Scarleteen

Hello! Relationship advice needed!

I have been facing a very specific issue with my partner and neither of us have been able to meet eye to eye even after taking it through. All of a sudden my bf became overly patriotic. He would sing the national anthem loudly for 4 times and wouldn't stop. He would say things like "I love America" "I love this country" and would say things like "the only thing I hold higher than you is this country". Keep in mind my boyfriend was always very liberal and never showed these colors before. I am concerned he is being brainwashed by his friends or school. I'm 17, which I know this may seem silly but I'm sincerely at a cross road. None of it makes sense to me. He seems to be in this patriotic psychosis. When I ask him about it he spews ignorant rhetoric about how America is wealthy and does so much for other countries.

I feel absolutely crazy typing this out but it's very much a real thing I'm going through. I confronted him last night on call and he hung up on me and we haven't texted since. Any advice is appreciated.

Hi again, Emy, thanks for moving this to the boards.

First and foremost, your concerns and feeling about this, and wanting help with it, doesn't seem silly to me. This sounds incredibly distressing and even a little scary, so I'm not surprised you are feeling the way you are. Unfortunately for all of us, I'm afraid that this kind of shift and behavior is not at all uncommon these days.

Before I say anything else, can I ask if before this he's handled conflict between you, or you having concerns about something with maturity and care? Like, is his hanging up on you in a conflict very unusual behaviour for him or not so much? Would you say this is a person who previous to this seemed to at least have a level of emotional maturity a person needs to be in an intimate relationship with someone else? I'm asking these things to try and sort out if there seems to be a point in trying to talk with him, or if this is going to be more about helping you figure out what to do for and by yourself to care for yourself.

Hi heather! Thanks for the reply, he has struggled with maturity in the past. And strange behavior out of the blue isn’t all that new. He had also been telling me he wanted to join the navy and would be gone for 6 years. This was alarming to me but after we talked it out I told him that wouldn’t work. He previously was in this pro military pro serving the country type of attitude. He has calmed down since then but now he sometimes goes on these tangents. For the most part he has maturity but, rhe call started out with him shouting the national anthem and I told him to stop and said I would hang up, he did it again and I sat in silence realizing something is terribly wrong. It seems to me as if something is influencing him in some way but I can’t control it. When I called his views ignorant and completely out of touch he said okay I’m gonna go now, and said bye and hung up. I felt completely defeated. I feel as if I have no control over it, but I do not want to associate myself with this bad behavior. I felt as if I was taking to a mere CHILD. This is crazy as he is 18. And the craziest part of it was he isn’t joking or pranking me.

Oh, Emy. I'm so sorry. This sounds really awful.

So, you don't have control over his behaviour, because none of us has that over anyone's behaviour that isn't our own. But I think the bigger issue here is that you're in an intimate relationship with this person, and you don't even seem to have influence, and he also just doesn't seem to be thinking about you or your relationship at all. Someone shouting the national anthem on the phone to an unreceptive partner for no apparent reason -- though I suspect there was one, and that what it was was an intent to upset you -- tells me that person is not caring about that partner.

It does sound like this isn't totally out of the blue, given the history you're describing here: it doesn't sound like the lack of emotional maturity is out of the blue, it doesn't sound like the MAGA-ness is out of the blue, either. But it certainly sounds like he's spun out with it, big time. Again, I'm really sorry.

It sounds to me like this person lacks the ability to be a partner to anyone, certainly in this moment.

What do you want to do from here? If you're worried about their well-being, understandably, is there anyone they are connected to you can talk to, someone you think would also be concerned and who could help, like a parent, a mutual friend, a teacher?

It does sound to me like for yourself for now, you probably should step away from contact with him, or at least from trying to be this person's girlfriend. If that doesn't feel like something you want or are ready to do yet, you could try setting some firm boundaries in something like text or an email, but it just doesn't seem likely to me this person is going to have any interest in that right now because like you said, they're acting like a toddler. But if you want to try, I'm certainly happy to brainstorm those boundaries and how to deliver them if you like.