| A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes: Hi. My boyfriend had a lot of financial stress and he started drinking heavily, then he would phone me for these stupid drunken conversations. I tried to help with money, emotional support, trying to arrange nice things to do that he din't have to pay for etc. But he seemed to want to drink. He would keep me from sleep so that I would be unable to function at work. So last week I said I am turning my phone off because I need to sleep. And then when he got home from the pub he saw a message that his mom had tried to call as his gran had died. He tried to phone to tell me and of course my phone was off. I feel so bad and he hates me for not being there, as I only got the message the following morning. How do I handle this? I would always have my phone with me usually, he was just making me crazy with the drunken calls. Thanks.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (12 August 2013): Getting his message the next morning qualifies as "too late" for him and grounds to get mad at you? What a childish immature guy. He sounds very selfish like he expects you to revolve your world around him.
He didn't get his mom's message because he was out drinking. He doesn't think that's wrong of himself? Yet he blames you for not getting his message because he caused you to have to turn off your phone. What a hypocrite!
Don't seek his forgiveness since he is in the wrong not you. Let him be mad all he wants. I bet eventually he will start being nice again, like when he needs more money.
A
male
reader, no nonsense Aidan  +, writes (11 August 2013):
What everyone else has said here is absolutely correct. This is ridiculous, and lesson learned for your boyfriend: don’t drink, don’t behave like a fool, don’t show people no consideration whatsoever and then expect them to be there for you when something bad happens to you. Though I sympathise with him for the loss of his grandmother, I’m afraid that’s life. You could have had no battery, phone been broken, away on business and unable to answer, anything could have stopped you being available for him on the night he discovered the sad news. Tell him he can’t blame you for the fact that his drunken behaviour was making you miserable so you took steps to stop him from being able to contact you whilst drinking. Tell him you couldn’t have foreseen what happened to his grandmother and to stop making you feel guilty. He’s very far from perfect himself, and you didn’t do anything wrong.
I wish you all the very best.
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A
female
reader, Tisha-1  +, writes (10 August 2013):
 What Aunty BimBim said. Your boyfriend is feeling badly because HE engineered his own misery. Don't accept that blame.
If he can't face that and deal with it, well, that's HIS problem. Don't make it yours.
How do you handle this? Don't have a conversation until he's sober and if he's never sober, well….. um, then you know what you have to do.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (10 August 2013):
 I agree with Auntie BimBim.
Do no accept that blame. AT ALL. Not your fault she died. NOT your fault HE was out drinking when it happened. NOT your fault that he DID NOT respect YOU enough to NOT call you drunk after you TOLD him I can't deal with that in the middle of the night.
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A
female
reader, Anonymous 123  +, writes (10 August 2013):
 You're dealing with a very selfish, immature man here. He's shifting his blame on to you because he's feeling guilty...he himself wasn't home and out drinking and he knows this is the best possible way to take you on a guilt trip.
This way, you'll never have the nerve to cut him off when he misbehaves in future and you'll also forgive him for his drunken misbehavior because now the focus has shifted on to his grandmother.
If you apologize, then you'll just give him what he wants...the license to misbehave and to continue blaming you without so much as a word out of you. You can apologize all you want, he'll just turn to his old ways again and make you feel bad till a point where you'll get so fed up with the situation, that you'll be forced to call it off.
You can either wait for that to happen, or you can take control of the situation right now. Tell him that you are in NO way responsible for his actions. He wasn't at home when his mother called because he was out drinking and disturbing you to the point where you were not even able to function properly. You are his girlfriend and you deserve to be treated with respect and you have done more than what many girls in your place would have done. You are not here to take shit from him and allow him to walk all over you. He either shapes up or ships out. As for taking you on a guilt trip, he can forget about it. This is the proverbial "crying wolf" story here and he should learn from this.
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A
female
reader, llifton +, writes (10 August 2013):
 aunty bimbim has a fantastic point. one which i didn't even pick up on. she's super spot on in saying that he wasn't even there to get his mom's calls about his dying grand parent. he was too drunk and out at a bar to even answer his phone. he didn't get it til later, upon going home. but now he's mad at YOU for being unreachable?? ha! extremely hypocritical.
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A
female
reader, Aunty BimBim  +, writes (10 August 2013):
 Your selfish drunk of a boyfriend could possibly be feeling guilty about being out and getting drunk while his granny was dying and so he is shifting the blame onto you.
Don't accept that blame.
If he is incapable of accepting you need to get a decent amount of sleep to be able to function at your place of employment, who pays you money which you then use to arrange nice things for him because he is too busy getting drunk to do it for himself, then guess what!
You can continue to beg and beg for him to forgive you for taking care of your job, and let your relationship carry on as it is. REMEMBER he was out getting drunk so his mother was unable to contact him with the sad news and it was HIS grandmother, not yours. Where does he get off expecting you to be at the end of a telephone when he isn't?
Tell him his double standards are not good enough, and that you will not accept them. Tell him you want this episode to be a lesson to him, its time he gave up the booze and started taking responsibility for his own actions.
Good luck with that by the way!
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A
female
reader, llifton +, writes (10 August 2013):
he shouldn't hate you over this. i think he's just taking his grief and sadness out on you at the moment. you couldn't possibly have known this was going to happen. if you had, of course you would have kept your phone on. but since we, as humans, unfortunately don't have the gift of seeing into the future, it's obvious that you're not to blame. besides, it had to have been late by the time he got home that night from the pub anyway. there's no guarantee you would have even gotten his call until the next morning, regardless.
just give it time. he'll get over it. he's just hurting right now.
i hate to even ask this, but there's absolutely NO possible way he could be making this up as a way to make you feel horrible for turning your phone off, is there? it just felt very ironic it happened right as you turned your phone off. anyway, just wanted to ask.
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