Am I unreasonable, or what?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Ok, here’s what’s going on (this is kind of long…) :

My boyfriend and I go to separate schools, about 45 minutes away from one another. I live off campus, and he lives in residence for his school. I have a car, he doesn’t. So whenever we want to see each other, I am the one who does the majority of traveling. On the weekends, he’d rather stay in rez than come all the way up here, but that means little to no time for us alone due to him having a roommate. So we normally make the drive back up here for Friday and Saturday. He has meetings at 1pm every Sunday for something hes participating in at school. These meetings used to be 2 hours long,now they’re going to be about 3 1/2. So every Sunday, I drive him down to his school and wait for him, either in his room, or the library. It’s good homework time, but the fact is, I dislike being at his school without him. I just plain don’t like it.

So waiting for him for two hours was ok. I could tolerate that, as long as I got to see him for the remainder of the day - until I have to drive back home (damn 8:30am classes). When I found out that his meetings would be longer, I was upset, because I hate waiting for him, but since he can’t really miss them, and there’s nothing I can do, I resigned myself to accept it. I bitched, but I accepted it. More homework time, I suppose.

Which brings us to this weekend. The project with the Sunday meetings is also getting together on Saturday for a quick meeting. My boyfriend decided not to go, because he knows that seeing him on the weekends is really important to me, since I can’t see him during the week. I told him he could go, I didn’t mind, but he still said no. Ok- that’s his choice. As ar as I’m concerned, he can still go, so long as he lets me know in advance. Only now he tells me that another project he’s working on is meeting Sunday night this week. So he’s going to have the original 3 1/2 hour meeting, and then another one of indeterminant time on the same day.

For me, this means getting up early Sunday, driving him down to his school, waiting for him for 3 1/2 hours, seeing him for another hour or two while we eat, then he goes off to this other meeting, while I drive back home. Or, I drive him down, turn around, and come back home. Neither of these is fine with me. The latter, I don’t get to see him Sunday (except during the drive down) and the former - well, I HATE waiting for him, and I don’t get to see him much in return. 3 1/2 hours of waiting to see him for 2 is not my idea of fun. The second meeting is totally optional, but he feels he should participate in it anyways.

Next week, he’s gone from Wednesday to Sunday, so I won’t see him at all until the following weekend (unless we have enough spare time during the week to warrant me driving down to see him). Still, that’s two weeks from now.

He doesn’t understand why this situation would upset me. Our weekends together are very important to me, and, for me, there is a lot of driving involved. I spend a lot of time already going to get him, waiting for him, etc, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect to be able to see him as much as possible. He thinks I expect too much, and that I expect him to just drop everything for me. I don’t think this is the case.

The thing is, I don’t want him not to participate in the meetings, but if he does, it makes my weekend very difficult for me, because it involves a lot of time traveling and not very much in return. If he doesn’t participate, then I feel so guilty for preventing him from joining in activities he enjoys. There just doesn’t seem to be a compromise. Except - I do this traveling every weekend. It’s getting to be pretty hard on me, but I can manage so long as I get to see him in return for it. Also, this Sunday is one of our anniversaries (not a year one, but still important enough to warrant seeing him for more than 3 hours since I won’t see him for a couple of weeks).

So I am upset, and I don’t know what to do. He’s upset, because he feels I’m being unreasonable, and he doesn’t want to drop these activities. Him being upset is worse than me being upset, IMHO. But the question is, am I unreasonable for expecting to see him under this situation? Should I make him skip the second meeting? Should I turn around and go home, and just pretend it doesn’t bother me? I really don’t know what to do.

Any advice?

2

Yes you are being unreasonable and you have stinky feet!

No actually here is my take on the situation. Yes it is a bitch to wait 3 hours to see him then only get to see him for a couple of hours before his other meeting. In a way it’s unreasonable to ask him to skip anything. It is his choice to do what he wants at his school. But on the other hand if I were in your situation in all likelyhood I’d feel the same exact way you do. In fact I have been in that situation a couple of times and I did feel the way you do. What it all boils down to is which would YOU rather do wait to see him or leave? He’s basically made his choice on the matter now you have to make yours.

3

I think you’re being unreasonable, (hey, you asked), but not with him-- with yourself.

Are you insane? Chauffeuring this man around so YOU can get to see HIM?

What?

They don’t have buses where you live?

The man has not been born that I would drive around like this to see. There is NO way I would get up early on Sunday to drive him to some meeting. This is a man, right? Not a child.

Do yourself a favour and next weekend tell him you’re not up to the driving for but a few precious moments of his time.

You teach people how to treat you, and you’ve already taught this guy that he can expect this kind of service from you.

That’s my opinion, hey, you asked.

4

As my son was in playschool when I got a new job, I ended up moving to the city three months before the rest of my family.

This meant that, every Friday evening, I’d drive for four hours to get home, spend the weekend, then drive back another four hours early Sunday evening. Did that suck? You bet. But I drove through several blizzards, with white-out conditions, on lonely mountain roads to get there. Those nights took six hours or more. It was worth it.

So quit complaining. You drive for 45 minutes, then spend the next 45 with him. So you’re really only “wasting” an hour and a half of driving per weekend. Big deal.

And the weekend with the extra meeting? Celebrate your anniversary the day before, drop him off in the morning, give him a big anniversary kiss, then go back and spend the entire day doing something by yourself, preferably something you haven’t done before, or do rarely.

That’s what I’d do (except for kissing your boyfriend).

5

Tell the bum to get a car!

6

You sound like a very caring and giving person, but at the same time, possibly a bit selfish. It sounds to me like you are doing all of this for you more than for him. Maybe you should re-evaluate your motivation?

It sounds to me that he cares for you, but at the same time he is developing a life and interests of his own. Let him know that you care, but give him the space to pursue these interests. If, in pursuing the interests, he realizes that he would rather spend the time with you, then he will drop or re-arrange those interests. If not, you will drift apart. Deal with that when the time comes, though it may not be what you want to hear.

{{{mnemosyne}}}} Hang in there.

7

Thanks for the replies. More or less what I expected, I suppose.

To respond to a few things, though:
elbows, our schools are in different cities, so unless he takes a Greyhound or GObus every weekend, there is no busing available. As for chauffering - I either drive, or I don’t see him at all. And this arrangement works fine normally - I do get a lot back from him in other aspects of our relationship.

and spooje, he can’t afford a car. He’s a student. Besides, next year none of this will be an issue because we’ll be moving in together and sharing my car. So it’s pointless. And as I said, it’s a decent arrangement most of the time.

I suppose I will do what St. Attila suggested. But I don’t have to like it!! It’s not like my current schedule doesn’t give me any time for myself, which is really why I want to spend weekends with him.

Oh well. I’m sure everything will work out Ok in the end. It usually does.

Thanks again for the replies.

8

Reasonableness? I dunno if that’s the issue that comes to mind. Here are some comments, though.

The thing that gets me about your post is that you keep saying how important being together and spending time together is to YOU. You said he missed a meeting because he knew it meant a lot to YOU–which is different than him missing a meeting because HE wanted to lengthen your time together.

Surely he wants to spend time together too. But the lack of “WE” in your post suggests to me you need to investigate your own feelings on this, and how those feelings make you regard your role in this partnership. Do you feel it’s one-sided? Do you feel you’re giving more? Do you feel you’re the one keeping the relationship together? Does this make you feel more responsible for the relationship, deserving of some acknowledgement of that from him, something of a martyr? These might not be quite the right questions, but I suspect there are some similar ones you need to ask of yourself.

One thing you might consider is not trying to see each other EVERY weekend. I spent three years commuting back and forth to my boyfriend’s school which was one hour away. And vice versa. We didn’t always have cars, so we often rode with others and tried to split the burden of travel. At the time, seeing him EVERY weekend felt normal and right. Then he moved further away my senior year, and for practical considerations we saw each other less. I started to do other things on the weekend, and realized I’d missed a lot. Fun with my friends. Activities on my own campus. Girl stuff. Time to work on papers and stuff without a rush. Time to do laundry. Bumming around alone, in my room. I wish he and I had taken breather weekends sometimes.

Maybe some weekends apart would be good for both of you. He wouldn’t rushing from meetings and juggling things, you wouldn’t be driving so much. Maybe YOU could be involved in something on your campus–sounds like you haven’t, while he has. And maybe he’d value your time together as much as you do, if he wasn’t having to shuffle his schedule every weekend to maximize his hours of facetime with you.

I post this thinking it sounds harsh–certainly a little judgmental given that I don’t know you. But these are my thoughts, for what they’re worth.

9

Thanks, Cranky. Man, it is good to have totally independent point of views on stuff. My friends try to protect me, while his friends try to protect him.

Admittedly, when I wrote that first post, I was in a really bitchy mood. Things really came off sounding worse than they really are. I kinda came to the same conclusion on my own - that maybe a little weekend time apart would be good, and that’s likely going to happen this weekend, and next too, so it’ll give us both a chance to do things for ourselves. And it’s not really an issue of me getting involved in school stuff. I am, it’s just that all my things are actually during the week.

I guess what was getting to me was the fact that he didn’t understand why I’d be disappointed not to see him. I want him to participate - and dammit he’s going to go to that Saturday meeting - it’s just that when I thought the weekend would happen one way, and it got all turned around, I got upset. Maybe I should have started this in the Pit…it was really more of a rant than anything else. Just a chance to get things off my chest.

Anyways, thanks for all the opinions. No need for further responses, this episode of mine is over as far as I’m concerned! :slight_smile:

10

Mnemosyne,

I truly feel for you.

However, it could be worse. I’m married to a wonderful woman. Because of my work I have an apartment that is 70 miles away. I get to see her only on the weekends and often I have to work on the weekend. During the semester I can go as long as a month without seeing her. It bites. :frowning:

The secret is to make the most of the time you have together. When yo take him back for his Sunday meetings, go on home. Don’t wait for him. The 3 1/2 hours of waiting probably taints the time you have afterwards. It makes you feel that you have wasyed allll day for only a few hours together. That will build resentment. If you just take him back to his school, then go on about your own business you still will have spent time with him that day and still have felt like you have accomplished something with the rest of the day.

I know that even though my wife and I do not see each other as much as we used to, our time together is much richer for it.

Good Luck.