’t want his to be an ongoing issue. Explain your own perspective: that it’s important to you to keep hanging out with your friends/you don’t want to lose them, but also that you want some balance to be found with your partner.

Before I move with my partner (in a different country too), we spent our first 3 years both living in our respective countries. I met him where I was living, as a student, but he was there temporarily, so at some point he went back to his home. Those 3 years were made of online discussions/video calls and trips to our respective countries. Sometimes, it was objectively hard and there was misunderstandings/we had disagreements about the frequency of our discussions. It was also dependig on how we were feeling, what was happening in our lives… just many different things. My point here by sharing this is just that I realized through these 3 years how much communicating was important, especially when you are not physically living with your beloved one. And that’s okay. Adjustments has to be made. Maybe more often. But again, that’s totally okay. So, I can only encourage you to discuss with your boyfriend so you can both try to make the best of the situation, and not let this under the rug - and so you make sure it doesn’t come again as unexpected reproaches to you.

You’re not a bad person. You and your boyfriend are both trying your best. I hope and pray for both of you that things will be resolved as soon as possible. :hrtlegolove:

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hi friend,
I agree with @Micro, it’s totally normal to talk to friends and make time for yourself but since you realize that it made him upset that you didn’t make time for him, just let him know that you acknowledge why he’s upset and that you’ll do better at communicating in the future:) we all make mistakes and you’re only human, I think he just cares about you and wants to talk to you:) again, I don’t think you did anything wrong, I think there was just some miscommunication on both sides:)

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