After dating my girlfriend for over 2 years, it’s come to my attention that she is the type of girl who wants/needs constant attention and communication. Every day at work I spend all of my breaks messaging her on Instagram, and normally when I get home I hop on Discord and start a call with her/our other friends.
This has been fine for the most part, however sometimes I’m too drained from work to talk one on one with her, as we often don’t have anything specific to talk about, and small talk can be quite draining and unenjoyable to me.
On those days, I typically play games by myself and watch some YouTube in the background, or join a group call in the server we’re both on, so that I don’t have to lead conversations. Sometimes I go from solo to the group call, and this is where our problem began.
Recently my girlfriend and I had an argument about how I spent my time one evening. I told her when I got home that I didn’t feel like chatting to her, and was gonna just play something by myself. She was fine with this and left me alone.
She later messages me and asks if I felt like watching some TV with her over Discord, but I declined and said I wanted to continue my game. She was, again, fine with this. An hour or so later I decide to hop in the server and play a multiplayer game with some friends.
My girlfriend doesn’t join this call, however obviously noticed that it happened, because the morning after I have a passive aggressive text waiting for me when I arrive at work, that says something along the lines of “I fell asleep waiting for you” and “oh well, it happens.” I can tell from the tone of these, and other messages, that she’s upset with me.
It’s important to note that she never messaged me again after the second time, so I wasn’t aware that she was specifically waiting for me; I had assumed the offer to watch the TV show was purely just an offer, not a demand.
I respond by telling her not to try make me feel guilty about spending time without her, and this is where the argument begins. It continues over the course of the day and she eventually stops responding, and doesn’t message me again until the day after. She only responded to me because I apologised and completely backed down from my argument.
She goes on to explain why I upset her, and included “I was upset that you played (the game) with the group and didn’t tell me. You did it sneakily like you were avoiding me and that’s what upset me.” I tell her I wasn’t trying to be sneaky and that I also shouldn’t have to tell her when I start playing with other people.
She doesn’t back down and tells me I need to “say when you’re done with alone time.” I eventually just agree with her to avoid yet another day of her ignoring me, but I still don’t think that’s reasonable. She never has to tell me when she starts or stops playing games with people, after all.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I needed to get this all out there. Am I in actually the wrong here?
2 comments
I think you should firmly refuse her demands. If she can’t swallow and decides to break up cause of that, do be it.
Fight for your personal space or she will continue to go further with her demands.
No. You’re not wrong. She’s being ridiculous. She needs a hobby and some friends of her own. She doesn’t “own” your free time.
Her expectations are way out of line. That would be exhausting.
Before we lived together, my partner and I would text good morning and maybe chat for a few minutes before bed at night on days we weren’t together. That seems reasonable to me. There’s no way I could deal with texting all day and hours of phone time at night. I’ve got other people I want to talk to and things I want to do: nothing against my partner, he’s great. But he’s not the only thing I have going in my life.