To want to know when he’s coming home?

[Waitykatey]

My partner moved in with me recently. He works with his dad and their studio is connected to his parents house. They tend to finish work about 5:30.

Unless we have specific plans together, he’ll usually just hang around at his parents after work, eat dinner with them, use his dad’s home gym or whatever.

Because of this, if we don’t have proper plans, I don’t know when he’s coming home. It’s never super late. Sometimes it’s around 9:30 but not usually later. He’ll bring his own food home if he hasn’t eaten with his parents.

It’s starting to drive me a bit mad. I feel like a nag if I keep asking him if/when he’ll be back and if I should save him some dinner.

He’s so used to this routine from before he lived with me (he lived alone then but considered his parents house “home”) and he doesn’t think anything of it, but I spent the last couple of nights waiting around a bit, with no real idea when he’s coming back. Obviously I do my own thing if it comes up but that doesn’t happen all the time. About half the week we have entirely separate plans anyway.

Last night he said he’d had a busy day and was tired so he was just chilling there for a an hour before he decided what to do, but after a few hours with still no update, I got a bit irritated and for the first time ever sent an angry message. It wasn’t particularly late - it was only 9pm but I’d asked him 2 hours prior what his plan was, and still didn’t get a straight answer. I don’t feel good about that and I apologised but I think it was starting to get to me as I start so many of my evenings not knowing if he’s coming back for the evening.

He got a bit annoyed with this as he said he didn’t always like to plan in advance and wanted to sometimes play by ear.

He’s so reliable and never ever lets me down if we have something planned, but if we don’t, I don’t get any idea when he’ll be home.

He’s not doing anything untoward, he’s definitely always there at his parents.

AIBU to want some idea of his whereabouts and timings now we live together? Or is it quite normal to not give your partner this info?

Also - he sits on their sofa even when they aren't in rather than come home to you?

Where is the love here op? Isn't he feeling the tingle of romance to see you in the days of first sharing a home? Sounds like you are a chore to him sorry.

I would stop asking him where he is and when he will be back. Don’t plan or cook any meals for him unless he definitively communicates to you without prompting that he will be back for mealtimes. And try going out without telling him when to expect you home, i.e. give him a taste of his own medicine, he may just realise how annoying it is.

Spot On @Gingersky1234

I do have to ask why you got angry with him @Waitykatey (interesting username) - are you not able to constructively communicate to find compromises by expressing your needs, preferences, boundaries, deadlines and consequences?

This is a type of control: You cannot make plans if you don't know when he is coming back? What happens if you go out when he hasn't let you know what he is doing? He is keeping you guessing some/most of the time so you don't/can/t make your plans. Do you agree?

I was briefly married to a man who didn't want to have to "answer to me". Nothing I did, said or demonstrated could switch him out of this mindset. Like you, I wanted to know where things stood on any given day and whether we were a couple, or FWBs who happened to be married. He could not help feeling like I was trying to boss him around.

With him it went further than evenings apart. He just fucking disappeared for anything from a few hours to several days. But I do understand how destabilising it can feel!

Save yourself from any living expenses, head over to his DM with your luggage.
On a serious note, I don't think this is normal, he is too attached to his childhood home, maybe stay for dinner twice a week.

He got a bit annoyed with this as he said he didn’t always like to plan in advance and wanted to sometimes play by ear.

I think this is the crux of it - he likes things to be more relaxed, while you like some structure. Both are equally valid, but both can absolutely rub each other up the wrong way.

I think he needs to meet you half way, and let you know which evenings he’s going to be staying later, and then you’ll know not to expect him on those days.

Once or twice a week I think is fine. If he's doing it every night, that's too much.
It takes a few seconds to message you to say he's staying at his parents for a few hours, surely he can manage that.
Id be put off by a man who had no interest in spending time with his parents or family , not one who wants too. But as I said above it depends how many times a week he is doing it. Every night and I'd think he didn't really want to live with me.

This isn't about disrespect, for me this sounds deeper - a real disengagement from you - just after moving in - when you should be bonded/ close/ feeling loving and connected.

Talking about not wanting to make plans - you aren't a plan! You are his home and partner - you are what comes first, the obvious person and place to return to when work finishes.

sorry to say this but he is actively avoiding you.

Please don't demean yourself to ask for two nights a week from the man who is supposed to love you - it's not even him having fun he is literally avoiding you to spend time on his parents sofa!

i'd be ending this relationship now.

No he needs to be HOME which is with you now. Fair enough he is is a bit of a routine but that stops now he has a live in partner to consider. I know you both have different plans during the week etc which is a good thing but then it sounds like you need to work out a planner so u can do basic things like have a meal together, plan food, (buy, take out freezer night before etc). Like he needs to get out his little comfort zone and actually should be home making the occasional meal FOR YOU! As well as being home doing normal home chores in the home where he now lives. You’re not his new mum.

But he’s literally there all day long on his parents property. He could see them for breakfast, elevensees, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner every day of the week and still be back at yours for 6pm. He probably does all this anyway but still wants to hang around til 9pm.

He’s avoiding connection for some reason. Maybe he has been like this in all his other failed relationships.

How long have you been together - is quite likely an avoidant, Mr Nice Guy, man-child - so enmeshed with his Mum but subconsciously resentful of this / her control but lashes out and resists you/any intimate relationship instead.

My husband isn't perfect but I don't think he does anything intolerable, nevermind doing that thing twice a week!

He's pissing you off twice a week, he either needs to stop this behaviour, or you need to leave him.

Sorry @Waitykatey I have only read all of your posts, so I hope I am not repeating something someone else has already asked.

You said that you both have adult children, just not together? Did your boyfriend ever live with the mother of his children, and if so, for how long please? Also, if they did live together, where did they live? I am imaging that if his parents house is quite large, they might have all lived there. If not, how many years did he live away from home, and if, as you say, your boyfriend is lovely, laid back, and helps with, or actually does, more of the household chores, how, and/or why, did his previous relationship finish?

I can't see any reason why his children's mother would want to break up with him, as he sounds almost perfect? I also can't see why he would want to break up with her, his partner, if he is as laid back as you said - what did she do that was so bad that he couldn't be with her any longer, if it was that way around?

If he lived for say 12 to 15 years in a property he shared with his partner/wife, surely he should have got over the feeling by now that the place he feels most relaxed in, and at home in, is still his parents house?

Anyway, I have several other questions I would like to ask in order to get a clearer picture, but in essence, and imo, the easiest and best way for him to want to, and be able to, relax the most in his own home - the one he shares with you - is for him to discipline himself for 6 out of a week's 7 nights, to come straight home from work, or after using the gym, to your joint home. If you are always late home on a specific night of the week, and he likes having a couple of hours just relaxing watching the TV, or reading etc whilst being totally alone, possibly in order to have no interruptions at all, then you should agree together that you will usually not get home until say 8.30pm, or whatever time suits you both on that evening. Obviously, If you wanted the same consideration, then another evening should be stipulated for that to happen.

Ideally, I think that he should still go back to his parents house once a week, after work, when his parents, or at least his DM, is at home, and have dinner with her/them, and then come home to you by about 9.00pm. If you are wanting one - known - evening alone like he does, to relax in your favourite way, than that should be the ideal evening for him to have dinner at his parents house.

Please explain to him that if he really wants you both to share a relaxed and happy relationship, you will probably both need to make some compromises, and doing that will probably cause some - or maybe even a little more than some - discomfort to begin with. Again, imo, it is essential that he trains himself into relaxing, and feeling most at home, in your joint home. If it is warm enough, does he like being naked, because he can, and maybe should, at least at the beginning, lounge around naked in your lounge, and/or pleasure himself if he feels like it, as neither of those things are something he could do at his parents place - unless they are naturists of course 🙈 *

For this relationship to be happy and fair, you need to communicate with other both calmly and caringly, and then work at it! It isn't being 'unromantic' for you each to put effort into your shared relationship, in fact, that is what real romance should be, not just some fantasy fairytale that would probably never happen in real life. Please don't let this slide WaityKatey, it seems as if you could have an amazing relationship together, if you as a couple, are willing to start making very strong foundations straight away. Good Luck OP, and OP's boyfriend, and hopefully soon to be partner!

That’s just weird. He has a home to chill at.

god this! he hasn't really moved out, just sleeps at yours for sex

Hmmm I would wonder about his commitment... when I started living with my now DH we would call each other when on the way home and wanted to spend time together. Even now we know each other's plans and let each other know if we will be late etc.

Send him back to his parents! Why isn’t he hanging out with you?! He sounds fuckig weird

Just seen he works with his dad too! He needs to climb back into his mum’s uterus I think

Eugh, I had one of these.

We moved in on a Friday. He announced he was spending all of Saturday with his mother, I wasn't invited. I asked why he was doing that on our first weekend of living together. He got very defensive and said because he hadn't seen her since Wednesday.......fuck me. Mammy's boys are awful.

It didn't last long

It is quite peculiar that, in the early days of living together, he doesn't want to come home and spend the evening with you, eat with you, just generally 'be' in his new situation with his (relatively) new partner in what ought to be a honeymoon phase of a relationship.

It makes it even more bizarre that he would rather sit in his parents' house when they aren't even there, rather than be with you.

I too assumed this was his first relationship and was going to suggest you arrange to sit down together and have a good long chat about what both your expectations are. But then you said he has grown up children ! I'd like to presume he lived with them and their mother, so he must now be actively choosing to act like a 17 yr old rather than just not realising this is odd.

I think you need to change your expectations as you won’t change him.

plan your own life and evenings and if he turns up and there’s no dinner made then tough.

why did he separate from his kid’s mum?

his parents are going to need more care in the future and you will always be in second place.

start making your own life without him or accept him as a part time partner.

don’t accept someone who doesn’t put you first and makes you angry. I’d be fuming sat at home by myself if I had a partner.

It's nice that he works with his dad and still enjoys hanging out with them, but he has a lonely dp missing his company and wishing that he was there with her sharing a meal and evening with her.

He doesn’t like you

OP’s adult child: “Hi mum, what you up to?”
OP: “oh just watching TV alone”
OP’s adult child: “Let me guess, your DP is at his mum and dad’s also watching TV alone”
OP: yes”
OP’s adult child: “you are still with him???”