Warning: long description ahead and a rant on my part as well...

Been dating my boyfriend for a few months and things were great at first but started noticing some problems. At the time we were chatting daily but with work I asked if he could keep the texts to a minimum while I’m at work and wait for the evening. He agreed and that seemed to be the end of it. Then at the very beginning of my shift my phone starts blowing up. I check my phone and it is him spamming me saying how proud he is, how amazing I am, etc. It was all very sweet but it was stuff he could have said when I was done with work. I send him a short text just telling him I was at work and to not text since I would be and his response was basically “I know :) but...” followed by him sending paragraph after paragraph of compliments. I end up turning off my phone when he doesn’t stop texting and go home to find essays of texts that I actually have to scroll to read. I send him another reminder thanking him for the compliments but to wait for when I finish my shift before sending them and to try and keep the texts short. He agrees again but he keeps doing it. Overtime as he continues to do this I slowly stop replying and he seems to get it.

Then the “good morning” texts start up. Normally a simple “good morning” is fine but he sends them at 5 or 6 AM every day. I send him a text asking if he could wait until it was later in the day before sending it since I am still asleep. He responds with “sure!” followed by reminding me that he likes me and misses me. I respond while hoping he actually follows through. Nope. Every day and even now I get a text around 5 to 6 AM telling me good morning and reminding me he likes me and misses me. Okay fine. No big deal.

The big issue though comes when he asks me to see him. I’m a college student but since I started working a second job during the summer and I warned him ahead of time several times that I would not have much free time but I would try to keep in touch. He seems to understand and agreed since he is also busy with his own internship. Summer starts and he immediately starts constantly asking when we could meet up. I remind him again that I was busy with my two jobs but that when I had free time coming up I would let him know so we can plan something. He agrees and he stops asking for a while. Then he visits my neighbor who he is friends with and is also my friend back in high school and asks when I will show up. I’m annoyed when I see this text because I am at work and obviously can’t just leave to see him and we never agreed ahead of time to meet up. I was also annoyed because he had basically assumed I would go to meet him. I tell him I’m at work and turn off my phone. When I get home and turn my phone back on, he has once again spammed me constantly asking when I can go and that he was so excited to see me and that he couldn’t wait to see me. His last text before he left my friend’s house stated that he was going back to his apartment but asked if I could come and hug him before he goes and the time stamp showed that I was still at work when he sent that text. I send him another text saying I was at work and couldn’t go to see him. He seems to understand but then a few weeks later he does it again.

He goes to spend time at my neighbor’s and friend’s house while asking when I could see him once again assuming that I was going to see him when I never agreed to going and once again while I am working. I tell him bluntly I will not be able to go and he sends a disappointed text but seems to understand. He then follows up that text by constantly asking to come over and I start to get pissed. My shift ends and I head home but I honestly don’t want to see him at this point. I get home and check my phone and no surprise he is constantly asking for me to come over and see him. I tell him flat out that I am too tired and that I was going to take a nap which I actually do. Wake up later to find that he had told me to feel better soon then immediately after asked if I could come over to cuddle and talk and later when he was leaving if I could come over to give him a hug. At this point I’m pretty frustrated with him. I keep reminding him of stuff I have asked him multiple times but he keeps ignoring with an “I’m just so happy/ excited to be with you!” text as an explanation and I’m honestly started to get fed up with constantly seeing this response.

I started to avoid texting him. In the beginning I wouldn’t text him for a day and he seemed to get the hint for a day or so before going right back to spamming me as soon as I respond. Eventually it gets to a point where I don’t text him for days at a time which mostly stops him from going overboard and he keeps it to short texts only in the evening (not including the 5 to 6 AM texts... that is probably never going to stop at this point). However, after about two weeks of sending only short texts, as soon as I send even one text my phone blows up with paragraphs of texts and I am once again back to feeling stressed and frustrated at him. If I text him daily my phone blows up and if I text him only after several days my phone also blows up (though not as bad as when I texted daily). A lose-lose situation no matter what I do.

Considering breaking up with him at this point because he doesn’t seem respect what I ask. I understand that he misses me and wants to meet up with me again but we had both known ahead of time that our schedules would clash and that we would not be able to meet up much if at all during the summer. We had even agreed to keep in touch through text but constantly getting spam texted while I’m at work and him constantly assuming I can go over to see him just because he is in the area is getting really frustrating.

I have expressed to him a few times as clearly as possible that what he is doing can get me in trouble at work (I can have my phone on me but only allowed to check it briefly and just reading his texts take a long time) and that it is frustrating for me to deal with it constantly. Even went so far as to tell him while the constant compliments are nice, it makes it difficult to have a conversation with him when we do meet up because he constantly interrupts our conversation just to compliment me and that seeing it in almost every text also derails any discussion we are having. Also told him flat out that it no longer feel genuine when he says those compliments all the time and texts those compliments constantly. One time I told him that saying those constant compliments made it seem like he had this glorified and unrealistic idea of who I am in his head to try and explain how it made me feel. His response? To tell me how “amazing” and “perfect” I am... I will be the first to admit that in the beginning of our relationship hearing those compliments was amazing. However, being constantly told that I am “perfect” when that is definitely not true (the whole “no one is perfect” and “everyone has flaws” spiel) actually is becoming stressful and tiring to deal with.

Nowadays, I avoid texting him and no longer text him daily since when I do it seems to only encourage the spam texting (and I do actually mean it when I say spam... nearly identical messages complimenting me, reminding me that he likes me, etc. being sent constantly). However, even now he continues to do it hence why I am considering ending the relationship even though I know he thinks that the relationship is going well and that there are “no issues.”

Any advice? At this point pretty sure I want to end it but I just don’t know how to since this was my first serious relationship. (Also thank you to anyone who reads this. I hope you are having an amazing day.)