Dealing with an unsocial fiance while maintaining your busy social life
Dear Carolyn: My iance and I live in a major East Coast city. I have a robust social life and usually have plans with friends a few days a week after work. I am also friendly with most of my co-workers.
My iance is less social than I am. Sometimes he comes with me to things, but usually not. He also doesn’t like talking to his co-workers very much, which means he usually wants me to be his listening ear about work drama. And he gets very hurt if I have plans that make it tough to listen to him talk about work all night.
He has suggested we move together to a new city and “start over.” He is feeling the imbalance in our social setups and, if I am interpreting correctly, he wants us to live somewhere we are BOTH friendless, perhaps in hopes I’ll have more time for him.
Initially when he asked I sort of considered it, since a fresh start is sometimes nice, but now I am feeling pretty angry. Isn’t it totally sel ish for a person to want their partner to give up a happy social life in order to be available on command? — We Can’t Be Happy in the Same Place
Sounds like it. Why are you even together?
Could be a rhetorical question, but I urge you to answer it. Nothing in your letter says why. You have friends you enjoy; you have no interest in what he wants to talk about “all night”; you interpret his wanting more attention as wanting you “to be available on command.” That’s some distrustful stuff.
Why are you “interpreting” what you can discuss?
Plus: Let’s say you do move. You’ll BOTH be friendless, yes ...
Then you’ll outgoingly make new friends, seeing them a few days a week, which he’ll mostly opt out of, and you’ll come home to a guy you still don’t ind interesting.
How is that an improvement on anything?
So, again: Why are you together? Why force it amid apparently mutual distrust?
If you still believe he’s the best-best person for you, then put your whole heart into communicating what you can, can’t, will and won’t alter about your life to make room for him. See how he responds. See, plainly, whether you and he make any sense.