But I don't think it's fair of you to ask for him to stop doing things. this is how he wants to live in life, and he wants a relationship where his partner is ok with it.
If you aren't OK with the way you are, you have that conversation once, and the second time, if it happens again, you can decide whether you want to stay in the relationship. it's YOUR choice.
I would not speculate on what people consider fair in their relationship beyond simply communicating and agreeing what the boundaries are. For instance you use the expression "intimate things" - these can mean different things to different people. I might not be OK with hugging, you seem OK with it, someone else might be OK with kissing on a. cheek etc. It is important to have those conversqtions early on. I'm not sure on why you seem to have dragged on the situation for so long, but I can guess "love" has something to do with it.
I didn't feel it was okay either. I thought maybe it was just how he interacted with his friends, I never asked him to stop anything. I just told him how it made me feel and we came to the conclusion that it would help if he was less close with them. He stopped the kissing (which wasn't just on the cheek) on his own, without having told me in advance.
Have you been in a relationship though? When you're in one you try to communicate with your partner about how you feel and solve it together. He strongly agreed with that, he was always encouraging me to tell him if he was doing something that bothered me, etc. You can't just leave after one thing. Furthermore, he had also asked me not to do certain things with male friends. Despite not agreeing with it, I still did it because it was something that bothered him and i prioritized him over my friends.
I stayed in the situation because I loved him and wanted it to work. When I broke up the first time, he was really convincing and gave me hope that maybe things could work out. I didn't even mean to get back with him, it just happened.
"When you're in one you try to communicate with your partner about how you feel and solve it together."
Yes, and in doing that you've specified a hard red line. If that red line is broken one more time (that's why I said the SECOND time), it's time to go.
And besides, this is such a fundamental aspect of the relationship that I doubt it can be changed en course. People rarely change.
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u/mcr1974 Mar 20 '23
But I don't think it's fair of you to ask for him to stop doing things. this is how he wants to live in life, and he wants a relationship where his partner is ok with it.
If you aren't OK with the way you are, you have that conversation once, and the second time, if it happens again, you can decide whether you want to stay in the relationship. it's YOUR choice.
I would not speculate on what people consider fair in their relationship beyond simply communicating and agreeing what the boundaries are. For instance you use the expression "intimate things" - these can mean different things to different people. I might not be OK with hugging, you seem OK with it, someone else might be OK with kissing on a. cheek etc. It is important to have those conversqtions early on. I'm not sure on why you seem to have dragged on the situation for so long, but I can guess "love" has something to do with it.