How often to see partner

paulineb_2

fishybusiness wrote: »

Tend to agree three nights a week isn't enough to maintain a relationship, especially as you do not live together.

If you have a committed relationship, looking at the longer term, couldn't you spend time with your partner and his son, on a Sunday?

Obvious solution is move in together, see if it works.

I dont agree, one night a fortnight might not be enough, but 3 a week and speaking on the phone in between times?

Even if they move in together she will still be working nights, he will still be working a lot of hours.

NervousHomeowner

My partner and I see each other every day because we live together. However, before we moved in together, he lived on the other side of the country & we only saw each other 2 days a week. Personally, I felt it worked really well for us and sometimes I even miss the days when we saw so little of eachother that every time we met up was special

I don't think you should worry about how often your friend sees her partner - Every relationship is different. Three days a week is a perfectly respectable amount to see your partner, and it sounds like your partner is already giving you almost all of his free time. Might it be worth having the conversation about moving in together, if you're feeling like you're not spending enough time together? Either that or maybe living together one week on, one week off?

sazpot

I have lived with mine for over 3 years and some weeks I only see him one weekday evening (including Sun) due to work trips. There is no normal.

Some weekends we even choose to do different things, this weekend i didn't see him from Friday morning until Sunday night. As long as we are communicating and decide these things together we are happy.

We don't have prescribed evenings to spend with each other, our lives don't allow for it. He can't decline a meeting because it is date night!

If I get invited for a girls dinner with my friends I won't turn it down unless he has been away a week and is coming home that night. I don't think you can judge how serious thing are buy the evenings a week you spend together, friends and hobbies are still important.

SandC

There is no right or wrong, some people like to see their partner every day, living together or not. Most are somewhere in between.

Sounds like you want the relationship to move up a level. As has been said by others you can't magic more free time out of nowhere so living together is the next logical step I guess.

What about holidays, have you been able to holiday together? If not, get one booked!

Prothet_of_Doom

I've been married 23 years, and in the last 4 years I've been living away from home midweek, (in order to gain paid employment) and travelling home for the weekends.

I have to say that it has improved our relationship, and improved my work. I put it down to the fact that I can better compartmentalise my life into home and work.

GoldenShadow

It depends on what you want, I suppose. I'm a student and still live at home with my Mum, but my OH has been here as well since about three months into our relationship (been together a year and a half). We just naturally wanted to spend all our spare time together and he didn't get around to going home so lives here now.

Saying that, lately his days off have been when I've been at work. Sometimes he goes to work at 5.30am, gets home at 4pm, and I've gone to work at 3pm and don't get home til nearly midnight etc. Its at a point for us where it works because we do whatever we want in our spare time, knowing we get to see the other at some point that day/evening, even if its at bedtime! Our lives have slotted together really well, he's quite chilled out and will do whatever, and I'm an outdoorsy country type. He's quite happy to walk the dogs/feed them, picked one up from the vets after he was kept in when I was at work last week etc. He doesn't have any real commitments except work.

As PP said, maybe living together is the next step?

catkins

When I met my now OH he lived in South London and I lived in North. He did shift work (days and nights). We saw each other every day from the day we met. Depending on his shifts, he would come and take me for breakfast before I started work or meet me for lunch or, if he had the evening off we would go out. We got married 5 months later and, over 30 years later, we have barely spent a day apart

FBaby

Before I moved in with my partner, we saw each other 2 to three evenings a week and Saturdays and some part of Sunday, although during the summer, Saturdays were becoming more compromised. It wasn't enough for me, I missed him, but he had an active life and that was it. We'd planned on moving in together, and I know that he was starting to feel a bit worried about it on the expectations that I would make even more demands on him afterwards, but it was the opposite. Seeing him every day, even if only for a few minutes and more importantly knowing that I would fall asleep next to him every night mean that I felt much less needy of his time....even to the point when I started being grateful for him having activities that took him away from home! He admitted later on that he had been surprised that I was so much less demanding of his time after moving in with him. I just needed that security that if I missed him, it was only a question of hours before seeing him again. Moving in was definitely the right thing to do for us (not just for that reason, but it was a big part of it).

fashionlover10

Before I moved in with my OH we would see each other 2/3 nights a week. We lived 20 miles apart and he worked days whilst I worked evenings and all weekend.
Our time together would literally be him picking me up from work around 9/10pm, us driving back to his, getting dinner. going to bed, waking up at 6am, him dropping me home before 7am so he could drive another 20 miles from mine to his work.

No wonder we moved in together after just 5 months! :rotfl:

aileth

When I was courting, we would see each other twice a week, and when the relationship progressed I'd stay over the Saturday night. We lived an hour and a bit apart by train (I didn't drive then) and so it was rather expensive and timely doing it alot!