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Happy Monday morning TL'ers, I have a relationship question for you. Here's a little bit of background story to understand the situation.
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My boyfriend and I (gay) have been dating officially since August of 2011, so approximately 2 years ago. We met online, went to the same university, and had a lot of the same interests - video games, the furry fandom, and computers. At the time, he was in the dorms and I lived off-campus so we frequently saw each other after our classes. Occasionally he would sleep over when our house had our weekly game night.
As the months passed he become more comfortable with me. He started staying over more and more often, sometimes not even returning to his dorm for a week at a time. Everyone else was okay with him staying since my roommate almost always had his girlfriend stay over. We considered her part of the home as well.
I graduated and moved about an hour and a half away to start my new job. It was hard for us to maintain a long-distance relationship so after a month or two of commuting every weekend, he decided to drop all of his courses and live with me. His plan was to get a part time job to help pay for some of his living expenses and then start at a closer university to me that was about on-par difficulty with the one he previously attended.
Many months pass and his poor attempts to find a job came up with nothing. He was now living with me, sleeping in our bed, eating our food, etc. He just recently got a job and starts soon. We've been living together for about 5 months now.
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The question I have for you TL'ers is how much space do you give you and your significant other? My boyfriend and I don't really do much of hanging out with other people, besides the occasional furry meet or video game LAN we attend. We mostly stay home and play games together since that is something we both enjoy.
Recently we have been a lot more irritable toward each other. I don't know if it is because we are around each other constantly, or what. I'm just kinda asking around to see how much space do you give your partner?
- Is it frequent that you go to events/activities without your significant other?
- How much time do you spend with your significant other on a daily basis?
- Do you expect your significant other to spend X amount of time with you?
 
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this is from my personal experience and it's i really don't do anything without my girlfriend...
we live together and sure we argue all the time but whenever we are apart i just want to be with her, its weird
it's only natural you get more irritable towards one another since you are becoming so comfortable.
maybe just chill and talk things over, seems to help.
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United States64 Posts
Giving specific numbers of hours is hard and will vary for everyone. But I think a strong relationship is only possible when two INDEPENDENTLY interesting people share their lives with each other. So I think its good to maintain your own identity. When people in a relationship become entirely codependent, losing their personal identity, then they start to expect the relationship to be the answer to all of life's problems and it just puts way too much pressure on the relationship.
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On July 23 2013 02:52 SlayerS_BoxxY wrote:
Giving specific numbers of hours is hard and will vary for everyone. But I think a strong relationship is only possible when two INDEPENDENTLY interesting people share their lives with each other. So I think its good to maintain your own identity. When people in a relationship become entirely codependent, losing their personal identity, then they start to expect the relationship to be the answer to all of life's problems and it just puts way too much pressure on the relationship.
I sorta feel like we are in this situation. We talk out all of our issues, but we are both so irritable towards one another. I know I love him and he loves me, but you wouldn't think that from the way we talk to each other.
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On July 22 2013 22:01 Butterednuts wrote:
- Is it frequent that you go to events/activities without your significant other?
If it's something that would completely be an issue for either of us, then we won't force the other person to go. It's maybe not 'frequent,' but we're fully capable of independently going out ourselves to an events, friends etc... Most of the time though, for shopping, my ball hockey games, and some other things, we generally try to do things together.
On July 22 2013 22:01 Butterednuts wrote:
- How much time do you spend with your significant other on a daily basis?
When we don't share days off, three to four hours as we live together. Past relationships are roughly the same; less time for relationships that didn't jive too well.
On July 22 2013 22:01 Butterednuts wrote:
- Do you expect your significant other to spend X amount of time with you?
Wouldn't necessarily call it an expectation, but if I'm with someone that is my partner and will be with me for life, I'd somewhat assume we'd want to do as much together as possible. Otherwise, if we're both just independent people that hang out a few times a week, that's no different than them being a fuck buddy. Doing the "mundane" together is simply as important as planning trips, outings and other events. That's the whole concept of a partnership.
The biggest thing for you to take away from this is that as you continue accumulating time living together, there are going to be areas where you're both irritable, or finding quirks that may or may not bother you. This is perfectly normal for the vast majority of relationships; sure, some couples might have things incredibly smooth, but for the rest of us, things take time to sort themselves out.
The absolute crucial thing is that you both communicate with each other. If something bothers either of you, you have to explain it to each other. Find some type of common ground, or explain why something is an issue. Assuming two reasonable people, there will be very little in terms of items that are deal breakers and that can't be worked out/compromised on.
If it turns out that there is simply too much that bothers you both about how each other does things, etc... or that you don't envision yourself being able to do the simple things with that person, then there might be something to looking elsewhere.
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Seems like you have a minor issue with your partner; perhaps you should carefully analyze this graph:
Come on man, either you talk to him or get over it. Asking us is moot - every relationship has it's own dynamics.
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Pretty sure that any couple that's been together / married for more than a year or two will tell you the same thing: being happy in a relationship isn't as much about "working out your problems" as it is about being able to accept and forgive. There will always be things that annoy or irritate you about your partner, and of course some things you have to talk about and work on changing. But, if you start a debate about everything, or let yourself get too upset about it you will not have a happy time. You just have to accept that even though you're in a relationship, you're two different people, and while it's completely fine to disagree / dislike things your partner does, you absolutely do not have to 'work it out' over every little thing. It's fine to take one for the team every now and then, so to speak. Who knows, you might even find yourself enjoying it one day.
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Oh and btw, spending all ur time together is extremely bad for ur relationship.
My wife and i frequently spend days where we only speak to eachother at dinner and on passing in the house / for a few minutes to check on eachother and say hai. We just spend the day doing our own shit (Gaming for me giggity.)
this happens 1-2 times a week depending and its nice, we're both in an understanding that we need to do our own shit seperately, no offence is taken, we still love eachother, its just not healthy to spend all our time together.
Thing is when you spend 24/7 with someone it just isnt good, you need time apart and you seem like you're not getting that.
Although recently she's ended up playing through final fantasy games so im frequently getting told to fuck off because im in her way 
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It's going to be different for everyone, there's no
"X hours is the proper amount to spend with your other"
answer that will ever be correct.
Me and my gf spend pretty much all the time we're not working together doing things, but we can let each other do our own thing. My previous relationship we could not talk for almost an entire day. It's just how your relationship is structured. No one else can judge if you're spending too little/much time with your other, you have to make that call.
If you think something is wrong with the relationship you should ask the person you're in a relationship with if there is actually something wrong, not TL.
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On July 23 2013 05:42 Capped wrote:Oh and btw, spending all ur time together is extremely bad for ur relationship. My wife and i frequently spend days where we only speak to eachother at dinner and on passing in the house / for a few minutes to check on eachother and say hai. We just spend the day doing our own shit (Gaming for me giggity.) this happens 1-2 times a week depending and its nice, we're both in an understanding that we need to do our own shit seperately, no offence is taken, we still love eachother, its just not healthy to spend all our time together. Thing is when you spend 24/7 with someone it just isnt good, you need time apart and you seem like you're not getting that. Although recently she's ended up playing through final fantasy games so im frequently getting told to fuck off because im in her way
LMAO, your soo lucky...
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There's always the needier person in the relationship, degrees may significantly vary, who, not unpredictably, also has less going on in their personal lives, comparatively speaking. Space is important. If you don't talk to your partner, your passive-aggressiveness with slowly erode your relationship and you'll be miserable (and so will he) when you could have nipped all of this in the butt with a single conversation. If he resists, or shows perhaps HIGHLY-attached signs, take a walk. By which I mean, drop his ass and save the both of you a lot of trouble in the long run.
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Bearded Elder29904 Posts
On July 23 2013 03:30 QuanticHawk wrote:
he's a snorer isn't he
OH SNAP, HAHA.
Quality response, I loved :D
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EPT
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