vagabonder Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 I've been dating a guy for 3 months now. We are both in our 40s and single parents. This is by far a guy I've been most excited about for several years, so I'm not sure if that is skewing my perception here. Everything is great, except we are on opposite parenting schedules with the exception of Tuesday and Thursday nights, (and those Tuesdays have often had conflicts so have not always worked out). We have to be very creative with finding time to spend together and have managed to mostly see each other once or twice most weeks. He does make a point to talk on the phone every night. Because we don't have weekends together, Tuesdays and Thursdays are really our only time together. Before we started dating, he had signed up for a class on Thursday night and a yoga class on Tuesday nights. So when we see each other on Thursdays, it is not until after 9 p.m. He recently told me he is planning to keep taking the yoga class on Tuesday nights. This is really eating at me for two reasons. One is that when we first started dating, he bragged about how great yoga was because he was the only guy in there. Now he is back peddling and telling me that most of the women in this class are in their 60s so of no interest to him. The second reason it really bothers me is that this means that of both our two nights to spend together, both would be after 8:30/9:00 p.m. I feel like we get hardly any quality time together anyway, and that entering a relationship as a single parent, you have to make some sacrifices to make it work. Giving up yoga seems like a small sacrifice to me, leaving me feel like low priority to him. He's been out of town for a week so I saw him briefly a week ago, but almost two weeks since we've had sex or semi-quality time. We do have a matching weekend this next weekend and will be going away so getting a lot of time together. But it feels like because we haven't seen each other in well over a week now, he should want to bypass his yoga class tomorrow night to get to spend a couple of extra hours with me. Am I being overly sensitive? Or is he just not that into me?
Httm Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 This is one of the negatives of 2 single parents dating. He should absolutely be dropping the class to spend more time with you. You guys should also go out once a week by getting a babysitter. Lot of single parents out there aren't truly ready to date yet. He may be one of them.
PegNosePete Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 Yes, you're being too sensitive. You can't expect him to cancel one of his hobbies for someone he's only been dating for 3 months. If he had only just started the class, or taken it up after you started dating, then it would be different. Have you tried changing your weekends around? You could make a joint decision who would swap, presumably the one with the best relationship with the other parent. So you could have alternate weekends together.
Author vagabonder Posted February 8, 2016 Author Posted February 8, 2016 Yes, you're being too sensitive. You can't expect him to cancel one of his hobbies for someone he's only been dating for 3 months. If he had only just started the class, or taken it up after you started dating, then it would be different. Have you tried changing your weekends around? You could make a joint decision who would swap, presumably the one with the best relationship with the other parent. So you could have alternate weekends together. He had only started taking yoga about a month before we met, so it is not a long-time hobby of his. It almost sounded like he signed up for it to meet women. And I agree about not giving up hobbies, which is why his Thursday night class doesn't bother me. Because it is only three months in, I'm not prepared to switch my weekends around. I have friends on the same schedule as me that would make it difficult to see them. He hasn't offered, either, but I would like to know he is more serious about me before I make that sacrifice.
Author vagabonder Posted February 8, 2016 Author Posted February 8, 2016 This is one of the negatives of 2 single parents dating. He should absolutely be dropping the class to spend more time with you. You guys should also go out once a week by getting a babysitter. Lot of single parents out there aren't truly ready to date yet. He may be one of them. I have gotten a sitter two or three times, and he has once, but not something either of us are able to do on a regular basis.
OnlyHonesty Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 Yes, you're being too sensitive. You can't expect him to cancel one of his hobbies for someone he's only been dating for 3 months. If he had only just started the class, or taken it up after you started dating, then it would be different. Have you tried changing your weekends around? You could make a joint decision who would swap, presumably the one with the best relationship with the other parent. So you could have alternate weekends together. I don't see how it would be any different whether he had just started the class or not. He may have just started it and found it really enjoyable. I know someone that has been doing Yoga for a few weeks and has seen so many benefits that they have signed up in advance for the next 15 weeks or so.
PegNosePete Posted February 8, 2016 Posted February 8, 2016 I don't see how it would be any different whether he had just started the class or not. Of course it makes a difference. If I were dating someone whom I only see on 2 nights a week, and one of them is really late, and she suddenly took up a new hobby on the other night... then I would be pretty annoyed! She would have changed the dynamic of our relationship such that we have considerably less time together. Not cool. But if she already had a regular class on that night, then I go into the relationship with full facts of how much spare time she has, and how much time we will have together. It would be unfair of me to expect her to change her routine.
Author vagabonder Posted February 8, 2016 Author Posted February 8, 2016 So PegNose, what about if he was only taking the class briefly before I met him, and it wasn't clear his Tuesdays would be tied up when we first started dating? He apparently did skip the class two or three times in the beginning so that he could see me (I was not aware he was skipping the class), but now he is interested in resuming it? Two mixed opinions so far. Any other thoughts?
Recommended Posts