To have felt this way?

[Friends1996]

I have been with my partner officially for 6 months, casually dating for 2 months before that.

She spends quite a bit of time at my house, which I don’t mind, but we live about 25 miles apart - roughly 45 minutes to an hour.

She has been at my house for the last few days, and was due to go home this morning for an appointment and then said she would come back to mine for a few hours, before returning home later on this evening ready for work tomorrow.

She has had to go back and forth a bit the last few days for various reasons, and it would be 72 miles of driving to come back and forth that amount of times today.

She was off sick for a while, so only got a basic pay this month and I know money has been quite tight, so I told her not to worry about coming back today and just to chill out at home instead to save the mileage. Her response to that was “well what am I going to do instead then?”

Just to add some context - she has several siblings but they tend to do things on their own without asking her to join, and she has one friend that she sees every now and then but visits are normally limited to an hour and then her friend is busy or goes out. She also doesn’t like spending time at home because she doesn’t feel comfortable there for whatever reason.

It sort of made me feel that the reason she wants to spend so much time with me is because she doesn’t have anything else to do or anyone else to see rather than genuinely wanting to spend time with me BUT on the flip side of that, she does make the effort to travel here as much as she can…

I’m really conflicted and because it made me feel that way, we had a bit of an argument and she’s now left.

AIBU?

It does sound a bit silly to travel all the way back to you for just a couple of hours or so and then to travel back to her place but presumably she just wanted to see you and spend time with you?
Do you travel to hers much?
She was probably a bit upset that it sounded like you didn’t want to see her.

She shouldn’t be relying on you for all her entertainment. I wouldn’t be comfortable dating someone who didn’t have their own interests and enjoyed their own company

But OP does want to see her, just not all the time out of sheer habit.

Honestly, this would completely give me the ick. It’s clingy and pathetic.

Not just the fact that she thinks that, but that she thinks it’s a normal, non-weird thing to say to a partner. Major red flag.

I’ve spent the last 4 days with her, of course I enjoy seeing her. It just rubbed me up the wrong way when she was basically saying that if she didn’t see me then she wouldn’t have anything else to do, rather than actually wanting to spend time with me, if that makes sense - like she only spends that much time with me because she hasn’t got anything better to do

At 6 months if a relationship was going anywhere I'd expect the participants to want to spend as much time as they could together. Since you don't feel like that OP it might be time to finish things.

This

I’ve spent 4 days with her, and it’s not the spending time together - I’ve explained that I don’t want her to skint herself travelling so much - it’s what she said and how it made me feel, if you read the updates.

It would worry me that she can't entertain herself.A lot. She has the potential to become more and more clingy, and to expect to occupy all of your free time. She'll of moved in before you know it. If this scenario doesn't suit I would either end it, or start putting boundaries in place. I'd expect those boundaries not to go down well though.

She sounds way too dependent on you. What are her hobbies? What did she do before she met you? What about if you want to do something separate from her. Is she going to kick up a fuss every time?

This sounds like a massive red flag to me.

I can’t stand people who make their relationship their whole life. Do they have no friends or hobbies? When do you get time to do what you want without them?

Guess they are getting fed and using your gas/electricity/water for free too. They are keeping their own bills nice and low while apparently skint.

Her way of thinking isn’t exactly healthy. She should still be an individual person who can spend time alone whilst also being in a relationship. It’s a slippery slope when someone starts depending on you for every second of the day because then your own world becomes smaller.

I personally would be talking to her about the fact that you’re very happy with her but how it’s healthy for you both to still have other interests and people you want to see or just spending time alone is also healthy.

Ickorama.

I understand what you are saying - you enjoy seeing her but feel she literally will spend all her time with you as she has no other options . I wouldn’t enjoy this - so she has no social life , hobbies , interests , other commitments apart from you . This can get very claustrophobic and suffocating. Do you do other things , see other people ? In a healthy relationship each person should have some time outside the relationship to do their own things - otherwise it’s too dependent.
Watch out for the future when she doesn’t like you doing stuff as she’ll be left on her own .

Yes this would bother me. Like she just wants to doss about your house rather than be interested in you and spending time together. She doesn't sound mentally healthy.

I would respectfully disagree with this, I wouldn’t haven’t wanted to spend all my free time with someone at 6 months in to a relationship. It would have felt suffocating.

I get what you are saying OP. I don’t think her intention would have been to give you that impression but she may have clumsily been trying to say she would have missed you or felt a bit lonely without you when she was expecting to come back and see you and hadn’t made other plans.

This doesn’t make for a very healthy relationship moving forward if she’s expecting you to always be there to entertain her. What if you wanted to do something without her, would she mind?

Seriously? And you think that translates into it being in any way normal that someone who has just spent a full four days with their partner would rather drive over 70 miles unnecessarily than face the horror of spending a couple of hours alone?

Thats not evidence of love, it’s more indicative of the kind of person who can’t go to the loo solo.