My [24F] boyfriend [28M] makes judgement calls about how I spend my free time and it’s breaking our relationship.

I graduated college last year and now I work full time. I pay my bills, go to bed on time, make room for chores, and I also spend time on various interests and recreations during my free time.

These include reading magazines, scrolling reddit, researching murders (a huge interest of mine!) and watching tv. My boyfriend tends to take issue with these “purely for fun” activities. In his free time he often listens to lectures on spirituality, philosophy, and politics. He divides the world up into “valuable” and “invaluable” activities, and sees many of the things I enjoy as invaluable. In my opinion, if I’m not harming anyone, I get all my stuff done, and I want to enjoy myself in the evening then there’s no harm done.

Now my boyfriend isn’t perfect, and he often engages in recreational activities himself such as video games.

For some background, he grew up in a very abusive home and was in and out of group homes. He had a tough childhood and was never given the opportunity to graduate high school, let alone go to college. That aside, he is successful in his field and makes good money, and I am very proud of him!

I understand why he’s interested in listening to professors lecture, but I did go to college, I listened and engaged with lectures and classes and exams for 5 years. Part of graduating college, for me, was excitement about having more freedom to do things that simply make me happy.

I’m not looking to break up, but I need help getting through to him on this issue as it is really pushing me away and making it difficult for me to relax and simply exist around him.

ETA he grew up as a jehova witness and I’m thinking that could have something to do with it?

TL;DR My boyfriend makes judgement calls about how I spend my free time and it is breaking our relationship

Submitted May 04, 2019 at 12:19PM by mspipp http://bit.ly/2IZ0VzF