# New relationship - am I being too clingy?



## justonelife (Jul 29, 2010)

I'm in my first post-divorce relationship and have been seeing a wonderful man for about 7 months. We recently said that we love each other, everything is going very well. The only problem is that I find myself wanting to rush right back in to a fulltime, almost married relationship (meaning practically living together) while he wants to take his time and I think has a little bit of fear of commitment.

I'm torn because I don't want my own issues (insecurity, fear of being alone, etc) to ruin this relationship and maybe I'm expecting too much. At the same time, one thing I learned during the breakup of my marriage is that you should trust your gut. If you aren't happy in a relationship, simply ignoring your feelings isn't healthy either. The issues will just continue to grow.

So I guess my question is this: If you have been seeing someone for 6+ months and they have told you that they love you, how much time together is reasonable to expect? Because of kids and work schedules, we aren't able to see each other usually 2-3 days a week so I pretty much expect to see him the other days. But we often go 5 or 6 days without seeing each other and then he'll "make up for it" by seeing me 2 or 3 days in a row (which might just be an hour lunch date or something like that) and then it's another 5 days of just texting or phone calls. He's only spent the night at my house 2-3 times ever. Basically I would say we spend an average of 8-10 hours per week together. Am I being unreasonable to want more at this stage?


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## Deejo (May 20, 2008)

Well, at least you know where he stands. Does he know how you feel?

I don't think that you are being unreasonable. However, what makes the dynamic challenging is he is not being unreasonable with what he wants or expects either.

Dating gets complex for exactly the reasons you indicated, work, kids, and other life interests.

If you 'need' more, and he 'needs' less, neither of you is wrong. You are either going to have find a middle-ground that you both find satisfying, or you would do well to move on.


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## justonelife (Jul 29, 2010)

Thanks Deejo. As with most relationship issues, we communicated about this and it helped a lot. You are correct, there is no right or wrong answer but we both got some perspective on the other person's point of view. 

From his POV, seeing me 3 days in a row is a lot of time together. From my POV, those 3 dates only amounted to 7 hours in the whole week. These are both valid ways of looking at the time we spent together, but it was good to learn how the other person was seeing it.

I was feeling rejected by him for not wanting to spend more time with me, while he felt that asking for more time might make HIM seem needy. Ironic, huh? 

He's also really concerned about building a solid foundation before taking the next step in the relationship. I'm totally for building a foundation but I pointed out that eventually you have to take that leap to the next stage. There's never a 100% guarantee that it will work out and while building a good foundation is important, it's meaningless unless the foundation is supporting something else (i.e. a more serious relationship). He has said that he could see us living together in a few years and yet 7 months into the relationship, I still feel like we are "just dating" meaning not seeing each other much, not co-mingling our families much, not sleeping over very often, etc. We won't be able to live together until we "test the waters" so to speak by taking some of these interim actions.

He understood all of that. Again, no right or wrong answer but just different ways of looking at the same situation. We just need to communicate more and I need to be more specific about issues. I realized that when I say I want "more time", he automatically jumps to the conclusion that I want to spend every waking moment with him. That's not the case, all I mean is maybe having him spend a night a week at my place rather than him going home after a date. When I say it specifically like that, he's like "oh, okay, that's no problem at all. I'd actually like that!" But when I just say "we aren't spending enough time together", he feels like I'm asking him to move in. 

All is good now that we've talked it out. It's actually kind of funny looking back on it but isn't that always the case?


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## Unexpected Outlook (May 7, 2011)

I have to go along with Deejo on this. He's saying "wants to take time" meanwhile you're posting "wanting more by this point". Either you two have to agree on a middle ground or (cuz he sounds like he really does want the pace he currently has) part company. Making a "concession" (as opposed to agreeable compromise) only brings resentment. And typically not admitted to resentment.


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## magnoliagal (Mar 30, 2011)

He's stated what he wants. He says he can see you living together in a few years and he thinks 3 days a week is enough. He's not ready to move in now and he's not ready to sleep over more. He's made that clear. First of I wouldn't bring this up again. It's already been discussed and now the ball is in your court. Your choices are 1) accept the terms and continue to date. 2) decide it's a dealbreaker and leave. or 3) put this whole thing on hold and revisit in 6 months.


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## Mrs.G (Nov 20, 2010)

magnoliagal said:


> He's stated what he wants. He says he can see you living together in a few years and he thinks 3 days a week is enough. He's not ready to move in now and he's not ready to sleep over more. He's made that clear. First of I wouldn't bring this up again. It's already been discussed and now the ball is in your court. Your choices are 1) accept the terms and continue to date. 2) decide it's a dealbreaker and leave. or 3) put this whole thing on hold and revisit in 6 months.


:iagree: When I was dating, I met some men that only wanted to see me on the weekends, text and not talk on the phone often. I dumped them because I could see that we had different needs and expectations. Before I came to that realization, I dated men who were cold and aloof. It didn't feel good to beg for more closeness, so I just walked away when a man didn't seem as invested. Saved a lot of time.


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## justonelife (Jul 29, 2010)

I appreciate the responses. In some ways they are hard to hear. I know it's easy to say "accept his pace or move on" but I truly am in love with him and outside of this issue, I feel like he is the perfect man for me. 

I doubt myself because I have truly never dated before. I married my first and only high school boyfriend. I went from living with my parents to living with my future husband. So I have never done this before and I don't know if I'm being unreasonable in my expectations. I don't want to let this guy go and have the same thing happen to me over and over again.

After 7 or 8 months of dating, is it "normal" to want to spend more than 2 or 3 date nights together with a rare sleepover and virtually no time spent with each other's kids? Maybe it doesn't really matter, I can't help what I want, but I just want to make sure I'm not being unreasonable due to total lack of experience. Like I said, I don't want to move on from this guy only to find that no guys are going to meet my expectations.


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## johnboy63 (May 2, 2011)

My best friend only sees his gf once or twice a week and they have an excellent relationship that is going on almost 5 years. I once had a gf that moved in with me 2 weeks after meeting and our relationship self destructed in less than 7 weeks!


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