My boyfriend and I have been together for about 9 months (we made it official in September last year. It has mostly been wonderful and we largely have a great relationship but I would say we argue approx once a week about the same sort of issues, which can be summarised as him feeling I don't make enough space for him in his life, and prioritise friends and family over him. The truth is that he is really important to me but I'm struggling to balance the relationship with trying to maintain friendships (I have loads, he has few), family life (my family are all based nearby and are quite demanding, his are overseas) and work (I have a very demanding job which often requires long hours, his is more 9 to 5).
I'm always happy to include him in social activities with friends and family and for the most part he has been very happy to join too. However, he still sees this as doing stuff for my benefit and doesn't feel that I allocate enough time for "just us". We previously had a conversation about how much time he would like to spend just us, he said a day a weekend and a few weeknights ideally. I was fine with that and I have been carving it out, but he feels that he is still only getting "what's left over" and is worried that he is really unimportant to me. From my perspective he is incredibly important to me, and he comes first but I do find it hard to compromise on the other stuff. I've cut out a few further social things, but feel a little bit resentful of him and part of me wishes that he had as many other things going on as I did.
Is this normal in a newish relationship? Are we just not compatible? I do wonder if he is partly insecure because his last relationship was traumatic and abusive and lots of boundaries were crossed. I can understand him wanting to preserve "us" time which I also want to do, but I feel this goes beyond that and is partly anxiety on his part that he isn't loved enough, which might be a hangover from last relationship.
I should add that we want kids in a year or two, which is adding to the pressure because he thinks that I won't devote enough time to raising the child. Of course I recognise that things will need to change when we have a child (if we manage to) but I don't see why we need to start living as if we already had a child right now.
Thoughts and advice very welcome!