Hi,
I (25F) have been with my boyfriend (27M) for almost three years. This summer has honestly been really lonely. It feels like he doesn’t want to spend time with me anymore.
He never wants to do anything together, no walks, no dinners, no small trips or even just watching a movie. I’ve suggested things all summer, but he always says no or gets annoyed. We’ve spent basically zero quality time together in months.
My female friends are busy with kids, partners, or out of town, so I’ve been hanging out with a male friend instead, just swimming, coffee, and talking. Nothing romantic.
Now my boyfriend is upset and says it’s disrespectful. I get that it might bother him, but I also feel like… why should I sit around waiting for someone who clearly doesn’t want to make time for me?
I feel lonely, unimportant, and emotionally disconnected. I don’t want to cheat or hurt anyone, I just want to feel like my partner actually wants to be with me.
TL;DR: My boyfriend never wants to do anything together, and we’ve barely spent time with each other all summer. Now he’s mad that I’m spending time with a male friend (nothing romantic), but I feel really lonely and unsure what to do.
Comments
Girl just breakup. If he wanted to he would.
If you have communicated that (“When you refuse to hang out with me and don’t make plans for us to do anything together, it makes me feel unappreciated and lonely and question that you really want to be with me. I would love it if you planned a date/an outing/an activity for us, because it would show you appreciate me and care for our relationship”) and nothing has changed, he is still acting the same way, then, well. There’s nothing you can really do. You can’t force your boyfriend to act the way you want him to.
You either accept that you’re going to continue to be in a relationship with a guy who makes you feel unappreciated, or just. Don’t continue with that relationship.
You really don’t have to settle with relationships like this.
Your boyfriend not wanting to do anything with you and him being upset about you spending time with your male friend are two separate issues, even if in your mind they are the same. The way you’ve framed it here makes it clear that you are, in fact, replacing your boyfriend with your male friend. Which is not great.
You need to hash out this issue with your boyfriend in open communication. If he won’t do that, then you have a boyfriend who doesn’t really care about your wants or your feelings. Why are you with someone like that? And a boyfriend who doesn’t want to spend time with you, which.. well, why is he with you?
The issue of your male friend is IMO almost irrelevant to the real issue at hand. I think you’re putting yourself in a position that’s a bit grey because you’re not getting what you need from your relationship. I think that because you effectively said so yourself in your post.
I hope it’s clear what I’m trying to say. Your bf is wrong to not spend time with you and not care how you feel about it, and he’s theoretically wrong for having issues with you hanging out with a male friend. But the fact that this male friend is actually someone you’re turning to because of an issue with your bf, it gets a bit muddy. Your bf may be justified in feeling that it’s disrespectful, even if you have very good reason to be disrespectful, as your bf created the issue in the first place.
>I don’t want to cheat or hurt anyone, I just want to feel like my partner actually wants to be with me.
Do you really think that is going to happen in this relationship?
Has your bf always been a slug, or did he just become one out of nowhere?
My friend did this years ago to her long term partner. He liked to spend time with his friends and she complained it was too much time and told her she should go out more, so she did. Quite often it was with two younger guys from the office, just as friends, even though we all knew one of them had a massive crush on her. Her partner wasn’t happy and told her to stop, so she pointed out that she was doing what he told her to do. Her man pulled himself into line and made more time for her.