My boyfriend (25M) and I (28F) have been together a little over a year. We live separately in the same city.
I find myself in a resentful and stewy place because we only have 1-2 hours of “just us” time per week. This has been an issue for me on and off throughout knowing him. However, we get LOTS of time together with his friends, who are very much now my friends too!
We recently got in a fight about it that ended up being productive: I learned it wasn’t personal (he loves hanging out with just-me), we just have fundamentally different understandings of what time together means.
He feels like he sees me constantly, because to him social time vs. us-time have the same value to him. I explained that to me, us-time is extremely important for feeling like we actually have a bond & relationship. It’s when inside jokes happen and memories that are just ours. Not to mention its importance for sex, which we only have twice a month tops.
I’ve literally never heard of this before, not understanding why couple time is important. It makes me question the relationship. Like why should I date someone who needs it written out that you should prioritize some real time during the week for your partner? I guess this is a “would you stay or would you go” question, which makes me really sad because he otherwise feels perfect for me and we are smitten with each other.
TL:DR: my boyfriend doesn’t get why just-us time is important to our relationship versus time with friends, and it results in us having less sex than I can tolerate long-term as well as other negative emotions. do I wait and see if this changes or duck out because I shouldn’t have to explain why hanging out with your gf is important?