Relationships

Archived discussion from Toril-2.
Pheten
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Relationships

Postby Pheten » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:07 am

Quick question for all you oh-so experienced in the ways of the man and woman relationship.
Right to the point, how much time is too much time together, how much time is too much apart?
Say in a relationship where you got to see each other each night after work 5-10pm and on the weekends.
Having some issues in mine right now and not sure if what I expect is wrong or not so looking for other peoples opinon on this matter.

-phet
confused in love TT
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Re: Relationships

Postby othelil » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:11 am

The answer you're not looking for is the right one; it _completely_ depends on the people in the relationship. I'm a very flexible person (emotionally and lifestyle wise) and I've had relationships where seeing the person once a week was enough, and I've had relationships where basically from day one we spenty nearly every hour of the day together. Both can have their problems, as can the middle grounds.

If your partner is looking for space, then they're the kind of person who needs more time alone and that's alright. Everyone has different needs and desires. The most important thing is talking it all out. In my experience, there's no relationship that couldn't use a bit more communication (generally, hiding things and not being open about them is the sign that you're headed down the time-to-get-out path - that's just unhealthy).

Talk with your partner about what you need and/or expect and let them talk to you about the same.
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Postby Pheten » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:16 am

Guess in a perfect world each person will want the same thing but it aint gonna happen. What you said is true, communication is key, without it everything else is pointless. Just hard when one person wants one thing and the other wants almost the complete opposit. =/

-phet
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Postby Ambar » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:16 am

Totally depends on the people and the *newness* of the relationship ...
people in a new relationship tend to want to spend all their time together, people in an older relationship value alone time ... if you share the same interests its not unreasonable to spend all your time together .. keep in mind EVERYONE needs time apart once in a while .. i see nothing personally wrong with a girl/guy's night out where u are totally apart for some time ...

Quantifying time is pretty tricky too, because if you want too much together time, the other may feel strangled. Your best bet is to talk to your partner and see what both of you want ... if the relationship is still pretty new, then starting out this way with great communication can be invaluable for whatever the future holds.
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:21 am

Yeah, Phet. It really depends on the people. How are you and your woman? Are you loners by nature? If so, then that much time apart isn't a bad thing because you each need your own space. Or are you/she a type that needs more consistant contact? It really just depends. There is no right or wrong answer, but just need to find the happy medium for you both.
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Postby othelil » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:23 am

Pheten wrote:Guess in a perfect world each person will want the same thing but it aint gonna happen. What you said is true, communication is key, without it everything else is pointless. Just hard when one person wants one thing and the other wants almost the complete opposit. =/


People just all have different needs. From the miniscule amount I've heard from you I picture you as an introvert and your partner as an extrovert. That can be hard (and it's the same relationship I'm in right now, luckily my girlfriend is sort of inbetween). Introverts tend to want more together time than extroverts because introverts thrive on alone time, which time with a significant other counts as, and extroverts thrive on social time especially with lots of different people.

That doesn't mean your signficant other doesn't want to be with you, just that they have different emotional needs. But talk it out. You don't want to stick around just feeling unhappy with how things are going. Get on the same page with them and make sure they know what you need and you know what they need. You'll both feel better just knowing, and you can either make it work or know for sure that maybe you both need to try something else. The latter sucks, but it's better than wallowing unhappy in a relationship that just doesn't fulfill you.
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Postby othelil » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:25 am

Oh yeah, and pretty much 100% with Ambar =)
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Postby Pheten » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:34 am

Pretty much, I like to be with her what I don't feel is an overly large amount, she's more along the lines of an hour a night every other night or something. Hardest part I think is the fact that she just started being like this and wasnt from the beginging, been together almost 4 months now. In the begining we were together almost 100% of the time and now this. Just a startling radical change, no matter how she explains it.

-phet
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Postby othelil » Fri Nov 14, 2003 12:42 am

Pretty much you've got one of a couple of the most likely possibilities going on. Either she's growing apart or re-evaluating her feelings/thoughts on the relationship (if this just started completely out of nowhere with little explanation, but this does _not_ have to be bad) OR it goes back to what Ambar was saying. Newer relationships tend to be very smothering (and the first relationship a person has is generally extremely so).

Once a relationship gets older people tend to find their natural balance, and she may only be doing that. You need to try to do that too. If this is one of your first relationships you may be too used to the idea that you have to spend a ton of time together. If you really _need_ that, fine, but don't want it because it's what you think should happen or you were just used to it.

Both people have to find their own place in the relationship and a sort of natural balance or they'll never be their own people, they'll be this fused person. Just think over how the relationship has been progressing and what you need emotionally. Maybe a little more time apart will help you clear your head and think a bit more about what's going on with the relationship.
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Postby mynazzaraxxsyn » Fri Nov 14, 2003 1:21 pm

The perfect ammount of time together is just enough to "get the job done" and then not seeing each other again till you need some more 'tang. Any more time together then that is unhealthy.
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Postby Gerad » Fri Nov 14, 2003 7:59 pm

The answer is that nobody can answer that question except you two.
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Postby Ashiwi » Fri Nov 14, 2003 9:08 pm

Not to be the "negative nancer" in this bunch, but if the relationship was sailing along smooth, then this drastic change cropped up suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, then you might want to consider the possibility of other issues in your relationship. Not always, but the majority of the time, the woman is the one who wants more time together, so if she suddenly decides she has a lot of other, better things to do, there might be a problem.
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Fri Nov 14, 2003 9:40 pm

Ashiwi wrote:Not to be the "negative nancer" in this bunch, but if the relationship was sailing along smooth, then this drastic change cropped up suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, then you might want to consider the possibility of other issues in your relationship. Not always, but the majority of the time, the woman is the one who wants more time together, so if she suddenly decides she has a lot of other, better things to do, there might be a problem.


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Postby Ashiwi » Fri Nov 14, 2003 9:43 pm

Arilin Nydelahar wrote:Negitave nancy! Sandy v..er..uh, nm.


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Re: Relationships

Postby Salen » Fri Nov 14, 2003 11:29 pm

Pheten wrote:
-phet
confused in love TT


My only suggestion is to transfer from Texas Tech.
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Postby moritheil » Sun Nov 16, 2003 4:59 pm

Oth,

What conclusions do you draw from introvert/extrovert?

I can see a situation where the introvert desires more time together and the extrovert wants to hang out with all types of people. Is that what you mean to imply? Or do you mean introvert as in "doesn't desire time with other people, PERIOD," in which case it would be the introvert that wants less time and the extrovert more?

Pheten,

Best of luck man!
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Postby othelil » Sun Nov 16, 2003 8:05 pm

moritheil wrote:What conclusions do you draw from introvert/extrovert?

I can see a situation where the introvert desires more time together and the extrovert wants to hang out with all types of people. Is that what you mean to imply? Or do you mean introvert as in "doesn't desire time with other people, PERIOD," in which case it would be the introvert that wants less time and the extrovert more?


In general, introverts desire closer contact with smaller groups of people and extroverts desire lesser contact with larger groups of people. For some introverts it manifests itself as a desire to be alone, but past a certain comfortability threshold being with a signficiant other can count as alone. For nearly all extroverts, however, close contact with a very small number of people (especially only one) for long periods of time becomes stifling. It doesn't mean their interest has waned, just that they need more people to interact with to feel healthy.

Soooo, the first one. Introverts tend to desire more time together because they enjoy much closer relationships with smaller groups of people, as small as three or fewer. Extroverts need, not necessarily all types of people, but certainly more types of people. They get their energy from that type of socializing, so without it they feel drained.
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Postby moritheil » Mon Nov 17, 2003 4:58 pm

Ah; I wasn't sure if you were using the generalized interpretation that some people use, that extroverts just desire more contact, period.
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Postby Kifle » Mon Nov 17, 2003 11:03 pm

Your case can have many possibilities, but I honestly think it's just a case of the "not so new" syndrome. I remember taking an intrapersonal communications class in college (I thought it would take up my manditory comm. class so I wouldn't have to take speech) and the prof. said this is normal behavior. What happens in unhealthy relationships is that it stays at the point where you spend all of your time together. This usually ends up being a product of codependant people. She explained it in a circle diagram. Picture one of those diagrams where you draw two circles and they over lap each other. A codependant relationship is where the circles are almost completely overlaping each other. A normal relationship is when there is half and half, or just a bit less portion of overlaping to seperate. I hope this makes sense. Her explaination was that when you are in a codependant relationship your view of self is really being blurred into your partner and you feel uncomfortable w/o them. Consequently making you dependant on them being with you. Without them you don't feel like yourself. In an attempt to avoid this situation, one or both of the people usually try to back off a bit and keep their view of self which is the healthy thing to do. There are always execptions to this, such as when the two are completely alike, share the same friends, etc... They can do their own things while still being together.

It has been my experience that the person who wants to spend all the time they can with the other person has a codependant personality, is very paranoid about the feelings of the other person, and/or their actions while they are away. These actions can also scare the other person away if you try to spend "too much" time with them. There are also other explinations, like what negative nancy was saying, but this is the most common.

If I were you, and really liked this girl and thought she was the end-all/be-all of women, I'd give her her space and see what happens. What's the worst that can happen...really?
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Postby Iaiken Toransier » Tue Nov 18, 2003 2:08 am

The correct answer, as always...

It depends...

On you, on her... So many other things too...

Asking advice of someone who knows next to nothing about you, her, and the two of you together is like asking someone thier account of an event after only reading it in the news.

I've gotten to the point of seeing it this way, each relationship is just practice for the right one. Learn from your mistakes and don't dwell on them, because you gonna go down in flames sometimes, sometimes often. If it ends, take the lessons and move on.

Like, I'm dating 3 girls (yes they know about each other) until I figure out what the hell I wanna do when I graduate, because nothings final. It's so casual somtimes that it's almost wierd... like, they ask me about each other and what we do together... it's wierd...
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Postby Kifle » Tue Nov 18, 2003 7:52 am

Iaiken Toransier wrote:The correct answer, as always...

It depends...

On you, on her... So many other things too...

Asking advice of someone who knows next to nothing about you, her, and the two of you together is like asking someone thier account of an event after only reading it in the news.

I've gotten to the point of seeing it this way, each relationship is just practice for the right one. Learn from your mistakes and don't dwell on them, because you gonna go down in flames sometimes, sometimes often. If it ends, take the lessons and move on.

Like, I'm dating 3 girls (yes they know about each other) until I figure out what the hell I wanna do when I graduate, because nothings final. It's so casual somtimes that it's almost wierd... like, they ask me about each other and what we do together... it's wierd...


By "dating 3 girls" do you mean alternating hands and occasionaly using a toy?
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Tue Nov 18, 2003 9:05 am

Only if by 'toy' you mean 'peanut butter and his puppy', then yes.
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Postby Iaiken Toransier » Tue Nov 18, 2003 12:59 pm

Arilin Nydelahar wrote:Only if by 'toy' you mean 'peanut butter and his puppy', then yes.


*shrug*

Beats Thanuk's mom.

But then again I already figured you guys would just be asses who can't keep thier bullshit to themselves...
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Postby Pheten » Tue Nov 18, 2003 1:15 pm

Ya this thread has kind of degraded. Thanks for all the input though, lots to think about and some things that are improoving allready. Anyway cheers and gluck guys. =)

-phet
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Postby thanuk » Tue Nov 18, 2003 1:39 pm

Iaiken Toransier wrote:
Arilin Nydelahar wrote:Only if by 'toy' you mean 'peanut butter and his puppy', then yes.


*shrug*

Beats Thanuk's mom.



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Postby Waelos » Tue Nov 18, 2003 6:28 pm

Dude I wonder how he met the puppy. . .they can't mud, can they?


NarF!

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