Spending all your time with your OH - opinions?

Herbal Deity

Chinafoot wrote: »

I don't believe I mentioned anywhere in my OP that it was about "getting away" from your other half. I think its healthy to spend time with other people, as in having a social circle that extends beyond one person.

Not everyone's an extravert..

Chinafoot wrote: »

I was just completely shocked to see that people have the attitude that wanting to see other friends without your partner means you are not as committed to the relationship. If my partner objected I would see it as very controlling on his part and I'd certainly be having none of it.

That's changing the goalposts a bit. There's a difference between two adults who happily spend all their time together, and one of them forcing the other to spend all of their time with them against their will.

Faith

If I ring my friend and say, "Want to go for a drink?", I mean "Let's you and I go for a drink together, just us". If she brought her OH along, I'd be annoyed. If I wanted him there, I'd say "Do you and X want to join me and Y for a drink?".

I enjoy spending a lot of time with my OH, but I'd never bring him with me to meet my friends unless it was a group event, or he was specifically invited.

chocgirl

Yeah I think it's odd that so many young women spend all their free time with their OHs, sad actually.

PopUp

My husband and I both work from home.

We spend quite literally 95% of our time together.

However, at regular evening intervals, the lads will call him, and/or the girls will call me, and we'll have a lads/ladies night. The other party will make themselves scarce.

It's not quite once a week - we are all too busy for that! - but almost.

Particularly my girls - ever since we left school almost seven years ago, and several of us have emigrated, our tradition has been to have a girls' night some night the week before Christmas. Our other halves have come and gone - my husband has been around pretty much the whole time - and never had a problem with it.

In all honesty - and I am a homebird and somebody who quite literally adores her husband and spends almost ALL of my time with him - there is nothing wrong with spending time apart and if socialising apart makes you anxious, you should be checking your own trust and faith - I would be worried about a relationship where I couldn't trust my husband to go out with the lads.

Michael B

Myself and my GF spend an awful lot of time together. But we like spending all that time together. Saying that I have my lads nights out and she has her girls nights out, she's off on a girlie weekend at the moment and I'm just back from one with the lads, I think it's important to do things seperately too and not lose yourself in the relationship. We all know that couple and no one wants to be that couple

Aidric

When you are living with your girlfriend it's kind of inevitable. The thing is we enjoy each others company and share a lot of common interests so it never feels invasive or trying. Saying that I'll go on a lads night out probably twice a month and my girlfriend will go out with some mates from work maybe once a week. That, combined with dinners at friends houses every once in a while and it all flows very smoothly thankfully.

Contessa Raven

I don't agree with couples living in eachother's pockets all the time. Atm I have to live in my boyfriend's pocket and he in mine because we moved to London for Uni in September. We are in the same course, same class and the same house. The only time we get time apart is if one of us is out working on a film shoot or holed up doing an essay.

Tonight he's off doing a shoot and I'm revelling in the fact that I have the house to myself until the wee hours....

That said, I would hate to be living in Dublin while he swanned off to London for a year without me so it ain't so bad. Could be alot worse!

Cows Go µ

I would spend a lot of time with my bf. But in fairness, we were best friends before we started going out and we have all the same friends. My friends generally get confused when he's not there as he has an automatic invite as he is their friend too. We do have our people that we are closer to and would spend time with without each other but its not all that often. People may think its unhealthy but we enjoy our time together and its not always coupley time, we can slip into the best friend relationship fairly easily.

Assets Model

We've never really gone out a whole lot together. He likes going to his local with the lads, I like going clubbing with the girls.

While he gets on great with my friends and I get on great with his, I have to say it irritates me when people try to push that too far. I mean, it's one thing to all meet up on nights out etc .... but I absolutely hate it when I arrange to meet a friend for coffee or whatever and they turn up with the boyfriend in tow. No matter how much I like the guy, you're not going to have a proper girly chat with him there, I just don't see why they'd do that! Personally I find it pretty rude; I'd never drag my fella along if I was spending time with my own friends, and he'd never expect me to or want me to.

And I'll just stress again - he gets on great with them, as I do with his friends - but I still think it's quite a good idea to keep your own "seperate" set of friends. I mean, I see my friends rarely enough because of work etc - when I do see them, I want us to have proper time together ... after all, I've known them a lot longer than I've known him. He knows that and respects that; I have the same respect for the fact that he wants time with the lads also; it's all cool! [/QUOTE]


That's pretty much exactly what I think. My husband and I have completely different sets of friends his are all lads mine are all girls. I don't really like his friends and he doesn't really like mine so we keep it separate to the extent he's not coming to my going away party (we're moving abroad in a month) most people seem to think that's weird but sure we're not saying good bye to each other.

Chinafoot

Herbal Deity wrote: »

That's changing the goalposts a bit. There's a difference between two adults who happily spend all their time together, and one of them forcing the other to spend all of their time with them against their will.

Oh dear lord.

First of all, I'm not changing the goal posts at all. I said in my opening post "I would also be mightily unimpressed if someone objected to me spending time without him with my own friends on a regular basis (ie: once a week/fortnight)." This was a view was expressed by another poster elsewhere. He said he would object to his wife wanting to spend time with other people on a regular basis without him.

I said nothing about "forcing" or "against their will".

Herbal Deity

Chinafoot wrote: »

If my partner objected I would see it as very controlling on his part and I'd certainly be having none of it.

...

What part of that did I misunderstand? Or rather, how was what I said in relation to what I quoted so absurd that it warranted an "Oh dear lord"?


You maintain that it's "unhealthy", as in, it's intrinsically bad, as opposed to it simply being a personal choice a couple make. Here I disagree with you. However, I don't disagree with one person in a relationship objecting to the other going out without them and attempting to control the other. This is a different scenario altogether, however.

harvardgal2

Going back to OP, I think it's completely unhealthy to spend all your time with your OH. You need to have your own interests and time apart, otherwise you feel smothered. I was smothered in a relationship, where my ex would not do anything without me, came out with me on nights and sat there not interacting with anyone and in turn ruining my night cause I had to look after him. He never went out with his friends, despite me pleading with him to. I always find it funny the way some guys blame G/F's for not letting their men out, whereas I was begging mine to go out and have his own life but he wasn't having a bit of it. In the end, I just couldn't deal with it and ended it. More too it also but the 24/7 thing major! :eek:

Chinafoot

Herbal Deity wrote: »

...

What part of that did I misunderstand? Or rather, how was what I said in relation to what I quoted so absurd that it warranted an "Oh dear lord"?

Again, I didn't use the words force, or against their will. I was referring to one partner being unhappy with the other wanting to spend time with other people. Again, it was something said elsewhere (expressly so) that prompted me to start the thread. I didn't say "I'd be mightily unimpressed if my partner locked me in the house to stop me going to see my friends.". Feel free to continue interpreting my posts in a way that suits you though.

Herbal Deity wrote: »

You maintain that it's "unhealthy", as in, it's intrinsically bad, as opposed to it simply being a personal choice a couple make. Here I disagree with you.

And you are perfectly entitled to disagree with me. In my opinion it's unhealthy. Thats how I see it. You see it another way and thats fine too. Welcome to a discussion forum, we don't have to agree. I'm not suggesting that my opinion is gospel, rather that it is MY opinion. I posted here to see what others think about it.

At this point we can agree to disagree.

Herbal Deity

Chinafoot wrote: »

Welcome to a discussion forum, we don't have to agree.

Indeed. And if you are insinuating that I feel you should have to conform to what I think, then please indicate where in my posts I express this notion.

Otherwise, let's stop getting bogged down with semantics, pedantry and condescending remarks, and move on.

MJOR

I think it depends on the people involved and your situation. If you do long distance then you take it while you can and your relationship gets priority.

In general though i think it depends. For me i like a bit of me time.... and to hang out but I think that in general we spend a lot of time in the house together doing different things.

Similar to Das Kitty I think.

Boston

I'd like to wake up together each day, but I wouldn't like to spend all day every day together. I think if you end up spending most of your time with one person, be it as a result of going to college together or working together, you become lazy about having quality time together.

Chinafoot wrote: »

Oh I agree fully. I live with my other half, have been with hm almost 5 years and I spend a lot of my time with him. We socialise with mutual friends a fair bit, BUT I always make an effort to see my close friends on my own, and he does the same.

You say that, but it's been years since I've gone for drinks with bubbles.

Faith wrote: »

If I ring my friend and say, "Want to go for a drink?", I mean "Let's you and I go for a drink together, just us". If she brought her OH along, I'd be annoyed. If I wanted him there, I'd say "Do you and X want to join me and Y for a drink?".

I enjoy spending a lot of time with my OH, but I'd never bring him with me to meet my friends unless it was a group event, or he was specifically invited.

Agroup of my friends organised an ice skating trip for one of the girls birthdays. I was invited along and took it as a given my other half was welcome. Given there were other couples and it was a mixed group of all the girls friends but not everyone knew each other well. Major drama erupted, and I was accused of all shorts of underhandness by bringing him along. The birthday girl didn't care, but the organiser did. It's not really clear cut, sometimes invitation are implicit and I'd never dream of inviting someone to an event and not welcoming their other half.

Censorsh!t

It isn't healthy. Ruined my relationship. In fact, it was my post on the personal issues forum i think you are talking about.
No matter how much I asked for some space, I never got it. At the start we spend too much time together, I ended up falling out with friends over it, he never saw is friends. And after being used to spending every minute together, he got clingly and moody whenever I had time to myself or with my friends, who I sorted things out with after a while. I realised, I can't put a guy before my friends. I ended up feeling uilty spending time with friends, and it just wasnt worth it anymore.
So I finally ended it today. Hardest thing I've ever done. And I feel so terrible, but I know it's for the best.