My partner of one year has not been satisfied with our communication while away from each other. He’d like to know what I’m up to when not at work, and while I would rather have more sporadic catch-ups (say 2/3 times a day) I try to keep to his preferred frequency which usually ends up being once every two hours at minimum, because I know it’s important to him.

He’s currently visiting family outside the country for a month, and while away, and I’ve had several instances of not getting back to him - once for 5 hours when I was having a bad mental health day, which we argued about and then managed to come to terms with. And another time for 3 hours because I got sucked down a YouTube/research hole. These pauses in our conversation never actually felt that long to me cause I definitely get time blindness. I apologised and tried to explain about time blindness, but I don’t really think he believes me.

The conversation about the second instance ended on a sour note. Since then we’ve still been texting and updating each other on our goings-on, but I now feel anxiety when I see any messages coming from him, and like I have an invisible timer to answer by otherwise things will blow up again. And while I used to put real thought into my messages (maybe too much) I now feel like I’m chucking any information I can think of at him to keep him appeased.

I know getting back to people on a social level is an issue with me - it’s been a problem with friends in the past and it’s something I’m trying to work on, but I feel like I have no method for getting back to my partner. I’m in my thirties and feel like I should have figured this out by now - not great for the self-confidence.

I’d love any tips for managing social communication with people or indeed any other input. Please be kind, I’m being pretty hard on myself right now already.