help me please

[Priestess]

Its Sunday night and me and my partner of over four years have just had words. I have recently started a part time job due to various reasons- mainly because I'm halfway through an Open University degree. My next course doesnt start till September so I am having the summer off to relax so i've been catching up with old friends and just having a break.
He can be very insecure and does need reassurance but today has really taken the biscuit in my opinion. He said something earlier today about me not loving him enough. I can't remember the exact reason why but it was over some stupid point, this is a common theme so for the first time in a long while I stood up to him and said "Look, everytime you say something like that it hurts and everytime you say something like that it drives me a little bit further away from you." he apologised we talked and sorted it out...so I thought.
Then about half an hour ago we start talking about what we're up to over the next few weekends. I am quite busy, going out at least once a weekend mainly for people's birthdays and special occasions for example I'm running race for life one Sunday. AS we're talking about the calendar he gets all stroppy and says He's not going to get to spend any time with me as I'm out all the time. Obviously he's not bearing in mind the fact that we spend every evening together plus usually every Sunday. Then he said he didn't want me going out and getting off with other guys (because thats obviously why i want to go out and socialise! :S) I don't know whether this is making any sense but i just feel distraught that nothing i ever do is ever good enough, no matter how much i give to him emotionally and practically it never seems to be enough. Sorry to put a downer on your sunday but I just need some sensible people to give me a pep talk! :(xxx

This worries me no matter how much i give to him emotionally and practically it never seems to be enough

It seems he will only be happy when you stay in with him every night or go out only with him.

Would he go to counselling?

You need to sit him down, explain it is him that you love, live with and want to be with BUT that you have friends and family and want to see them occasionally too. You find it insulting that he has such a low opinion of you and as you say it drives you a little bit further away when he says you want to go out and get off with other guys and that eventually he will kill your love for him and you won't care and will get off with some other guy.

Then say you will not have this discussion again he either trusts you or he doesn't. If he starts on that he doesn't want you to go out just remind him you have had this conversation, you are not going to have it again, you love him and then walk away.

Don't let him stop you going out.

To be honest I couldn't live with a man accusing me of going out to get off with other men like this.

He sounds a bit too needy to me! I think you really need to sit down and talk this through!

Thank you so much for the advice, I really appreciate it! Its really weird but he gets in these grumpy moods usually just before he gets ill with something and now he's feeling a bit better he's fine! But next time it gets brought up, I'm going to properly sit down and discuss it because to be honest we've had this conversation several times over the past few years and I think I'm getting very close to reaching the end of the line about it! Thanks ladies!

Is he really ill or just going for the sympathy vote? Sorry, feeling cynical today .

Cos you have to feel sorry for and forgive an ill person's grumpiness, don't you? Does he get sympathy and manage to deflect you from discussing his behaviour by claiming illness.

Maybe he's spewing his guts up and my cynicism is unwarranted.

Id be pissed if you were my partner and were always too busy on a Saturday/Friday to see me but saved me the poxy afterthougth Sunday.

When you make plans do you never consider he might want to see you on a Saturday night?

Or is it all about you

I think going out once a week isn't unreasonable. Maybe he ought to go out with her? It sounds like he's sitting at home every night, but if that's the case, that's the choice he's making?

Fabbychic Are you a member of the Diplomatic Corps

No he wasn't spewing his guts up lol! We've both come down with stinking colds - which would explain grumpiness on both sides! Well a little bit more backstory- he used to be the social one of us and used to go out all the time, then we moved in together quite far away from our mutual birthplace and he just changed. He's made acquaintances but not many friends and seems quite content to sit at home on the computer and not go out anywhere. I ALWAYS invite him out but he never wants to come out, sometimes even if its just going for a walk together or something. We did go through this before a couple of years ago and he got diagnosed with a bit of mild depression when he just wasn't happy and wouldn't leave the house, he went on ADs and then took himself off them. The thing is we're not usually that unhappy with each other but oh i don't know...... its hard to explain. I just think that's the way he is now and I've got to work out ways of us both compromising our different needs. Relationships- fun eh? :S

Maybe he needs to go back on the anti-ds.

I think it's important that you stick to your guns on going out and socialising - his world has become very small, possibly through his depression - but you mustn't let him shrink yours down as well. Instead of trying to break out of his bubble, he's trying to enclose you in it and that's not healthy for either of you.