His friends

[DaisyWhisper]

I am not the most social person in the world, but he is and he will always have friends over and be away from afternoon to late at night/early hours of the morning.
I am glad he has a social life and good friends, but I wish I could share that with him. I have talked to him about it and he just says that he wants to be with me and them, but he can't be in two places at once and makes me feel bad if I get sad when he goes. I can't help but be sad when he has to leave to go spend time with friends, I just miss him so much and they can have him whenever they want just by turning up at his house unannounced.

[~whendarknessfalls]

Hmmmm you could tell him that you are missing him and need to spend extra time with him. Tell him you want him to let you know when his friends are coming over. Maybe you could think about how much time (realistically) you would like to spend with him and let him know.
Everyone needs to spend time with friends...that's important too. Maybe if he is having a night out, you could get some of your own friends together and do something fun. Or use the alone time to catch up on whatever you might need to get done, or just chillax, read a book, do something to pass the time. If you just sit and dwell about all the fun he is having without you, you will only get more sad and lonely.
In any case you need to let him know how you are feeling and have the two of you figure out a plan that makes both of you happy. Because in a relationship, it's really all about giving (:

[DaisyWhisper]

The thing is, often his friends will turn up every evening and that is the time that we have to talk to Skype. They often turn up unexpectedly, so there is no forward planning and he is too polite to stay and talk to me whilst the others spend time with his brother. Even though the turning up unnanounced is much more rude than staying in your room to talk to your girlfriend.

Sometimes I just feel like I am second to his friends when he can see them whenever he likes.

[Sierra]

I hate to admit it, but I feel your pain. I originally asked for one night a week that he dedicated to spending with me for our edates and then one night when he would be home on time to say good night to me. It worked for awhile, but after long his friends really started to take more importance. I told him it wasn't fair to me, you can't expect to spend all your time with your friends and none with your girlfriend and still have a relationship.

I want and encourage my boyfriend to have a social life, but he needs to have time with me as well. Basically I've just learned to keep my mouth shut about his friends unless it's a night he dedicated to me even when it does make me feel bad. He does have a right to have a social life, it just shouldn't be at my expense. We've agreed that when he's COMMITTED time to me, he'll tell his friends he's not available, and for the most part he makes good on that.

Honestly, I think my problem is that I miss him and obviously want to spend time talking to him. He occupies himself while I don't have friends and don't have that luxury. His friends have embraced me and are very nice to me in person which I appreciate. You know, at the end of the day, it is what it is, he has to have his social life or he'll resent me and I just have to realize that I sometimes have to be lonely without him.

Why not try the designated day/night/whatever for each other? I did this when it was really a problem and I promise it helped. I had him tell me at the beginning of the week which day it would be, put it in my calender and neither of us made plans.

ETA: You say he won't stand up to his friends and ask them to leave, tell him you need him too. You NEED that time with him and it's not too much to ask to maintain a relationship. It's not. And his friends should understand that he needs one night with you.

But really I understand where you're coming from and get made out as a bad guy a lot because of it, if you ever need to talk you can PM me.

[Zapookie]

I would be pretty upset too if my boyfriend just up and left me when friends came over. He did it a couple of times in the beginning of our relationship. We'd be on skype and then his friends would come over and he'd just start talking to them.. I could hear their conversation. He would totally ignore me and then ask me a question here or there in a measly attempt to include me (but you know... what guy talks to his girlfriend on skype and tells his friends that he's talking to her and to go away?). I only stayed on for another 5 or 10 minutes, hoping they would leave but they never did so I just hung up the call and told him to get at me when he wasn't busy.

I spoke to him about it and called him out on many things I think, and he has become so much more attentive to how I feel about particular things and he respects me a lot more, so thank God for that. He's changed so much and it makes me really proud.

Why don't you ask your SO to maybe save one or two nights for you (or more if that's what you need)? This means he specifically has to tell them in some shape or form that he is busy and won't be available to hang out, so they shouldn't come over. I think that's reasonable enough.

[DaisyWhisper]

The thing with setting aside time just for us, and him telling his friends to stay away is that
1. He can't tell them to stay away because he is a twin and they share the same friend group, so his brother might want to hang out with them. My SO thinks that it is rude to stay in his room and talk to me when his friends are over.
2. I want and need to spend time with him in some form every day, and that time is so special to me. I don't want to freak him out by telling him that because at the moment it feels natural and un forced, I don't want us to feel like we have a duty to be together at a set time. We naturally fall into spending time together right now and that is nice.

[English Rose x]

to be honest i think you're being perfectly reasonable, communication is important. does he have a blackberry? if you do, too, you could use bbm to keep in contact.

[DaisyWhisper]

to be honest i think you're being perfectly reasonable, communication is important. does he have a blackberry? if you do, too, you could use bbm to keep in contact.

Unfortunately he doesn't, I have and iPhone and he has something different. I want to get him an iPod touch so we could keep in touch via apps from the apple store, but I just don't have any spare money!

[kat4301]

Is he into games online? My boyfriend will put up with skype talks most nights but we found pretty quickly that we would run out of stuff to say and him hanging out with friends was more fun no matter what (sad but true when you are LDR). Now we play online LOTRO while running the webcam, he likes the game so I can get him to stay-in for night at least once on the weekend.

[Sierra]

The thing with setting aside time just for us, and him telling his friends to stay away is that
1. He can't tell them to stay away because he is a twin and they share the same friend group, so his brother might want to hang out with them. My SO thinks that it is rude to stay in his room and talk to me when his friends are over.
2. I want and need to spend time with him in some form every day, and that time is so special to me. I don't want to freak him out by telling him that because at the moment it feels natural and un forced, I don't want us to feel like we have a duty to be together at a set time. We naturally fall into spending time together right now and that is nice.

Alright, I'm going to be honest, while I think it's important to communicate daily, you may have to let go of Skyping daily if his friends are always over. It's really important in a relationship that people have separate lives. You need to let him be social. I understand the time is important to you, and it's important to me to talk to my boyfriend every day too, but sometimes we have to let go of what we REALLY want, and go with something else. For me, we text if we aren't going to be able to talk that day. Maybe you could ask for a daily email.

While he may think it's rude to shut the door on his friends, and he's not wrong, you can't have a relationship and have no time for it. He has to make time, it's as simple as that. If he wants to be a bachelor and his social life is more important than his relationship with you, that's his choice, but in that case he needs to tell you that he can't meet your needs and let you go.


ETA: I don't want to sound mean here, but it seems like you have an excuse for every suggestion that's made unless it's exactly what you want. Is your mind made up or are you really looking for advice?

A relationship is about compromise from both sides, you have to compromise too.

[digitalfever]

To be honest there are other ways to communicate and Skype may not always work for the type of lifestyle you’re SO lives. He seems to be very social with an open door policy to his living arrangements. Obviously you are a priority and he wants to make time for you (it’s not that he hasn’t from my understanding, it’s that he’s not doing it to the extent or the manner that makes you feel comfortable.) Maybe texting is something you guys are going to have to do while sending each other pictures throughout the day.

[Ms.Justine]

Oh my god! I just want to say I could have written this post about my ex. His friends would just show up unannounced and totally over-power everything. Even while I went there for visits they would intrude on "our" time it was actually ridiculous! I know exactly how you feel. Are you and your SO LD or CD? I'd honestly - maybe try and join a club or something or got o the gym do things that make you happy and eat up your time as well. Think of the relationship as a tennis game. You can only text him or call - message etc after he has. Or if he's out with friends find something to do to entertain yourself and keep busy. As hard as it is being in a LDR you have to be VERY independent.

On the flip side if the time is very off-sided I think you need to tell your SO how bad it is and how much it is hurting you. If things still don't change maybe he's just not ready to be in a relationship or have the commitment to be in a LDR...You need to be a priority to him. In the long run his friends are very important don't get me wrong - I cannot stress the importance of having good friends but in the long run if you're the girl he plans on moving for or moving in with, starting a life and a family with. His friends NEED to come second to that. He's not going to be getting married and starting a family with his friends- this is something he needs to know. I believe that friends are a wonderful thing and you should have them your entire life and that they should compliment the relationship.

If he doesn't get that or see that you need to be a priority - maybe he's not ready for a relationship. Especially if he's a young teenager/man.

[Bethypoo]

You need to let him know that just because you are LD doesn't mean that you cant spend time together. And if his friends are his friends, then they would give you the same respect of giving you two a few nights to "be together" instead of taking up all of his time. BUT with that being said, he needs to be able to tell his friends no. He needs to show you he wants to spend time with you because he loves and misses you and wants to spend time with you. Not just because you keep bugging him about it.

You do need to talk to him about it. Not in an attacking way by saying "you never pay attention to me" but just let him know that you don't feel valued and it would be nice for him to innate spending time with you. Make the best out of the distance. But it is something that you need to bring to his attention and let him know that it does make you sad and that you aren't getting what you need.