“my boyfriend doesn’t want to share our mutual friends…”
dear apricot,
Toward the end of my freshman year of college, I started dating one of my guy friends, and we’ve been together for 8 months. It’s a good relationship, but he’s starting to say that he doesn’t want me spending time with him and his friends. Here’s the issue: a majority of my friends are his too, and I end up feeling pretty friendless when he eliminates me from the usual hang outs (which occur so often I usually only get to spend a small amount of time with him outside weekends). I don’t understand why he feels the need to claim them as his own, when they have been OUR friends for the same amount of time. I’ve discussed this with him, but his response was to ‘make new friends’. It is understandable that guy time is essential to every man, but I feel like he’s being too drastic by marking his territory and running away.
Should I back off for a little while and give him enough room to miss my presence, or should I really find new people? This would be difficult for me because I’ve always been terrible at meeting other girls and staying friends with them, though I’m trying to avoid befriending more guys, because I wouldn’t want him to get suspicious. What should I do?
— Left Out.
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Left Out,
I think it’s funny that he’s asking you to find new friends, when you could easily tell HIM to find new friends. Regardless of their gender, these are your friends too, & your boyfriend is being rather selfish by asking you not to hang out with them.
I don’t think you should back off, nor do I think you should find new people to hang out with. There has to be a way where you can both come to a compromise. I would tell him straight out that he needs to learn how to play nice & share, because these are your friends too, & you have every right to spend time with them. Stand firm on that. If he can’t get over it, then perhaps you can hang out with your friends when he’s not hanging out with him. You could say, “Oh, you’re hanging out with them on Thursday night? That’s fine, because I’ll hang out with them on Friday.” It sucks that you would have to do it this way, but it seems as though you don’t have a choice. You might have to baby this situation so that he’ll be forced to see how silly he’s being.
If he STILL can’t seem to get over it, then perhaps you guys should go your separate ways. & I only say a drastic thing like that because I know that it’s small things like this that have a tendency to get bigger. & even if this situation gets fixed, there is a good chance that this will happen again in the future, just in a different form.
Good luck, & I truly hope you’re able to spend quality time with your friends.
— apricot.