“My Boyfriend’s Friends Want me to Stay in a Hotel When They Come Visit”
I recently learned that one of these friends had said he didn’t want to come in this weekend unless our dog and I got a hotel room—and my boyfriend had responded with, “I wish I could.” This really hurt my feelings. I feel betrayed. I let these people into my home and then they speak this way about me. And furthermore, I’m so hurt by my boyfriend. Shouldn’t he support me no matter what? Isn’t this a betrayal of my trust? How can I talk to him about this? — Not Staying in a Hotel
Yeah, that was a super jerky response from your boyfriend when his friend said he wanted you and the dog to get a hotel room for the weekend. And if he’s already letting his friends crash at your place two weekends of every month, where they make a mess, get rowdy, and give him a hard time for his commitment to you, it has to make you wonder why. WHY is he letting them do this and why is he not putting his foot down and setting some boundaries with them? My guess is that he may not be quite ready to be so committed to you after all. He isn’t behaving like someone who is happy to be sharing and making a home with a significant other and respecting what that means. He’s behaving like someone who still wants to keep a foot in the door of bachelor life. He can’t have it both ways.
I have to wonder: Did he feel pressured into moving in with you (or letting you move in with him)? Was it mostly your idea that he passively went along with? Did you discuss all these topics before you moved in together? What is your long-term plan? Do you even have one?
Take this issue with the friends — and your boyfriend’s response to them — as an opportunity to check the state of your union. Do you both want the same things? Is he truly committed to your relationship long-term and is he happy living together? If so, he needs to set some damn boundaries with his friends. Their every-other-week presence in your home is affecting your relationship in a negative way and it needs to stop. THEY should stay in a hotel when they come visit. Or he could go visit them sometimes. Decide how often you are ok with their coming to visit – maybe every two to three months? And when they do come for a night, you don’t need to go stay in a hotel, but you might take that opportunity to go out with your friends or visit a long-distance loved one yourself.
If you discover when you talk with your boyfriend about your relationship that you two are on vastly different pages in regards to what you want, move on already. Life’s too short to be living with a guy who prioritizes his dumb buddies over you all the time.
I love him, but I don’t allow myself to completely love him, because he isn’t ready to settle down. And I mean settle down as in his staying here at his house — not for our moving in together or anything; I’m definitely not ready to get married. He’s going to Florida for a month to get his master diver’s certificate or something. And he said that I make him feel like a bad man because I tell him so. Well, I just have a fear of getting hurt. He says he doesn’t want to break up. But I feel that since we’ve had this conversation, he’s pulling away from me. Even though he asked me go to Thanksgiving dinner with his family, I’m confused and I don’t know if I should just break it off and see what happens. We are both divorced and we both really loved our ex-spouses — mine was very abusive and I got away from him after 14 years of our being together and his left him. He still has trust issues.
Can you help me? I’m not sure what to do. — No Marriage Expectation
Look, if you’re upset that your boyfriend travels and doesn’t stay home, despite his being retired and without kids, you two are mismatched. If his going away for a month is too much for you — to the point that you are telling him he’s a bad man for taking this trip, you’re mismatched. He is someone who travels a lot – who likes to travel and wants to travel. You are someone who clearly wants a partner who stays home all the time. You said as much. You call that “settling down,” and you are annoyed that your boyfriend isn’t ready. You are not even allowing yourself to “completely love him” because he isn’t ready to stay home all the time. You two are not a match. You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole, so quit trying.
Your boyfriend has been trying to tell you as much. He’s been trying to tell you that you have an expectation for a partner that he cannot meet – that he isn’t interested in meeting. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care for you or that he doesn’t want a future with you. But he knows that what you want is not what he wants to give. He does not want to stay home all the time. He wants to travel. He wants to be on the go. That doesn’t make him a bad man! But it makes him a bad match for you. If you can’t adjust what you’re looking for — and I’m not necessarily saying you should — you need to move on.
***************
Follow along on Facebook, and Instagram.
If you have a relationship/dating question I can help answer, you can send me your letters at wendy(AT)dearwendy.com.
Agree with all of Wendy’s advice here. LW1 I mean, that would be the end for me. Heck, two weekends a month would be the end of at least that happening but him not putting his foot down is all you need to know.
LW2: He is not a bad man at all. He is being very clear and behaving as he should by as you said pulling away. You don’t get a say in how he wishes to live, just to be the right match or not. Listen to what people tell you.
LW1) Hmmmmmmm… is there perhaps MORE to the story here? Is you dog a real handful? Or for that matter — are you? Enquiring minds wanna know. But my oh my — your boyfriend’s most unusual response suggests many of the above suggestions…
.
LW2). Yikes. He may not be a bad man — but you are undoubtedly a decidedly bad girlfriend.
I agree with you, Mark. The boyfriend’s response was SO dickish that it makes me think there’s more to the story.
But even if she’s a huge, high maintenance, preachy, straight-edge beeyotch to his friends, I don’t think that changes either a) that its rude for his friends to suggest she vacate her own home twice a month for their boys weekends and dickish for her boyfriend to agree or b) that it’s time for a state of the union.
I’d guess this relationship is doomed, regardless of who is at fault for all this dickery.
I’d love to know who moved in with who and how much each pays in rent. I suspect the answer would be quite illuminating…
.
PS — Nothing is more redflag to me than a partner who “hates” or “didapproves of” their partner’s friends and is always trying to make their partner to choose them over lifelong friends… It’s beyond fucked up. Pathetic. And gross.
If she’s THAT obnoxious to where he dislikes her that much, then he should end the relationship. If you don’t like your partner, then you should probably just move on instead of talking crap about them.
It could easily be that he moved in with her and she is paying most of the expenses and so he doesn’t really like her but doesn’t want to give up the free ride. That explains the situation just as much or better than her moving in with him and living off of him.
Hold on here. LW2 did not say that she told her boyfriend he was a “bad man” for going away. She said she only told him ” I’m going to really miss him when he goes away” and he said “I make him feel like a bad man because I tell him so.”
I agree that these two do seem to be not compatable, but the LW really did not anything wrong by saying she would miss him, and is not a “bad girlfriend.”
LW – Your boyfriend is a dick. Why don’t THEY get a hotel room twice a month and go as crazy as they want?
Let me guess, that costs money, you can’t smoke in hotels any more and if you trash the place, they’re going to charge you for it. So why would it be ok for them to do that to his home? Who cleans it up? Him?
Seriously consider moving on. There are men who have actual balls out there.
LW #2 – You want different things. He wants to travel, you can’t right now. He shouldn’t have to put his dreams on hold because the two of you made different choices. He shouldn’t have to wait another 10 years (or more) before you can have such a spontaneous life. You shouldn’t have to put your dreams of marriage and a home-y life on hold either.
Let him go. Keep your heart open for someone else.
Eh, the tone of LW1 is just off. She sounds super judgey and I bet $1,000,000 she is semi openly hostile to her boyrfriend’s friends through out their entire visits. Sorry, but the whole “gasp! drinking!” teetoler thing is just so NOT attractive and a typically a real drag. In the update she will write in about how these visits cause her BF to skip church. Just wait. 😉
You may very well be right.
Or the friends may be townies who get to visit their friend in the big city or college town and treat the place similarly to their mom’s basements: smoking up a storm and ashing all of the place. Drinking excessively and being loud, obnoxious and just shitty “guests”.
My guess: either she moved in with her boyfriend putting a stop to the every weekend rager and they’re pissed that their fun is now getting trampled
OR
He moved in with her / or they found an apartment together and his friends figured they could use it for their nonsense. As soon as she bitched about cleaning up after adults or that she didn’t appreciate her stuff getting destroyed – they started making the comments, the complaints the nonsense.
In either case the boyfriend is a fucking dick. If his friends are trashing his place and he expects her to clean up – shitty. If his friends are trashing her stuff and he expects her to be ok with that – shitty. If his friends are treating her shitty in her own home and she’s saying it’s not ok and he’s like “But they don’t really hate you but they still want you to leave your home” – shitty.
I have questions about wanting the dog out but if it’s a little yappy dog -they usually don’t get along well with rowdy folks. Or anyone really.
I mean, yeah, I’d be openly hostile to people who trashed my house and talked crap about me twice a month.
I mean wouldn’t anyone be “super judgey” and “semi openly hostile” being subjected to this type of UTTER BULLSHIT twice a month?? Multiple Bros coming over 2 weekends every single month? Are you kidding me? There is just no way I could deal with that and I love to have people over, entertain. cook, the whole nine yards. But to have people in who clearly treat you like crap and bro it up – yeah no. This is all kinds of stupid and if I were her I woulda moved out yesterday. F that. Presumably its supposed to be their home and not an actual frat house.
I’d be unhappy if anyone wanted to come and spend every other weekend at my place, even if they didn’t trash it. Add on trashing it and I wouldn’t allow them back at all. If they can’t treat the girlfriend and the place itself with respect they shouldn’t be invited back at all. They are adults. They should know how to behave. If they were polite, even nice, cleaned up after themselves and brought a small hostess gift she would probably have a different opinion.
It’s possible they don’t like their friend having a girlfriend. They don’t want to share him. They want to stay at his place partying every weekend and they resent her for stealing him and are actively trying to break them up.
Facts not in evidence. It’s more likely you’re going out of your way to place the blame on the LW whether or not she’s responsible for it.
LW 2, a 50-year-old man knows what he does and does not want in life. You’ve been together 9 months—if he wanted a future with you, he would know it by now. Your kids would be more than a hug opportunity. And unless there is a wild age difference, you are old enough to know what you want, too. This is going nowhere.
LW1 No one should request that you go and stay in a hotel so that they can stay in your home without you. That’s ridiculous. If they want to come and visit and don’t want to be around you and your dog they can stay in a hotel. I personally wouldn’t want anyone to come and stay with me every other weekend but especially not people who appear to be rude and who trash the place. I’d say they aren’t welcome to come back at all. If they trash the place I wouldn’t clean up after them. I’d leave that to the boyfriend. Let them be his burden. I’m guessing that he has the fun with them and you have all of the work of them. I wouldn’t do the work. Also, if they are eating food and drinking I’d make him pay for it out of his pocket. They are obviously his guests and not yours. He should carry all of the burden because he is getting all of the benefit.
On top of the way that they treat you how good is your relationship overall? If they come and stay with you every other weekend I assume your boyfriend spends his time with them on those weekends. They get half of his free time. If he doesn’t value you more than he values them, and he apparently doesn’t, I’d dump him. What is the point of being with him.
“Shouldn’t he support me no matter what?”
No, he shouldn’t support you no matter what. No matter what is a huge statement. In this situation he should support you but no matter what is too big for a blanket statement. He shouldn’t have to support you if you cheat on him. He also shouldn’t support you if he finds you are stealing money from your mom or your job or your friend. He shouldn’t support you if he finds that you are constantly lying to people or being manipulative or cruel.
New boyfriends. That’s the answer.
But seriously, LW1. Your bf is a supreme asshole who most likely speaks badly about you to his friends. The company he keeps says a lot about him.
Sounds like they still want to live a bachelor lifestyle and need to grow up. Twice a month is excessive to me. You need to put your foot down and command respect from all of them, including your boyfriend. If he wants to hang out with them, THEY can get a hotel room.
LW1: I just don’t really foresee your relationship lasting very long. Boyfriends who like their girlfriends wouldn’t really say what he said. I also think that you’re probably in different life places because I think that the time for having your friends come from out of town twice a month (in which they get rowdy and want to kick out the girlfriend) doesn’t really fit in the same time frame of someone who wants to have a serious relationship with their live-in girlfriend. The other possibility is that he isn’t really that into the relationship, so he WANTS to find other ways to spend his time rather than simply spending it with you. I know that sounds harsh, but most people I know in happy relationships actually enjoy spending weekends with their partner and wouldn’t look for a way out of 50% of them.
LW2: He’s 50. It’s not that he isn’t ready to settle down “yet,” he doesn’t want to settle down at all (or at least not with you). Do you seriously think that at age 55, he’s going to suddenly find the benefit in marriage that he couldn’t find at 50? Lots of women hang on to men who they know don’t want a future with them, and it’s pretty sad. But when you have a kid, you don’t really get to do that. You KNOW you aren’t going to have a future with him, so why on earth are you letting your daughter get used to having him in her life?
LW1, its rude for you to assume that just because your bf friends have stayed in your home that your dog is allowed in theirs. In that case, if you were to bring your dog and they dont allow animals in their home then yes you would need to get a hotel room. If this is suppose to be a guys only weekend then I would suggest you stay back. Heres the problem I have with your situation, you guys are playing house with no strings attached. If you were to split up would you be roommates or would one leave the apartment? He has just as much right to let whoever in his home as you do. When his friends come over he becomes the host. If you are hosting them STOP. Let bf entertain them and clean the mess up. Your problem is you are playing house when you are not at the next level in your relationship to play house. Esp. If friends come over at least every month for a weekend to stay. If you dont like it move out and get your own place until you both are ready for a move serious commitment and can respect each others boundaries better.
Uh her dog is in her house. They want her dog and her to leave her own home.
Thanks @JD I stand corrected. I read it as if she was going to their home this time. Well in this case LW1 its your home just as much as bf so no you and furbaby dont have to go anywhere.
Which is what makes it way more ridiculous. You want ME to leave my house with my dog (and pay for myself and the dog and pets at hotels are usually an extra $100 to $150 a night). Ya ok guys. Bite me.
LW1: Personally, I read it as a joke from drunk buddies. You BF didn’t actually ask you to move out to a hotel for hosting his friends, right? You shoudn’t get mad at gossip or indirect talks, in my opinion. But the twice per month visits of friends? No way. Just too much. You should negociate for one visit per month, and slowly reduce it to once per trimester. Your BF is still immature, obviously.
You could get out with your dog for a week-end when they visit (but not as a principle, as a favor), and ask for a perfectly clean appartment when you come back – once in a trimester. And do the same with your friends: kick him out once per trimester. Anyway, time is playing in your favor. Such friendly closeness – and bachelor rudeness – tend to fade when everybody gets coupled.
LW2: you are so much wasting your time with this selfish guy. He hugs your kids to show them some affection? You want more, don’t you? Put an end to that no-strings-attached relationship and look for a more serious partner.
LW1: And when you negociate with BF to downsize his friends’ visits: don’t speak like a frustrated mom (though you are entitled to your anger, this is just communication strategy): don’t trash the house; or: I would like to have you all for myself.
No: propose alternate projects. Too bad, we won’t be able to receive your friends next week-end because:
– I have invited MY friends for a dinner party (why is it all about HIS friends?)
– There is this couple afternoon at the spa that I would love to try with you, with mud massages and so on (irresistible treat)
– I bought 2 tickets for a theater play / classical music concert / fill in all what his friends won’t attend
and so on. Assert yourself, don’t be a doormat. It is not wrong in itself to leave him the house everynow and then – at the very condition that he does the same for you. Some independence is good. Not the present unbalance in your relationship.
LW2: In fact, I would bet your BF sees other women during his “trips”. This guy just helps himself. You are being used: he has his little family to hug when it pleases him but no investment, no nothing. Kick him to the curb. You want better than that.
LW1: Last but not least: don’t forget to say that his friends are SO boring. It is always the same stuff, you are bored to death.
Time to attack!
I would say your boyfriend at the very least is really immature. If he has a problem with you, he should talk to you.
On the other hand I’m curious: how exactly did you find out about the insulting exchange he and his friends had about you?
I never said he was a bad man that was a typo. He tells me he is a bad man. That I make him feel that way, because I tell him I will miss him. He is a wonderful, I would never say that to him. I completely understand him wanting to travel, I would be doing the same thing if I could. It’s just he travels alot and I do miss him. I do love him, but he wont let me completely in yet. He has a hard time trusting as do I.
From the LW:
Hopefully this works but don’t be surprised if they do well for one or two weekends and then slide right back into their usual way of doing things.