A little while ago, I made this post, the tl;dr of which was that my boyfriend didn't want me coming to the concert at which he was performing, and I was having a hard time accepting it gracefully.

It ended up getting more attention than I expected, and /u/girlwithabike mentioned to me, after I gave her a brief update about what happened, that I should post a more complete update of what happened after I made that post. So here it is, and I hope it's beneficial to you all.

So, a little while after I made that post, my boyfriend and I were driving somewhere and he started talking to me about his idea for the "intro" to their set (he was going to record the sound of the rain and all the spooky "night sounds" in the woods near our house), and I casually mentioned that I hoped the concert would be recorded, because I'd like to see how that would turn out on stage. I think this was his lightbulb moment of "oh shit, I'm excluding my girlfriend from something she's actually interested in." At this point, the practice sessions with his band were going well, he was less stressed about his own performance with the guitar/vocals, and the pressure of not having performed in so long/being out of practice was subsiding. Basically, he was able to think a bit more calmly about the situation -- instead of seeing me as another added stressor, he was seeing me as someone who loved him and would support him throughout the weekend.

In a matter of a couple days after that comment, he went from, "well, I mean, yeah you can come actually..." to "you're coming with me, I'm getting you in for free, you're eating with the rest of the musicians, and I've talked to the organizer about having you stay overnight to sleep with the rest of us."

The concert was this weekend. He was, of course, a bit stressed, but not at all as much as he had been before. Being as the show was in a city a few hours away, and it was a pretty big event (pretty much an all-day thing), we left in the morning with one of his bandmates, and spent the weekend in a very scenic coastal city. The things he was stressed about (having to "take care" of me while they were doing sound check/throughout the day) ended up being non-issues. During soundcheck I explored the city a bit on my own, and there were enough events going on throughout the day, before the concert, to keep both of us busy.

The concert itself was spectacular. I won't go into a ton of detail about it, but they performed amazingly well, and I was incredibly happy to have been there, and immensely proud of my boyfriend.

Throughout the day and the evening, he was incredibly sweet (as always), we supported each other the way a couple should, and had a really fantastic time. To top it all off, the next day, before leaving to come back home, we ended up visiting the ocean at low tide and walking all along the beach. It was incredibly scenic and an amazing experience.

Here's what I learned from this event:

Sometimes, when men are stressed or anxious, they see everything as a problem to be solved, and will start trying to avert crises before they happen.

I also learned that I need to just chill out and trust him! It's not surprising that he reacted in a negative way during a time of stress, because he was in a mode of trying to put out a bunch of fires at once (I later learned, for example, that his bassist had been slacking and hadn't learned all the songs at the time I made the original post -- obviously another stressor).

If there's anything you all take away from this update, it's that not everything is a big red flag, and your boyfriend not wanting to include you in something doesn't always mean he's got something to hide. Sometimes it means he wants alone time/time with the boys. Sometimes it just means he's stressed and needs time to process things clearly. I know some commenters were mentioning he was hoping to exclude me in order to get some groupie tail. Firstly, I know him well enough to know this isn't the case, and would never be the case. Secondly, let me close off by mentioning what he said to me to close off the night --

"/u/KittenLoves_, you were by far the hottest girl there tonight." Damn right -- why cheat on perfection? ;)