Hey I'm a new redditer and have a lot to unpack here - so please don't hesitate to ask for clarification, since I've never made a post before.
My boyfriend (28M) and I (28F) have been together for 3 years now. I'll give a bit of a back story - We met on a dating app when I was living in a different city and I fell in love with now nice and outoging he was (my boyfriend is a genuinely good person and is nice to everyone and I love that), therefore the relationship began with lost distance, however two years ago I got a job in the city where he lived and we moved there. We were both happy about this, as this brought me closer to friends and family.
A big issue in our relationship has always been developing a balance between activities and spending time together to emotionally and physically connect. My boyfriend is very extroverted and I'm quite the opposite. Because of this, I struggle with independence sometimes (I heavily rely on him emotionally, which I know isn't healthy, therefore I'm working on changing it). I've already actively changed this, by using my friends as a healthy outlet during emotionally trying times and not putting all of that weight on my boyfriend. I also work out, which helps make me feel better overall, therefore making me less anxious in general. I also feel like I've done a very good job at this and have even felt proud of myself recently for it.
My boyfriend loves sports. During the pandemic he picked up another sport, in addition to all of the other national/major league sports he already enjoys keeping up with. He is especially a huge football fan, so I've understood that Sunday fall afternoons are reserved for the TV. I've always been ok with this, and have even done things to get myself more involved as per his request (survivor leagues, point spread lottery, go to an actual game every year to watch his favourite NFL team play, etc). Together, we also play a rec softball league together once a week with his friends. Recently, the idea of playing through the fall on Sunday mornings has come up, which he verbally committed to without talking it over with me. While I love how outgoing my boyfriend is, we have a lot of arguments regaridng me trying to prioritize time between us, and him being upset that he can't fulfill every commitment he wants to do. I explained that if he commits to softball every sunday during the fall, it cuts into time that we get to connect. I'd also like to note that our weekdays are very busy and hectic, my boyfriend is in school and works a day job and I work from home, and often prepare dinner for him for wen he comes home. Because of this, we usually only get to spend about 3 hours together a night which usually just consists of playing a board or card game or watching TV. I go to bed early usually around 10 because I wake up very early to work out, so I don't need to do it after work. We always fight about issues like this, where I feel like I'm not someone he wants to spend time with.
Another important topic to note, is the fact that I have adopted a lot of his hobbies that he has asked me to show interest in or do, because he wants to enjoy these things with me. I'm not a very good golfer, so I dont really golf with him, but I do walk the course with him when he isn't out golfing with his friends. I get involved with football with the hobbies listed above and I also joined his softball league, because they sounded like a fun group of people. I get sad sometimes, because although my hobbies are less conventional and not the most outgoing things - I love plants and going to nurseries and giving my plants a healthy environment when I bring them home. I'm very artsy, so I enjoy painting every once in awhile and I also love to read - so as you can see my hobbies are more individual. However it hurts my feelings how he never cares to go to nurseries, farmers markets, or even really ask about things that interest me or choose to learn a bit about them. Recently he took me to a nursery and we had a really wonderful day, but it was a one off because the interest drifted after that and that day happened a couple days after we fought about it. Althought I'm grateful for the day, it felt a bit like a one off.
My boyfriend's perspective when these two main arguments get brought up is that he doesn't really know how to show interest in my hobbies and that he doesn't like asking me if he can do activities. The reason why he asks is because we've fought about this issue for so long, so he feels obligated. I generally say yes, because I worry about it coming up later in arguments, however the softball issue has kinda pushed me over the edge.
So what should I do? I'm at a loss, and would love to have an outside perspective so know what I'm doing right, wrong, and what we can both improve on. My boyfriend is very different than me and doesn't always understand why my feelings get hurt over these issues or why they're even problems int he first place. He often says things like "I wouldn't care if you signed up for an art class every Sunday morning, so why can't I do ______?" But my argument is often that I wouldn't sign up for a class on the weekends, because I've always felt that time is important to us, and would find another time to do it, whether that's during the week after work and sacrificing that time over the extended time we can share over the weekend. I know Reddit can be an abbrasive place, but I'm sensitive and deal with severe depression and anxiety, so unless it's actually constructive feedback on the situation, please keep your digs to yourself. I'm hoping there's other people around who have been abe to resolve these issues with their partner. If you made it this far, thanks for reading :)
TL;DR My extroverted boyfriend often fills up his spare time with hobbies and other commitments, instead of focusing on our relationship and taking the time to develop an interest in my hobbies, as I have with his.
Submitted September 27, 2020 at 11:16AM by pbandjessie_92 https://ift.tt/30cwhtv
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