“Is My Boyfriend Being Selfish or Am I?”
We then got into an argument because he said it was rude of me to cancel on his friend (whom I’ve met only once) and that he by no means was going to miss her party. I told him it wasn’t an important party like her birthday and that my friend was only going to be in town for four days. I tried to compromise saying we could make an appearance at her party first and then go to the club, but he told me no, he wanted to stay at her party because all his friends would be there and he had already promised her he’d go.
While I understand that he may have promised his “friend” this, I don’t understand why it’s SOOO important that he be there the whole time. He’s BARELY spoken to her in years and I think my relationship with him is more important than this girl. I’m willing to go to club alone and he can go to the party but I want to know if this is wrong in any way? Is he being selfish and uncompromising, or am I? Should I go to the party? Is this a *red flag*? Please help!! — Uncertain about Friendships
If he/you already made plans, it would be rude to cancel just because someone more important (to you) came along, so I agree with him on that point. And I also don’t think it’s asking too much that he go to the party early and head with you to the club later. But maybe he didn’t like the way you demanded that he do that. Maybe it rubbed him the wrong way and put him on the defense when the first thing you said when you realized your friend wanted to hang out on the same night as the party was “Well, I guess we’re not going then…” No one likes to be talked to like that, so your boyfriend’s probably just trying to stand up to you and assert a little power in the situation. I don’t see why you can’t each do your own thing that night, but if it’s so important that he come with your to the club, why not apologize for being bossy, tell him how much it would mean if he came with you, and ask him again — this time nicely — if he’d reconsider going to his friend’s party for a little while and then to the club with you later.
Finally, what I suspect is really bothering you is that this “friend” of your boyfriend’s is a woman. But, what you need to understand, is you acting bossy and territorial isn’t going to endear him to you. It’s going to do the opposite. So, cool it with the jealousy, unless you truly feel you have reason to be jealous. And if you do, talk to you boyfriend about what’s really bothering you instead of acting out in ways that accomplish nothing but alienating him from you.
If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at [email protected].
Thank you, Wendy! LW, I think this argument all stemmed from the fact that you have some not-so-deeply rooted insecurity issues. If it makes you uncomfortable that they’ve gotten back in touch, you really need to communicate that to him. I do very much agree that it is rude of you to cancel last minute. You need to start viewing her through the eyes of your bf and see that she isn’t just “this girl” but a close friend of your bf’s. If the situation was reversed, would you acted the same, and been ok with your bf just cancelling your plans last minute?
Probably not.
Also, why is that you guys can’t do your own thing that night? He can hang out with his friend that night and on another day, go and hang out with your friend that’s in town for the other three days. A relationship is about compromising and working together and that “queen of the world” attitude you’re adopting isn’t going to take you and your guy very far.
I would say do your own thing that night, and if you meet up, great! If not, you will have lots more opportunities to hang out.
I have had this same argument many times. I’ve been in both positions. I prefer the above tactic.
I agree with Wendy: you sound jealous. If you are, address that issue before your boyfriend gets tired of it.
I’m a heated, passionate person. I inherited sarcasm, snark, and a hot temper from my parents, and most of the time my boyfriend loves that about me. But sometimes it rubs my boyfriend the wrong way…or, you know, leads to shouting fests where I storm around like bitch-zilla.
When I get mad or annoyed about something, like this party that your boyfriend wants to go to, I find it next to impossible to be diplomatic or ask for anything nicely until I cool down. I can’t tell you how many times my boyfriend has uttered to me: “If you had asked nicely, instead of being demanding, this wouldn’t be an issue.” I’m also reminded of my parents (thank god I don’t have to admit this to THEM), who used to enjoy saying on repeat: “It’s not what you said, but how you said it.”
Point is, I think you can compromise with your boyfriend. You’re both ticked, and for reasons you each feel are justified. But I honestly believe that if you sat down calmly with your boyfriend, as Wendy suggested, and proposed a nice plan for compromise (accompanied by an apology!), he’s 99% likely to agree. If he’s a good guy who loves you, he’ll be glad to keep the peace and make both of you happy. It just takes checking some of your annoyance and pride at the door, first.
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who has heard “If you had asked nicely instead of being demanding…”
I get that a lot. From everyone including my husband and parents.
You hang out with your friend, he can go to the party with his friends and then y’all can rendez later that night. Boom.
She said he didn’t want to. And frankly, if they’re both going to separate locales for (what I’m guessing) drinking activity, they should just take a night off from each other. Driving + drinking = bad idea.
um, you already had plans to go to the party…if you don’t want to go…don’t…but why would you expect your boyfriend to not go, just because you made other plans (which i think is rude by the way)…can’t you go out with your other friend on another night? he is in down for several days? why is it that some people who are in relationships have to do everything together? if I was the LW boyfriend, this behaviour would piss me off!
I agree – this behavior would piss me off as well. I was reading it and all I could think about was all the petty bullshit in relationships in high school, but since theres “years” involved and a club, I have to assume that she is not in high school anymore.
I agree that it is mostly a jealousy thing.
“Recently, she ran into his brother at a bar and got my boyfriend’s number and began texting him.”
This is the second line of your paragraph. We usually put the things that bother us more at the top of the list, even if you didn’t realize this. It is usually a subconsious thing, but still this is the real reason you got mad. She hasn’t talked to him in a long time, ran into his brother and immediately started texting him. I would personally flip too, but I have anger management issues (really, I’ve been diagnoised, its part of my hypomania). You need to have a lil faith in your boyfriend and curb the bitchiness. I say go with your BF to the party and YOU leave early to hang with your friend at the club if he will not comprimise on the issue b/c it sounds like you are not going to budge on this factor. Or like someone else posted, keep your plans with your BF and see your friend the next day for lunch or something. If you don’t know how to comprimise, your relationship is going to suffer and you’ll be writing back asking why he dumped you.
I think you’re both being selfish. You are being selfish by deciding that your plans (that came after the original plans) are more important and by basically telling him straight out that it doesn’t matter what he wants and you’re both going to do what you want. It is extremely rude to agree to go to something and then decide something else is more important.
On the other hand, he is being selfish for not agreeing to split the night, which seems to be the best compromise. Likely, you are much like me and the way you approached it made him not want to compromise at all. If you would still like this compromise (believe me, you do), you should approach him with it again and apologize for being demanding and bossy. You have to remember that even you admit that they were once close. I don’t know about you, but there are people I have been close to in my life that I kind of lost touch with and then reunited with. While it may not be important to you, the chance to refresh that friendship is likely important to him.
And to answer your question – yes. This is a red flag. For him. You are obviously jealous and controlling (at least from the tone of this letter) and quite selfish. Not to say that he isn’t selfish, but like I said earlier – just picturing this conversation – it was probably HOW you tried to present the compromise. I am REALLY hoping you are very young because this seems like completely immature behavior and I wouldn’t tolerate it in a relationship.
Oh, and by the way — you said your friend is going to be in town for 4 days. When she approached you with the idea of going out to the club on whatever night, why didn’t you say “oh I’m sorry, I have a prior commitment that’s important to my boyfriend. Would it be possible that we hook up the next night instead?” It seems to me that you have FOUR days to hang out with this friend. Maybe she already booked herself up for the four whole days, but you didn’t really say and I’m guessing she could have squeezed you in somewhere.
Wendy, so glad you picked up on this line-“Well I guess we’re not going then…” To me, that set the tone for the entire discussion. It was completely, 100% out of line. Your boyfriend is probably very much looking forward to getting back in touch with this person he used to be very close with and doesn’t want to miss their first in person meeting in a long while. LW, I think you need to chill out. It is unreasonable for you to even ask your bf to cancel his plans because something better (for you) came up.
You already had plans to go to the party, so it’d be rude for both of you to cancel. It’s his old friend that he’s now reconnecting with, and I can see why he wouldn’t want to hang out with two girlfriends when all of *his* friends will be at a party. Plus, it’s a club you’ve been to before, not some new exciting place, so what’s the big deal? Drop it. You’re being kind of a jerk about it, just assuming that he’d be cool dropping his plans.
It’s very obvious that you’re jealous that this girl means a lot to him. Don’t worry about it so much.
There’s no rule that says that couples always need to hang out with eachother!!! If he hasn’t seen his friend in a long time, he should go to her party, and if your friend is coming in from out of town, you should hang out with her. You don’t need to be doing those 2 things together!!
Oh girl, I’ve done this. The whole “I’m going to create an argument about this girl and you’ll feel defensive and more likely to side with said girl so that I can feel justified in being jealous of her.” thing.
“I don’t think we should do to that girl’s party- Why do you do you want to go so badly?- Why does her party matter more than being with me?-Do you like her or something?-Did you guys ever sleep together?- Just tell me if you’re in love with her-FINE GO OFF AND BE WITH YOUR WHORE.”
Ok, that last part would be in my head but I think he got the point anyway (the crazy eyes really sold it). My point is, if you spend all your time trying to turn your boyfriend into an asshole, you’re probably going to miss it when he actually is an asshole, and ruin the good relationships in the meantime. But I understand the jealously thing, I do. My advice is this: apologize for being bossy, tell him that you would love to go to the first part of the party and then you’ll leave alone to go hang out with your friend. That way you get to see if this girl is harmless or not, you get to see your friend, and you look really cool and confident to everybody involved.
I usually try to give the LW a benefit of doubt but her “I guess we’re not going” line really set my teeth on edge. Controlling isn’t pretty on anyone so knock it off. You’re acting like a jealous, spoiled brat. No, he shouldn’t have to compromise with you. You guys made plans to go the friend’s party and it’s incredibly rude to cancel because something “better” came along. That doesn’t make you a very nice person. Sure I’ll go to the party, as long as nothing else more fun comes along. You want to be that person, go for it, but you have no right to drag the BF down with you. It’s rude and uncalled for. I don’t care how well, not not, you know this friend, when you make plans you make every effort to keep them because that’s what polite, nice people do. If you want to salvage any part of your image you need to apologize to your BF for being demanding and rude. It’s acceptable to go to the party with him then bow out early to go to the club with a friend. Just don’t demand that he go with you. It’s YOUR friend who wants to go to the club; HIS friends will be at that party. Grow up LW and realize that your BF can’t, and shouldn’t, be with you every moment and he has every right to have his own friends and his own social life that you can’t control, nor should you (unless he’s doing drugs or something bad).
LW: It’s too late. He’s probably already banging her and soon you’ll both get herpes.
Wow, I mean I see why each of you wants to do their activity of choice, but it sounds like you have been kind of obnoxious about it. I am not sure why it’s so crucial for your boyfriend to be at the club with you. The very obvious solution to this problem is for you to go to the club with your friend and for him to go to the party. It sucks that you will be breaking a commitment, but it would be much worse if he did. You can always stop by, too. You say it shouldn’t be important to him to go because he hasn’t talked to her in years. To me, that seems like all the more reason why it would be important. I wouldn’t want to bail on the first plans I made with someone I just reconnected with. I understand that your friend is only in town for a few days, so I am sure the girl will understand if you can’t make it to the party. It isn’t fair, though, to ask your boyfriend to skip as well. Wouldn’t you and your friend have more fun and be better able to catch one-on-one than with your boyfriend in tow anyway?
I don’t understand the problem. Why can’t you each hang out with your friends seperatly? There’s no law saying couples have to be glued together or share the exact same set of friends.
But to answer your question, you are both being selfish to expect your partner to prioritze your friends over theirs. Let him go to his party while you go to the club. No big deal. If his friend really wants to meet you, make plans with her for later. It sounds like she lives nearby while you’re friend doesn’t
LW, your bf’s friend is just as important to him as your friend is to you. He wants to spend time with his friend(s) just as much as you want to spend time with yours. You agreed to go to the party, but you have no problem cancelling because you only met her once. Understandable, but it’s not that easy for your bf to do the same. Does he even know your friend? If I were him, I would rather spend time with my good friends, then with someone I barely knew in a loud club.
To answer your question, yes, you are selfish, but you’re reading Dear Wendy, so it will be fixed in no time.
Have fun!
Your compromise was, “Okay, instead of us not going to your friend’s party because my friend was in town, we can stop by and then go do my thing.”
Although having a friend come in from out of town is important, this guy obviously wants to hang out with his friends. Go to his friend’s party, meet her, then say, “I have a friend coming in from Timbuktu/France/Michigan,” and bow out. I’m sure you’ll come off looking gracious and maybe he’ll want to go with you to meet your friend. But next time, ask instead of tell. You two are not one entity; he has his own feelings.
Here is a novel idea…why don’t you hang out with your friend and your boyfriend go to the party. I don’t understand why couples don’t do this more often. It is ok to spend some time apart..sometimes it’s good!
And I’m sure he would appreciate you backing off a little instead of telling him what his plans are for the evening.
Where I live if you say you’ll do something you follow through and do it. So if you’ve already agreed to go to the party it would be rude to not go. Your boyfriend should be able to depend on you doing what you say you will do and vice versa. Once you’ve commited you don’t back out just because something better came along.
Your relationship is more important than his friend but it’s also more important than your friend. Your friend is in town for four days so maybe you’ll miss the night out but get to see them at some other point during the four days. If not, ask your friend to give you more notice, if possible, next time they’re in town.
I think you owe your boyfriend an apology for trying to break the date and and the bossy way you spoke to him deserves it’s own apology.
For the most part I agree with you. However, as its friend, and he was the one who confirmed, I think that she (as his plus one) can decline graciously to come without being rude. If the host is a reasonable person, I think she’d totally get that the girlfriend may want to change her mind about coming to the party of someone she barely knows if a close out of town friend was coming in. I know I wouldn’t care.
Where this girl screwed up was when she demanded that he also change his plans. So, while I think its totally legit for her to bow out of the party, she was totally out of line to demand that he also do so.
LW, by referring to your boyfriend’s friend as a “friend”, you seem to be displaying a passive aggressive belief that she is anything but. Do you trust your boyfriend? If you do, I don’t see any reason why you both shouldn’t go to whatever events you want, separately.
Technically though, your boyfriend and you should honor the commitment you made first. If you want to flake on an event you said you’d attend to do something that is now more appealing to you, that is up to you. Frankly, you assuming that he would cancel on his friend and come with you to your event just because that is now more appealing to you struck me as extremely presumptuous and rude. The compromise of attending both events may have been a good idea if you had approached him with it in a respectful way, but I suspect that plan’s now been ruined by your emotional, jealous, and yes selfish overreaction.
If I were you, I’d put my tail between my legs, apologize for my behavior, go to the party with my boyfriend (assuming I thought I could keep myself from say, getting drunk and causing a scene), and rationally look into whatever issues I had that caused me to be jealous of this girl.
“I don’t understand why it’s SOOO important”
Oh, man, you sound SOOO immature to me. Seriously, spend the night apart with your own friends. Because if you can’t spend one night away from each other, then sister-friend, you have bigger problems than can be solved in a pithy paragraph or two.
Let me tell you a fable, LW. In December I got a save the date for a good friend’s wedding. I told my bf about it immediately and had him save the date too, because I wanted him to accompany me out of town and to meet my friends. The wedding is in July
Well as it turns out, his brother is getting married a month later and planned his bachelor party for the same weekend. For reasons I am not privy to, this is the only weekend possible for the bachelor party. Well anyways, he offered to go to the wedding with me on Friday then fly clear across the country on Saturday morning to join up with the bachelor party festivities late. Though I’m bummed to go to the wedding alone, I told my bf that if we are together forever this one weekend won’t matter and if we aren’t he’ll regret giving up the bachelor party event Friday night for me.
The moral for you, LW, is the same. It’s just one night, one party, one club. If you guys are together forever there will be other nights, other parties, other clubs. And if you aren’t then you’ll get to look back on the night you and your friend had a great time without that guy who is now your jerk ex.
Since it’s not your personal alternate plan but rather your out-of-town-friend who wants to go to a particular club on one out of four nights she will be in town, I would be hard-pressed to state that he’s not acting like “your relationship with him is more important than this girl.” You’ve sort of adopted her plan as some representation of you, when it’s just as external as this girl’s party. Oh, your friend’s only in town four nights? Well, you made plans with his friend first. So neither friend is privileged there.
What he is saying: prior plans you both made with one of his friends > what one of your friends feels like doing while she’s in town. It’s your choice to privilege what your friend wants over what his friend wants, and it should be his choice to privilege what his friend wants over what your friend wants. The compromise needs to then have some understanding that by wanting to go to the party (i.e wanting to hang out with his friend as his friend wants), he is the same position as you (i.e. wanting to go to the club as your friend wants).
From an etiquette perspective, I think the appropriate response is this: if his friend’s party is a low-key, back porch, everyone bring whatever beer they have available and chip in for the 10 PM beer run, he tells his friend that your friend is in from out of town, and asks whether she can come along. You either tell your friend that you need to go to the club a different night because you made prior plans, or float the idea of you two going to the party for a while and then going to the club yourselves.
If it’s not a low-key party, you either tell your friend you need to meet up with her a different night, you offer to meet up with her after you spend time at the party, or you regretfully bow out of the party yourself and hang out with your friend. There’s no acceptable option where you yank your boyfriend’s attendance at an already-RSVPd-to event simply because your friend wants to do something else. FYI.
Yes, LW, YOU are the one being selfish and unreasonable.
I would find it extremely rude for the person I was dating to inform me that I was no longer attending my friend’s party. My thing is: You guys aren’t attached to the hip. If you want to see your friend (and I can understand because I have a lot of out-of-town friends and it’s important to me to see them), then go see her. Or leave the party early. Of course, it would be polite to go to the party you already agreed to, even if just for a little bit, and it might help with the concern over your boyfriend having a female friend if you get to know her also.
Whoa there. Talk about a major freakout over nothing. First of all, it seems abundantly clear that you are jealous of/insecure about “this girl.” Take a step back and look at the facts, though. Your boyfriend’s brother gave her the number (it’s not like your boyfriend sought her out), and when she invited him to the party, she actively suggested you come along. That indicates that your boyfriend had probably told her about you already– that’s a pretty significant thing, considering they were probably busy catching up about their own lives if they haven’t been in contact in a while. Obviously he felt you were an important enough part of his life to bring you up pretty quickly. And you’ve already met her, meaning he isn’t trying to conceal you or downplay your relationship and probably wants you two to be friends. From what you’ve said, it sounds like you have no factual basis whatsoever to feel jealous or threatened. In fact, it sounds like just the opposite.
Second, your boyfriend probably reacted pretty strongly to you telling him what to do when he’d already made other plans, not necessarily to the plan itself. You’re not his mother! You can’t tell him what to do! You can ask nicely, but you chose not to. Also, could you blame him for choosing to hang out with his friends rather than go to what sounds like a girls’ night at a club? Couples have separate friends. It’s okay– healthy even.
And third, if you don’t dial down the drama, you’re going to be free to do whatever you want pretty soon, because your boyfriend will eventually bail. Look at how you set up this situation– “I think my relationship with him is more important than this girl.” You’re making it sound like he always has to do exactly what you say in order to prove how important your relationship is. It sounds like you’re trying to manipulate him by making him feel like he’s abandoning your relationship for his friends. In reality, he’s choosing between a commitment he already made and one you’re asking him to make. That’s the scenario in reality. It’s not an all out me-or-her war. Don’t make it out to be, because if he has to choose between his friends and a soap-opera-worthy drama queen, it’s not going to be a hard choice.
I’m guessing the boyfriend is not close with the letter-writer’s friend, or else he would be more inclined to hang out with them.
I’m just curious as to why all his friends are going to be there if he hasn’t talked to this girl in ages…did she disappear for years and invite her entire old social crew? If they are all such good friends why hasn’t he stayed in contact with her at mutual friend’s parties?
LW: I think if I insisted to my BF that he come along with me and one of my old friends for a night out (well, not clubbing, because I’m too old and staid for that), his eyes would glaze over and he would feign a coma to get out of it. To him, there would be no thrill in listening to us talk about people he didn’t know and compare notes about how fat we’d gotten. Let him go do his thing, you go do your thing, and don’t worry. But for the sake of your friend, don’t spend the whole night bitching about how he wouldn’t come; that’s a good way to be out a boyfriend AND a best friend.
“Is this a red flag?”
Yeah… for your boyfriend. Anyone who thinks they can cancel plans they’ve made with their significant other’s friends simply because a different opportunity with one of their own friends came along, and then rudely dictates this change in plans to said significant other needs to undergo some serious introspection.
Run and hide, boy, run and hide.
Why not just bring your friend to the party?
Frankly, I would be a *little* suspicious about this girl’s reasons for being so gung-ho about getting back into contact with your boyfriend. But as un-suspicious as possible while still landing on the side of suspicious. I would certainly make it a priority to meet her.
To solve all the problems:
1) Stop being such a controlling bitch. Your boyfriend has the right to see his friends or go to a party alone. If you don’t want him to be at that party alone, then go with him. But don’t you dare try to be a GF-Zilla about it. Just like you want liberty, he deserves liberty too.
2) Go to the party because you were so graciously invited, because a) You’ll be able to gauge this girl’s threat level, b) most parties don’t start that late in the evening, so you will have plenty of time to meet up LATER for clubbing.
3) Bow out after an hour (or two or three) at the party to go home, do a quick change, and meet up with your out-of-towner friend to go out clubbing. Clubbing doesn’t get really fun until about 11 or 12 anyways, and I imagine that the house party would be over by then.
4) Consider this: if the girlfriend has *met* you and still puts moves on your boyfriend after that, you have just grounds for asking him to not see her anymore. But you don’t really have a right to form an opinion before meeting her and seeing how she behaves with him. And, if your boyfriend *does* want to have an affair with her or cheats on you, at least then you know that he wasn’t right for you BEFORE you got engaged or married to him.
So, you can take care of all the issues if you decide to err on the side of being polite and diplomatic! Wow! Virtuous behavior sometimes CAN be in your best interest!
Why is it supiscous that she would want to reconnect? I used to have some really close guy friends in college that I’ve drifted apart from. I had no interest in dating them then, and I certainly have no interest now. However, if I ran into them, or even into a mutual friend/family member, heck yes I’d want to ask how they’d been and maybe even get in touch with them. It doesn’t mean I’d want to cheat on my boyfriend or lure them away from their girlfriends, but we had some good times and we never had a falling out, so I still think fondly of them.
I think everything seems above board, she invited the girlfriend, she invited them to a party where they’d be lots of old friends. Hardly secretive or suspect. Besides, even if she was up to no good, it sounds like the boyfriend has been upfront and honest, so the LW should have no worries about him straying.
I have to say if I were in this situation I would tell your friend, “I’m sorry, I can’t go to the club with you that night because I already have plans. How about we go on one of the other 3 nights?”
“Well I guess we’re not going then…”. Ah, the assumptive close. Works great in a sales negotiation, not so great in a relationship. Ultimately, it’s about a power dynamic. You are asserting power over your boyfriend, daring him to contradict you. I wonder what could make you want to assert your power over your boyfriend…
I would LOVE to see the comments if this were turns around. Can you imagine the outcry if a guy had made the demand? Oh you have to leave him, he is controlling/abusive/trying to separate you from your friends. I don’t really see this as being a different situation. When LW asks if this is a red flag, well, yeah, it is. For LW. If you are going to be that out of whack over your boyfriend talking to a friend, then it might be time to reassess both the relationship and the way you are interacting with people overall. His friend invited you too. If she was trying to be shady, you wouldnt have gotten the invite. Don’t push your own insecurities on to other people and then act like the wounded party.
I love this. Wendy, you’re awesome!!
LW you sound very insecure and the bossiness is unattractive. Let him go to the party alone that night and you go to the club with your girlfriend. No problem. If your relationship is unstable not going to last, nothing, I mean NOTHING and NO level of controlling behavior on your part will keep it together. If you want to show him that you are a secure and NON high maintenance girlfriend, potential wife, etc. chill out and let him do what he wants and you do what you want for that night. High maintenance controlling diva like spoiled and did I say controlling and insecure behavior on your part does not bode well for the relationship.
I don’t think you are out of line at all for being curious about this former friend’s sudden interest in your boyfriend. I think you were totally cool to accept an invitation to her party even though you don’t even know her. I think you are perfectly within reason to prefer catching up with your own gal-pal, in town for a very brief visit, over going to a stranger’s party no matter how noble your cause of wanting to support your BF by being nice to his old gal-pals. You’ve done nothing wrong by feeling the way that you feel.
Expressing those feelings is where it gets tricky. I think it is important that you prevent this episode from degenerating into a power struggle in the relationship. Neither of you should acquiesce, you should both accommodate. Why don’t you go out with your friend from out of town early, and then head to your BF’s friend’s party afterward? This way your man will have had some one on one time with his old friend to catch up and hopefully tell her how amazing you are and how much he values your relationship. And, you can show up fashionably late looking fly with your friend there to support you and read the situation in a more objective light…Lastly, you can make damn sure that he comes home with you and doesn’t end up spending the night at old girls’ house 😀
LW in answer to your question-YOU are the one being selfish here. And you come across as very immature. Ultimatums and demands don’t work.