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My [26f] Valentines Day disappointment has brought up ongoing issues around punctuality with my boyf (by Sparky)

 Sparky (0)  (29 / M-F / Massachusetts)
16-Feb-19 3:30 pm
My [26f] Valentines Day disappointment has brought up ongoing issues around punctuality with my boyfriend [25m]

“Jake†and I have been seeing each other for 11 months, officially dating for 8. When we started seeing each other he was coming around sporadically, showing up after 9pm, but given the ahem nature of our relationship that was understandable.
When we decided to actually date, one of the things I discussed with him was my love of punctuality- I don’t care if he shows up at 9, unless he told me he’d be there at 8. He has a history of being late for everything and is always running a million errands for his family members [recent immigrants, not many have vehicles] and I try to be understanding of this fact. They were huge in his life before I got there, and I am OK with that.
For Halloween, i told him it was important to me that we do something together. I asked him to come to my house at 8pm so we could carve pumpkins and watch a scary movie. He seemed offended when I told him I’d picked 8 because I knew he wouldn’t be able to get there earlier, but agreed to come anyway. At 8pm that night I asked if he was on his way and he said he hadn’t showered yet- he didn’t end up showing up til after nine, meaning we carved pumpkins into the wee hours of the night. I talked to him about it the next day and told him I was upset, that I didn’t appreciate having to wait around, and he agreed and promised we would communicate better in the future.
I hosted a New Years party with my friends from out of town, and asked him weeks in advance if he had plans. He said he didn’t and that he would spend the day + night with my crew. On the morning of, he made plans to ferry his family around the city, and begged me to come with him, promising we’d be at my place again before my friends arrived. We weren’t. We showed up an hour after they did (they had to climb in through a window!) and then he told me that he’d have to go back out at 5pm to finish up with his family. I’d been planning a big dinner and told him we’d wait for him, and he said he’d be back by 630-7pm. My guests kept asking when he’d return and when he showed up at 8pm, he said he’d already had dinner. We talked about it again the next day and i thought we had resolved it.
Cue valentines. I told him I didn’t mind just staying in and eating nachos together, he insisted that he take me out to dinner. He called at 5 and said I should be ready in 1-2 hours to go to our favourite sushi spot. I spent 1.5 hours getting ready, pulling out all the stops, and then let him know I was ready. In fact I sent a sexy pic and he responded with a Kijiji link to a new car that’s over 400km away (an unrealistic purchase which he mentioned along with the link).
I let him know I was ready and tried to keep myself busy, but as 7 came and went I got angrier and angrier. Finally at 8:30 he showed up. The restaurant closed at 9 and was 20 mins away, so when we got there they wouldn’t seat us. I know it’s petty level 1000, but it also bothered me he didn’t say anything about the effort I’d put into myself that night, and it bothered me that he hadn’t done anything special for the night for himself. I suggested another restaurant that was open later, nearer to my place, and we went, but I feel the damage was done. The last straw was him making a joke about the night being OK because he’d end up in bed with me. I got really upset and told him that wasn’t going to happen, that I’d been too disappointed about having to wait around for him again and i brought up that we’d talked about it before. He apologized profusely and swore up and down that he’d work on it (same as last time).
This whole thing has me shook. I never knew punctuality would be a dealbreaker for me but I honestly think it might be. I feel taken for granted when he tells me he’ll be somewhere at a certain time and then misses that because he’s on the Internet messing around. I don’t know what I’m looking for by posting this- i suppose either validation or condemnation. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix my otherwise lovely relationship?
TL;DR: Boyfriend is perpetually late. I’ve told him it bothers me, then he was so late for our Valentines date that the plan was ruined. Starting to wonder if this is an unrepairable dealbreaker.
EDIT: y’all are great and I appreciate everybody’s comments, I’ve been wondering if I’m crazy for feeling this way because everything else about us is nearly perfect, so it’s nice to know I’m not overreacting by feeling so hurt. Special thanks to u/bb_laurb and u/JamPlanet for the advice. Jake stopped by on his way home from work to ask if he could take me out for a “makeup†valentines, and I told him I’m still upset, that I feel disrespected, and that if he’s late again without an explanation, it’s a dealbreaker. We agreed 8:30- if 8:50 comes around and he doesn’t, I’ll be a single lady for the Chinese New Year.


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