priorities...

[iheartsuki]

just had a serious discussion with my bf of 3 years about an ongoing issue....

 

i feel that we don't spend enough quality time together (and not as much as we used to) and i feel like i'm pulling teeth to get him to WANT to spend time with me. i don't feel like he WANTS to spend time with me or that i am a truly important part of his life.

 

he says this isn't so and that i am important to him. but he has very many things that are important to him that he feels have been neglected over the past 3 years - golf every weekend, watching sports every night and every weekend, hanging out with friends and working on cars, practicing piano and other self-fullfilment/challenging activities...etc. he's content to come home from work (grad school), make dinner with me, watch tv for a half hour to an hour after he watches baseball for, like 3 hours....then hockey for another 45 mins....and go to dinner or a movie on the weekends with me, maybe hang out a little bit at another time -- and then spend MOST of the weekend doing other things (golf, watch sports, work on car, etc).

 

he doesn't believe he should have to cut back on any of his interests to make room for focusing on the relationship/spending time together and says that doing so has made him very unhappy for the past 3 years. and he doesn't believe he should have to sacrifice his time to spend time doing something w/ me that i'm interested just for the sake of spending time with me.

 

i feel the opposite. i have hobbies and i have friends (although, right NOW, i am in a living situation w/ him where i am highly dependent on him while i search for work, having moved up here away from home and w/out a place of my own or transportation -- not healthy), but when i DO have free time (in any situation), i typically want to spend extra time i get w/ him. i want to spend the majority of my time with him. i don't want a boyfriend who's just a roommate.....i don't just want him in my life to eat next to, brush my teeth next to, and sleep next to.

 

i told him yesterday that i feel like everything else in his life and everything HE wants comes first, and whatever time is left over is what i may or may not get with him. today he said that he thinks this may be the case. he says that there may be someone out there who doesn't see this as a problem, and i'm just looking at it as a problem. he said that he does need and want the time that he spends with me, he just doesn't need it as often as i need it. it is NOT a priority for him.

 

i told him that i think a relationship should be a priority. not your ONLY priority, but it should share the number one spot with other things in your life that are priorities. he said he doesn't agree. he thinks a relationship can be two people who really care about each other and enjoy the time that they do spend together.

 

i just feel a little bit put on the back burner, like he just wants the perks of having a gf (not being alone, someone there at holidays, someone there when he comes home from work, someone there when he needs a gf to fill the gf role....but anything more than that is too much work for him and i'm on my own unless i decide to step into his life).

 

am i expecting too much? or do we just want different things w/ no hope of it ever working? is there any way around this issue?

 

all i want is someone who wants to be w/ me as much as i want to be with him. i would willingly spend an afternoon doing something that he enjoys but isn't my cup of tea just to be spending time with him, and he has adamantly argued that he is not willing to do this b/c his time is too important to him and there are too many things he WANTS to be doing with that time.

 

i'm so confused and heartbroken right now.

[tyciol]

I kinda empathize with this guy's viewpoints. I don't like 'should' stuff because it's like we're lecturing about priorities here.

 

You WANT relationship to take the #1 spot in life. That's fine, but it's good to accept that some people don't. I don't think it's a good idea to try and change his mind on this because it'd probably make him feel cloistered and push him away.

 

You have the option of trying to work with him and find ways to spend time with him that don't compromise his hobbies. Alternatively, you can break up and try to find a relationship with someone who shares your views about how highly a relationship should be prioritized.

 

I can't tell you whether or not what you expect is too much or too little. Things like that are subjective too and I see no neutral means of answering it. What seems clear though, is you're not getting what you want and it's making you unhappy.

 

Wanting people to want us more doesn't always work. People drift apart just as easily as they might drift together. I would not go so far as to say "no hope" though. Everything in reality has hope and possibility. The question is: do we take those paths of possibility, or lock ourselves in a path of defeat?

 

One thing I was wondering if you could clarify: you say he said he's not willing to spend time with you doing something he likes which isn't your cup of tea (can I assume this to mean it makes you bored/miserable?).

 

In that sense, I think he's showing he cares about you and about the truth. You may be willing to do things that bore you or that you dislike to be with him, but something like that doesn't usually have much lasting power. I think if he suspects you dislike something, he'd pick up on that and feel guilty as if he were pressuring you into it, or that he would owe you something in return for you doing it as a favour or something.

 

All I can think is (aside from the breaking up option on the table if this isn't enough for you) to set down the cup of tea and analyze your perceptions on his hobbies and reassess how much of a shot you've given them. Read some books about his hobbies and see if you might find them interesting with the right perspective.

 

If you do end up genuinely liking them, then there wouldn't be a problem because you would be both competent and happy when trying to participate in the hobbies with him, and I think he'd pick up on that and be more willing to let you into his world.

 

So, those issues are golf, sports appreciation, piano, car maintenance and spending time with his friends.

 

The first four things at least are examples of things you could learn about and become proficient in yourself. Probably anyone can learn to fix a car, tune/play a piano, swing a club or understand the minutia of sportsmanship that makes it fascinating to watch.

 

You mentioned you had hobbies yourself but not what they were. It may be difficult to get him interested in them (ultimately there are no guarantees) but we can always attempt to make things seem cooler by relating them to things we already know someone values.

[iheartsuki]

thank you for your very thoughtful reply....i've been really distracted by other things and just got completely sidetracked for awhile.

 

basically....i feel like everything ELSE comes first, and then i fill whatever time is left over in his life. every time i tell him this, he actually confirms that this is true, but acts like i'm making it out to be bad thing.....when i feel like it IS a bad thing! i mostly get 30 minutes here, and hour there, a couple hours here or there on weekends with him....and then it's back to golf, baseball, golf, baseball, golf golf GOLF BASEBALL. ahhhhhhhhhhh!

 

all he talks about is sports and he spends HOURS watching a game or out playing golf....it's one or both every weekend, and i don't feel like he ever is that excited about spending time with me or that willing to devote hours of his time on me unless it's for some kind of special event. and certainly not doing any of the things i want to do.

 

"All I can think is (aside from the breaking up option on the table if this isn't enough for you) to set down the cup of tea and analyze your perceptions on his hobbies and reassess how much of a shot you've given them. Read some books about his hobbies and see if you might find them interesting with the right perspective."

 

i really appreciate this advice, it just makes me SO resentful that i'm the one even considering changing my interests to fit into HIS life. why isn't it happening the other way around?? i'm not saying it SHOULD be the other way around, but shouldn't it be a two way street?

 

also, you asked about my interests.....i enjoy photography, editing photos, shopping, going to garage sales, traveling when i am financially able to, diy projects....sometimes, i just want him to join me and be there with me. i don't expect him to suddenly be all about shopping at forever 21....but he asked me to go to some games with him and i think that takes a lot of nerve when he typically refuses to do anything with me that i enjoy. he has started going to garage sales with me, but i think it's because he actually enjoys it now. he won't do anything he doesn't enjoy, even if it means just hanging out w/ me.

 

the problem for me, is that who i'm spending time with is more important than what i'm doing, and what he's doing is more important than who he's with. i have suggested all sorts of things to him, that are completely neutral -- canoeing when the weather is nice, going for a hike in the woods, just going for a walk in town, playing a game of tennis or riding bikes, going to the shore, going on a small weekend trip to a nearby city, even dumb, silly things, like going to an aquarium....there is never enough time. most or our time together is spent making dinner together (which i do enjoy) and then watching a tv show. then we go to sleep. i only seem to get short bursts of time with him and everything else takes up all of his time. i'm just not a priority.

[iheartsuki]

i am so unhappy.....he just came home early from work (he is a grad student)...and said he is going to watch baseball this afternoon. i asked him this weekend if he would take off any of the day for memorial day and he said maybe....so then i said "for baseball, though, right?" (not a mature remark, but i'm really getting bitter..), and he replied with "no".

 

last night we went out to eat after he played golf from 1pm to 8pm....and we were SUPPOSED to watch a movie together after that....but he fell asleep through the movie b/c he was exhausted from playing golf all day.

 

i am really getting extremely angry. i feel like a complete afterthought, or plan b, or just something to fill the pockets of time where he has nothing going on.

 

am i being fair in getting upset? i understand needing hobbies to be fulfilled, and that certain things take a fair amount of practice (or why bother)....but i also feel like if other things in your life are THAT important to you that they take up MOST of your time, you either a) should not have a girlfriend or b) should find a gf who shares your hobbies.

 

i also feel completely misled. he had the same interests when i met him, but he still spent most of his free time with me. now he says that he neglected his hobbies after he met me and "stupidly" focused on me too much. i feel like this is extremely unfair to me b/c i never asked him or encouraged him to give up his hobbies before, but it's like I'M being punished now for it. i had no idea what i was getting myself into b/c HE is the one who misrepresented himself.

 

i'm really getting bitter. someone please give me some kind of insight. am i being fair?