Girlfriend wants to spend all day everyday together

LegacyUser

My girlfriend is accusing me of not spending enough time with her. Before I go any further I'll give a bit of a backstory. I met her last year around New Years Eve when she was in 6th year and studying for the leaving cert. We decided we would bare with it and wait for the summer, this meant that I only really saw her for about an hour a week but we talked on the phone everyday. Come the summer it was like we had met each other all over again and we spent a lot of time together, almost everyday in fact. As the year went by she joined my in college in Dublin and we saw each other a good bit every week. Now the thing is during the summer I got a lot of complaints from my friends that I was spending to much time with her and neglecting them and looking back I suppose I did but I in my defence I was in love for the first time and got a bit caught up in it.
Summer 2010 has arrived an we still see each other for a good part of the week and we talk on the phone everyday but this time I making a more conscious effort to spend more time with my friends. This has led to her accusing me of "getting tired" of her and that we used to spending everyday together so why can't we still do that. I believe that a couple needs a bit of space as well (which may not be clear from my description of last summer but a first romance always has a big effect) plus I'm tryin to keep my friends happy aswell. What you think? Am I being to selfish?

annemarie13

your not selfish at all. she is selfish of u, if u get me, she wants u all the time.
u need to talk about this with her and come up with a solution. she loves u and thats why she wants to be with u all the time. im with my boyfriend over a year we see each 5-6 days a week. i want my bf to be with his friends, but i really do hate when im not with him and tend to get into a mood. i feel like he doesnt love me if he isnt with me.that how ur gf feels i think

HOWEVER, my bfs ex didnt let him be with his friends at all and eventually had nobody but her which meant the break up was bad (she cheated and then he had no friends), yet she went out with friends and that.

talk it out and defo be with ur friends. i find that if u see ur bf/gf that bit less u grow to love even more.

gud luck

Esoteric_

You're not being selfish, and I don't think she is either.

She's gotten used to spending every day with you, so it's natural she'd be a bit put out and thinking you're not as into her as before.

that said, you're completely right to want to spend time with your friends. You need to have more than just a girlfriend. Have you talked to her about wanting to spend time with your friends? I'm sure once she realizes it's not about you going off her, she should be fine.

Elle Collins

unregistered wrote: »

I'm tryin to keep my friends happy aswell.

This line jumped out to me. Of course you should make time for your friends and other interests, but you should be making yourself and your partner happy and that ought to be your priority; that is if you value your relationship enough to want it to continue.

ztoical

Elle Collins wrote: »

This line jumped out to me. Of course you should make time for your friends and other interests, but you should be making yourself and your partner happy and that ought to be your priority; that is if you value your relationship enough to want it to continue.

And if he breaks up with the girlfriend should his friends just take him back into their fold no questions asked? I've had loads of friends cut themselves off from their friends cus they were seeing very clingy people and you stop asking them along on nights out or including them in your plans cus you know they won't come, then they break up and start calling you all the time to hang out....is that right or fair? It's not healthy for you or your relationship to spend all your time together, it's mainly younger couples who think they need to joined at the hip but as you grow older you'll see the world does not revolve around your relationship and you want a balance of time with your partner, family and friends.

Elle Collins

ztoical wrote: »

And if he breaks up with the girlfriend should his friends just take him back into their fold no questions asked? I've had loads of friends cut themselves off from their friends cus they were seeing very clingy people and you stop asking them along on nights out or including them in your plans cus you know they won't come, then they break up and start calling you all the time to hang out....is that right or fair? It's not healthy for you or your relationship to spend all your time together, it's mainly younger couples who think they need to joined at the hip but as you grow older you'll see the world does not revolve around your relationship and you want a balance of time with your partner, family and friends.

I haven't suggested the OP should 'cut himself off' from his friends. Nor have I said he should spend 'all' his time with his partner. I've said he should make time for his friends and other interests while recognising the need to prioritise his relationship. Anyone who does not recognise the need to prioritise their relationship may as well just end it because it is sure to crumble sooner or later.

LegacyUser

Can't agree more with Elle.

A partner is someone you are essentially planning to spend the rest of your life with. Friends are necessary and important people in your life too, but certainly shouldn't occupy as much or more time in your day than your partner, the person you love.

If you can't prioritise time with your partner in these early years of the relationship, then you may as well give up now. Relationships take effort and I sense an air of immaturity from your post (the fact that you are influenced by your friends' opinions of you spending too much time with your gf), that you'd prefer to hang out with the lads than commit fully to your relationship.

I think it's perfectly natural for a person to see less of their friends when they're in a relationship and anyone who rejects their friend because they've found a partner isn't a very good friend, imo.
As stated above, it's important to still make time for friends and other interests, but your girlfriend should be your priority.

ztoical

guesswhoo wrote: »

I think it's perfectly natural for a person to see less of their friends when they're in a relationship and anyone who rejects their friend because they've found a partner isn't a very good friend, imo.
As stated above, it's important to still make time for friends and other interests, but your girlfriend should be your priority.

What age is everyone on this thread? Your OH should be your 'priority' very secondary school view of dating TBH.

It's not the friends who reject someone for having a partner, its usually the person who has the partner that stops spending time with their friend and when the relationship ends they find they've no friends left.

Ickle Magoo

I don't think you are being selfish to want to spend time with other people who care about you & whom you care about, they were around before the girlfriend and, being pragmatic, they may well be there long after she leaves the scene.

Sit your girlfriend down and explain that you are missing your friends and want to see more of them, if that is what you want. It's up to you to set the boundaries and expectations that make you happy, if you just play along to please one side or the other you will end up resenting them.

On the other hand, if your girlfriend is right and there is an air of getting tired with her or overkill then you need to think about whether being in the relationship, especially with someone who expects to command so much of your time, is what you really want.

Best of luck

Friends will be there through thick and thin, through first loves and later breakups. They're not there to be picked up and dumped again when you feel like it. An other half is a "priority" yes, but they've been together less than a year and balance is essential anyway. Spending all their time together isn't healthy.

OP should definitely continue spending time with his friends, and any girlfriend worth being a girlfriend will understand that friends are important. I wonder if she does not have any of her own and is depending on him for company ??

Elle Collins

ztoical wrote: »

What age is everyone on this thread?

I'd been wondering about that myself. The 'bro's before ho's' is a classic teenaged mentality and has been responsible for trashing many a promising relationship, I'd be willing to bet.

As far as my own age is concerned, I'm mid-thirties and I've been in the same relationship since my mid-twenties. If either my partner or I treated each other as less relevent than our friends there's no way we would've spent the guts of a decade together. I wouldn't tolerate that for myself and I wouldn't treat the man I loved like that either.

We both have friends and interests outside of the relationship, it's all about balance. What people need to realise is that it's very possible to have good friends without living in their earholes.

Ickle Magoo

I'm over thirty as well, thanks very much! :pac:

Elle Collins wrote: »

What people need to realise is that it's very possible to have good friends without living in their earholes.

And likewise it's very possible to have a good relationship without living in their earholes...the OP has talked about seeing more of his friends, at no point did he suggest living in any part of their anatomy - seeing a girlfriend "for a good part of the week" and "talk on the phone everyday" is hardly grounds for claims of abandonment and friends taking priority!

Kimono-Girl

Elle Collins wrote: »

We both have friends and interests outside of the relationship, it's all about balance.

i think you have it spot on there.

it is about balance,OP you cannot spend every day with your GF and for her to expect that is a bit ridiculous because you'll end up driving each other insane,you need breathing space and personal time in any relationship, but then you bending over backwards for your friends is too a bit ridiculous,

can you explain to both you can and will make up your own mind. it seems to me both sides are telling you what to do, and you are doing what they say to please them both (which will never happen and you will wear yourself out trying), you should make up your own mind! your GF shouldn't have to tell you to spend time with her you should want to, same applies for your friends.

and you should be free to spend time with who you want,where you want, and when you want,(within reason) without running the risk of either friends or your girlfriend telling you off....

banquo

OP wrote:

Girlfriend wants to spend all day everyday together

That's been my general experience of girlfriends. They just have to learn that you need space and time to do other things and that it doesn't mean that you love them any less.

Elle Collins

bluewolf wrote: »

Friends will be there through thick and thin, through first loves and later breakups.

I find it amazing the way this line is so often trotted out and received as it were true. It's as if people have forgotten that friends have arguments, fallings-out and partings-of-the-ways too!

& Ickle Magoo, I haven't suggested that anybody should be living in anybodies earhole. As I've said, it's all about balance; but if a person does not understand the need to consider their other half the most significant person in their life then they literally do not understand the concept of having a significant other, and in that case they should not be in a relationship at all.

Ickle Magoo

Elle Collins wrote: »

& Ickle Magoo, I haven't suggested that anybody should be living in anybodies earhole. As I've said, it's all about balance; but if a person does not understand the need to consider their other half the most significant person in their life then they literally do not understand the concept of having a significant other, and in that case they should not be in a relationship at all.

Oh I agree that significant others are just that, I also think there are times when friends should take priority...the title hardly screams of balance tho, does it?

Elle Collins

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

I also think there are times when friends should take priority

Certainly there are, but I would not appreciate this aspect of what's going on here:

"I got a lot of complaints from my friends that I was spending to much time with her"

I would be furious if my friends tried to dictate how much time I spent with my partner, or if his friends tried to pull the same stunt. My attitude is that it's none of either camps fcukin business how much time we spend together or apart.

Ickle Magoo

It's their business if they are re-evaluating friendship based on the fact their pal no longer invests any time or effort in it...

Elle Collins

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

It's their business if they are re-evaluating friendship based on the fact their pal no longer invests any time or effort in it...

I see what you're saying, but if that had cause to happen 'their business' would begin and end with their friendship and would have damn-all to do with someone elses relationship. This "they said I was spending too much time with her" is really overstepping the mark in my opinion.

Ickle Magoo

If it was worded in that way by them, then yes, I agree completely. I did say something similar in my original post.

randylonghorn

OP ... does your gf not have any friends of her own? Does she never want to spend some time with them?

For that matter, what's wrong with you both spending time occasionally with each others' friends?

(And for the record, it's not always the girl who gets obsessive and expects the lad to spend all their time together, or gets jealous of his friends ... I've seen it happen the other way round too.)