Is my boyfriend too controlling?

Zazen999

lacoste1985 wrote: »

Oh and maybe someone could start this up as a poll on here: Is coming home from a meal with a friend at 11pm on a week day evening classed as ‘coming in late’?

My OH seems to think it is.

Only if you are a child at school.

I think you know the answer or you wouldn't have asked the question.

TubbyFunster_2

I don't pressume to know anything about your relationship but the fact that a smart lass like you is asking, to me means you already know.

Is this what you want from life, will you be happy to look back in ten years time and honestly say you have spent it how you want with who you want.

Never feel guilty for wanting to spend time with friends they are one of the most precious things in life.

cte1111

You don't need our permission, if you want to go out till 11pm or even 3am on a work night, then that's your choice. You can make your own judgement as to whether you can manage OK at work the next day, so go for it.

It strikes me, like many other posters, that you are fed up with this relationship. I can imagine it must be hard when you have been in a relationship since you were 18, to imagine being without your BF, but I would think hard about at least having a break and seeing how you both got on. You are bound to feel lonely and miss him, but it doesn't sound like either of you are getting what you want out of the relationship so sometimes it's best to cut your losses and hope that you will both be able to have happier lifes apart.

[Deleted User]

lacoste1985 wrote: »

Hi all

My problem may seem like a trivial one to many - I'm having relationship problems with my boyfriend of 6 years. It’s something that seems to have become a problem over the last 3 years but I've only started to think about things more as we've been bickering more recently.

I'm 24 (gonna be 25 in March) and my OH is 29. We both still live at home with parents - me with my mum, dad and brother and my OH with his dad. His mum and dad got divorced about 5 years ago so now his mum lives in West Wales along with his 2 sisters, 2 nieces and nephew. We met when I was 18 on a Saturday night in town whilst out clubbing. We live 30 miles away from eachother which may not sound like a lot but its caused major problems for us.

When we got together everything was great - we spent every weekend out clubbing or going to the cinema and saw eachother nearly every day. I didn’t think life could get any better - he didn’t insult me, we didn’t argue or fight. This lasted for about 6 months. I stopped going out clubbing with my friends when we got together as I didn’t think it was fair on my OH and didn’t want him to think I was out on the pull all the time like I used to be. We spent a lot of time going out with his best friend and his OH and some nights were spent with my friends.

When his sister moved to W Wales we weren't able to stay at her house anymore on a Sat night after going out clubbing so weekends started to be spent in front of the TV instead at his dad's. We stopped going out clubbing and doing something on a Sat night about 5 years ago - now every weekend is spent watching telly in the front room with his father there. We have the occasional night out...once every 3 - 4 months, on birthdays or if one of my OH's friends are going out and invite us but other than that we don’t normally bother. This has become one problem area - the fact that we are always cwtched up on the sofa with his father watching us on the other side of the room and don’t seem to have a life anymore. I've tried persuading him to go out more not just with me on the weekends, but with his mates, but normally he says he'd rather just stay in and that clubbing is for kids / singletons.

My OH is a welder (full time) and I'm an admin assistant (full time) working for the local LEA. I've also got a part time job as a sales assistant on a Saturday which I've had for the past 9 years. I've found that having an extra £100 a month is very handy especially when I need new clothes or am saving for something. Plus I get 2 pay days a month :j This is something that my OH has wanted me to quit many times because it means that I’m working 6 days a week – part time hrs are only 8:30 – 2:30. He calls this job a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) job and says that I should quit it so I can spend more time with him and keeps pointing out that I’ve had it since I was 16. So what I think? It’s all extra money at the end of the day. What does anyone else think?

He has always had a problem with me meeting up with my friends – this is what causes us to row the most I think. I travel up to see my OH on Thursday evenings after work and weekends. He travels down to me on Fridays. Our routine has always been pretty much the same since we met. The only free time I get to myself is Mon – Weds, which I normally use to relax at home / spend time with friends. My OH hasn’t got many friends, although he does see them from time to time when he’s not spending all his time sat in front of the computer on internet. I, on the other hand have tonnes of friends going back to primary school, high school and college. I have a close handful of about 5 that I often meet up with to go to the cinema or go for a meal. Some have got babies and its hard for us to go out so I tend to catch up with them by just popping round their houses for a cuppa tea.

I met up with a friend last week that I hadn’t seen since before xmas and had a meal. When I told my OH that I was going out and that I had to get off the phone to go and straighten my hair, he responded by saying ‘Okay then I’ll just go and put a shirt on then love and some aftershave and I’ll go out on the pull too!’. I thought how childish can you get…just because I was going out with a mate. Its not the first time he’s behaved like this when I’ve gone out with friends, at the same time though I can’t predict when he’s going to ‘go off on one’ and create an atmosphere as sometimes he’s genuinely ok with me going out and will ask how my evening went etc.

He says part of the reason why he gets so !!!!!! off about me meeting up with my friends all the time is because theres a 4 day gap in the week where we don’t see eachother, he says he doesn’t like talking on the phone all the time and would rather be talking to me face to face and that he’s at an age now where he wants to settle down and get a place together.

We discussed the possibility of getting a house together a couple of years ago and getting a mortgage but the problem was that we couldn’t decide on an area that we were both happy to start looking for houses in. My OH wanted me to move up the Valleys where he lives as he said that was all we were going to be able to afford mortgage wise. I earn £17,000 with my full time and part time job and my OH is on about £15,500 (all before tax). Not only were we not ready to get a place together (we were still arguing), I felt as though I was too young at 22 years of age and said I wasn’t prepared to move 30 miles away from work, my family and friends just to get on the property ladder. The OH wasn’t amused by this and said that if I wasn’t going to be ‘in’ with him from the start, then I couldn’t come into ‘it’ at all. Basically, he said he’d try to get a mortgage on his own and that I’d have to pay him rent to live there as his GF if it got accepted. He even tried persuading me to use money I had saved up for a new car for myself towards a house deposit. But again, my answer was no and I stuck by my guns. He wasn’t prepared to compromise in terms of where we could live – it was just, ‘houses up the valleys are cheaper, its all we can afford, you’re either in with me or you’re not’.

We split up shortly after all this went on, only for about a week but I think it taught him a lesson in terms of just expecting me to drop everything just so we could get a house together – the thing is I know my OH wouldn’t be able to get a big mortgage on his own. At times I think he sees being with me as a way of bridging the financial gap that he so desperately needs to get a house. I know it sounds bad but I cant help feeling this way.

Anyway I suppose the point of this huge post is to say what happened the following day after I met my friend for a meal last week. I travelled up my OH’s last Thursday and we had ‘one of those chats’ – where true feelings really come out. He told me that he thinks we’ve got different objectives, that we don’t click anymore like we used to, that from Mon – Weds its as though I’m leading a split life (when I see my friends) and that I’m not really his GF until we see eachother again on Thursdays! Brought up the fact that he hates speaking to me on the phone again and asked me the question ‘Where can you see yourself in 10 years time? What sort of a question is that? I’m only 24 for Gods sake…I replied by saying ‘I really don’t know…alive!’

He told me he wants to settle down but I cant imagine how we’d ever get on with eachother if we lived together if he’s got a problem with me seeing my friends from time to time now. And its not v often that I do see my friends…probably about 1 friend a week – 2 at the most.

I haven’t been on a girls night out for about a year for fear of sparking a row. I just don’t know what to do, I feel as though hes bringing me down in some areas yet I love him to bits. The fact that we’ve been together for 6 years must say something about us – may be we would be able to live together comfortably with compromises…I think I’m just living in a dream world though tbh, trying to convince myself that I can change him, trying to prove to my parents and friends that hes not an idiot…trying to control my life all the time telling me what I can and cant do.

I’m just confused…would be really happy for some advice…however big or small off anyone.

Sorry my post is so long, I’ve tried to sum up the way I’m feeling as best as I can but its hard.

Oh and maybe someone could start this up as a poll on here: Is coming home from a meal with a friend at 11pm on a week day evening classed as ‘coming in late’?

My OH seems to think it is.

Too controlling. And he aint gonna get much of a mortgage on £15K.

Hes right about the house prices though. Even with both of you, your not gonna get a mortgage in Cardiff/Newport/Swansea to buy a house. (I'm from S Wales too).

A lot of people have to get a house in the Valleys to afford. How about a house half way up the valley. Say 15 miles away?

(BTW-which Valley?)

belfastgirl23

I'm sort of with the people who are saying that this isn't necessarily a bad guy. The big thing that worries me is that he is expecting you to move to where he is and his argument is based solely on property prices and getting a mortgage. A mortgage is a means to enable you to live a happy life somewhere you want to be, not an end in itself. I do think he sounds like he's living a very sheltered and closed down kind of life and I don't think you want to live like this. The one thing I respect him for is saying that you have different priorities - I think this is true. And you really need to sit down and have a proper talk (not fight) about how you see your future. This can be as simple as you both writing down where you see you being in 5 years time if you're together and working through them to see what you/he can compromise on. You don't want to get into that nippy narky 'you never' 'you always' type of conversation but rather think about what you really want.

My worry though is that he isn't really seeing that he would have to compromise at all. I know DH was like this when we first met and it really did take ten years to move him around from it (if not more). If I hadn't loved him so much and known that basically he was a good guy it would def not have been worth the effort

[Deleted User]

lacoste1985 wrote: »

Hi all

My problem may seem like a trivial one to many - I'm having relationship problems with my boyfriend of 6 years. It’s something that seems to have become a problem over the last 3 years but I've only started to think about things more as we've been bickering more recently.

I'm 24 (gonna be 25 in March) and my OH is 29. We both still live at home with parents - me with my mum, dad and brother and my OH with his dad. His mum and dad got divorced about 5 years ago so now his mum lives in West Wales along with his 2 sisters, 2 nieces and nephew. We met when I was 18 on a Saturday night in town whilst out clubbing. We live 30 miles away from eachother which may not sound like a lot but its caused major problems for us.

When we got together everything was great - we spent every weekend out clubbing or going to the cinema and saw eachother nearly every day. I didn’t think life could get any better - he didn’t insult me, we didn’t argue or fight. This lasted for about 6 months. I stopped going out clubbing with my friends when we got together as I didn’t think it was fair on my OH and didn’t want him to think I was out on the pull all the time like I used to be. We spent a lot of time going out with his best friend and his OH and some nights were spent with my friends.

When his sister moved to W Wales we weren't able to stay at her house anymore on a Sat night after going out clubbing so weekends started to be spent in front of the TV instead at his dad's. We stopped going out clubbing and doing something on a Sat night about 5 years ago - now every weekend is spent watching telly in the front room with his father there. We have the occasional night out...once every 3 - 4 months, on birthdays or if one of my OH's friends are going out and invite us but other than that we don’t normally bother. This has become one problem area - the fact that we are always cwtched up on the sofa with his father watching us on the other side of the room and don’t seem to have a life anymore. I've tried persuading him to go out more not just with me on the weekends, but with his mates, but normally he says he'd rather just stay in and that clubbing is for kids / singletons.

My OH is a welder (full time) and I'm an admin assistant (full time) working for the local LEA. I've also got a part time job as a sales assistant on a Saturday which I've had for the past 9 years. I've found that having an extra £100 a month is very handy especially when I need new clothes or am saving for something. Plus I get 2 pay days a month :j This is something that my OH has wanted me to quit many times because it means that I’m working 6 days a week – part time hrs are only 8:30 – 2:30. He calls this job a YTS (Youth Training Scheme) job and says that I should quit it so I can spend more time with him and keeps pointing out that I’ve had it since I was 16. So what I think? It’s all extra money at the end of the day. What does anyone else think?

He has always had a problem with me meeting up with my friends – this is what causes us to row the most I think. I travel up to see my OH on Thursday evenings after work and weekends. He travels down to me on Fridays. Our routine has always been pretty much the same since we met. The only free time I get to myself is Mon – Weds, which I normally use to relax at home / spend time with friends. My OH hasn’t got many friends, although he does see them from time to time when he’s not spending all his time sat in front of the computer on internet. I, on the other hand have tonnes of friends going back to primary school, high school and college. I have a close handful of about 5 that I often meet up with to go to the cinema or go for a meal. Some have got babies and its hard for us to go out so I tend to catch up with them by just popping round their houses for a cuppa tea.

I met up with a friend last week that I hadn’t seen since before xmas and had a meal. When I told my OH that I was going out and that I had to get off the phone to go and straighten my hair, he responded by saying ‘Okay then I’ll just go and put a shirt on then love and some aftershave and I’ll go out on the pull too!’. I thought how childish can you get…just because I was going out with a mate. Its not the first time he’s behaved like this when I’ve gone out with friends, at the same time though I can’t predict when he’s going to ‘go off on one’ and create an atmosphere as sometimes he’s genuinely ok with me going out and will ask how my evening went etc.

He says part of the reason why he gets so !!!!!! off about me meeting up with my friends all the time is because theres a 4 day gap in the week where we don’t see eachother, he says he doesn’t like talking on the phone all the time and would rather be talking to me face to face and that he’s at an age now where he wants to settle down and get a place together.

We discussed the possibility of getting a house together a couple of years ago and getting a mortgage but the problem was that we couldn’t decide on an area that we were both happy to start looking for houses in. My OH wanted me to move up the Valleys where he lives as he said that was all we were going to be able to afford mortgage wise. I earn £17,000 with my full time and part time job and my OH is on about £15,500 (all before tax). Not only were we not ready to get a place together (we were still arguing), I felt as though I was too young at 22 years of age and said I wasn’t prepared to move 30 miles away from work, my family and friends just to get on the property ladder. The OH wasn’t amused by this and said that if I wasn’t going to be ‘in’ with him from the start, then I couldn’t come into ‘it’ at all. Basically, he said he’d try to get a mortgage on his own and that I’d have to pay him rent to live there as his GF if it got accepted. He even tried persuading me to use money I had saved up for a new car for myself towards a house deposit. But again, my answer was no and I stuck by my guns. He wasn’t prepared to compromise in terms of where we could live – it was just, ‘houses up the valleys are cheaper, its all we can afford, you’re either in with me or you’re not’.

We split up shortly after all this went on, only for about a week but I think it taught him a lesson in terms of just expecting me to drop everything just so we could get a house together – the thing is I know my OH wouldn’t be able to get a big mortgage on his own. At times I think he sees being with me as a way of bridging the financial gap that he so desperately needs to get a house. I know it sounds bad but I cant help feeling this way.

Anyway I suppose the point of this huge post is to say what happened the following day after I met my friend for a meal last week. I travelled up my OH’s last Thursday and we had ‘one of those chats’ – where true feelings really come out. He told me that he thinks we’ve got different objectives, that we don’t click anymore like we used to, that from Mon – Weds its as though I’m leading a split life (when I see my friends) and that I’m not really his GF until we see eachother again on Thursdays! Brought up the fact that he hates speaking to me on the phone again and asked me the question ‘Where can you see yourself in 10 years time? What sort of a question is that? I’m only 24 for Gods sake…I replied by saying ‘I really don’t know…alive!’

He told me he wants to settle down but I cant imagine how we’d ever get on with eachother if we lived together if he’s got a problem with me seeing my friends from time to time now. And its not v often that I do see my friends…probably about 1 friend a week – 2 at the most.

I haven’t been on a girls night out for about a year for fear of sparking a row. I just don’t know what to do, I feel as though hes bringing me down in some areas yet I love him to bits. The fact that we’ve been together for 6 years must say something about us – may be we would be able to live together comfortably with compromises…I think I’m just living in a dream world though tbh, trying to convince myself that I can change him, trying to prove to my parents and friends that hes not an idiot…trying to control my life all the time telling me what I can and cant do.

I’m just confused…would be really happy for some advice…however big or small off anyone.

Sorry my post is so long, I’ve tried to sum up the way I’m feeling as best as I can but its hard.

Oh and maybe someone could start this up as a poll on here: Is coming home from a meal with a friend at 11pm on a week day evening classed as ‘coming in late’?

My OH seems to think it is.

Nothing wrong with going out with a friend and coming home at 11pm...

[Deleted User]

Errata wrote: »

29 going on 59 by the sound of it. The fact that he doesn't like you seeing your friends should be ringing very loud alarm bells. The fact that he wants to dictate how and where you work should be ringing some more. The fact that he thinks getting home at 11pm is a late night sounds like he's turned into his dad. The fact that he thinks he can get a mortgage on earnings of £15k should tell you all you need to know.

Mind you, might just about be possible in Blaenau Gwent, or the Rhondda... You'd be surprised. Would be the !!! end of nowhere though. !!!!!! LOL

paddy's_mum

I too think this guy is being condemned for things that he hasn't done! Is it abnormal to want to settle down and make a home with the person you love, especially after six years of 'going steady'? How it is to be financed and the wanting to pull together is normal too - how many young couples do you know where each party has single-handedly funded a house purchase?

I'm most disturbed by the OP's comment "trying to prove to my parents and friends that he is not an idiot". What on earth is that all about? Perhaps when lacoste has worked that out, she'll have her answer.

Where this is all falling down is that they want different things but neither one seems to be levelling with the other nor listening to what is actually being said. For example, is 'the friend' that OP went out with for a meal male or female? The OH (OP's term!) demanding to maintain a friendship with some bloke she knows when you haven't been invited along too is enough to rattle most people, I suggest, let alone a boyfriend who already feels insecure.

Unless lacoste expects in the next two weeks to discover that she is madly in love with the boyfriend and can't begin to imagine a life without him, she'd perhaps be kinder to end the relationship so that he is free to meet a woman who does want the same things as he does. She may love him to bits but they surely are not on the same wavelength.

xmaslolly76

He does seem a little controlling but maybe its just cause and effect from the way the relationship is. Sounds like he wants to settle down but your happy as you are.

The way i see it there are two possible options for sorting it out once and for all. #1 take a complete break from each other get your head straight and decide what you both want. I dont think asking where you see your self in ten years as a harsh question i knew when i was 24 that i wanted a house a family when i was in my 30's it just wasnt what i wanted when i was 24. #2 take the plunge and rent somewhere for 6 months together see how it all pans out and take the next step from there. At least if you rent you are not tied together forever and if it doesnt work out its only six months not along time in the big scheme of things.

Personally reading your post it does come across like the relationship has run its course and your itching to spread your wings but only you know what you really want and i dont think continuing the way you are in this stale mate is going to help either of you.

I hope it all works out which ever way you both decide to go :-)

euronorris

Zazen999 wrote: »

Only if you are a child at school.

I think you know the answer or you wouldn't have asked the question.

Agree! You're an adult, so you get to decide when you come home, and whether or not you'll be awake enough at work the next day.

My OH also isn't keen on going out very often, but this is because he's uncomfortable in social situations where he doesn't know anyone except me. But.....he still encourages me to go out and enjoy myself. I've come home at 12.30am before on a weeknight, and I was still greeted with a hug, a kiss and 'How was it darling, did you have fun etc?'.

I don't think though, from what you said, that he is being controlling. Well, not intentionally. I think he's frustrated, as others have said. After all, after 6 years together, he still only sees you 3/4 days a week. Most couples are living together long before this and it is obviously what he wants for you both also.

Unfortunately, I don't think you're ready for that yet. If you were, then you two would've been renting together for quite some time already.

I think you both just want different things right now. He wants to settle down, buy a house, start a family etc. Whereas, I get the impression that you would like to expand your horizons and experience life a lot more before settling down.

You need to be honest with each other about this, because, unless you are both willing to compromise here, then I don't see a future for this relationship and you should both go your separate ways.

Good luck in whatever you decide. x