I’ve been with my boyfriend for a year now. He and his three roommates decided on hosting a Christmas dinner. My boyfriend worked from home today whereas i have an early start (think 5 to 6 am). I wanted to go to bed but my boyfriend said he was too awake at 3AM to sleep, since it was a slow internship day and he has extra energy to burn. He decided to stay up and drink with his roommates – leaving me to sleep alone while they play music at 3am. I don’t know if i care so much about him staying up and hanging out with hos roommates. But he refused to come check on me in bed and decided to stay up until five am drinking though he has class the next day…
(He’s a grad student.) I’m wondering if it makes sense to stay together, given his lack of discipline and inability to acknowledge my needs on a normal work night. It’s a good relationship but our difference in sleep needs and social needs is pronounced enough to make me think we arent compatible.
TLDR; boyfriend is irresponsible and i think our needs are different
2 comments
Why, as an adult, do you need someone to come check on you while you sleep?
I’m a little confused on the rest of the timeline. Were you also up at 3AM when you needed to be up at 5 or 6? If you needed to be in bed by 10PM and it was clear that he was nowhere near tired and was likely going to stay up for a while, either I would expect you to go to sleep (and they should keep things fairly quiet out of respect) or for you to go home so that you could get the proper sleep and that he and his roommates could stay up and keep the party going.
Your post refers to this Christmas incident, but I imagine this happens more often than just Christmas. If I didn’t live with my BF, and every time I went to hang out at his place, he decided to stay up late with his roommates and left me to sleep alone in his bed. Then yeah, that would really bug me.
Going to sleep together is “quality time” to me; it’s part of the hang. That said, it’s a bit unfair for you to judge his lifestyle as irresponsible and undisciplined. He is in grad school, after all, so he sounds like he’s doing ok. But I do think you’re in the right to want that bedtime time together and intimacy with a partner, however, if his lifestyle doesn’t make room for that, then yeah, you might be incompatible.