Is it unreasonable to object to lots of boys’ weekends?

Tiare Tolks has a background as a psychologist, relationship therapist and corporate leadership coach, and is the Managing Partner - Relationship Expert for Compatico.co.nz, a premium matchmaking service for over-30s. In her fortnightly column for the Sunday Star-Times, she addresses reader questions and shares tips for nurturing healthy and fulfilling relationships.

My partner of two years has started going away on a lot of boys’ weekends. Despite trying to be cool, I am starting to feel quite niggly about it. Am I being unreasonable?

I’m loving your self reflection. It's never easy to confess that something like this is giving you the shits. So let's throw some spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.

The time frame leaps at me. Many a relationship comes a cropper at approximately this point in time. The ‘limerence period’, between six months and two years, is the initial intense and obsessive phase of a relationship during which we are unconsciously on our best behaviour, spend all our time together and are often blinded by infatuation. As the high of new love subsides, our flaws, triggers and habits start to reveal themselves. This is the time when your communication skills become important because, all going well, the spark will be replaced by emotional intimacy and conscious choice. It might be that this new boyish behaviour is disappointing but also part of the new phase. Lets not panic just yet.

Is he considerate?

How does your partner behave in regards to these weekends away? Does he give you plenty of notice and then return joyful and delighted to spend time with you? Or does he drop his plans on you at the last minute and return home disengaged and exhausted with little enthusiasm left for you? And does ‘a lot’ mean once a month or every weekend?’ And does he bring back fish to share?! How he re-engages on return will tell you a lot about his care and respect for you.

Are you being clingy because you don't have enough going on?

This question brings to mind one of my favourite poems by Kahlil Gibran from ‘The Marriage’ where he speaks of how space and individuality are the foundations of a great relationship. To use Gibran’s words, are there spaces in your togetherness? I gently encourage you to examine if you have enough of your own interests, friends and ‘reasons to be’ outside of this guy? Do your niggles speak more about you than him?

Is his absence about your attachment needs?

Our attachment needs tend to catch up with us beyond the dopamine-fueled joy of the limerence - and they can derail us if they linger unidentified and unspoken. Ask yourself - what am I actually needing here? More shared time together, more reassurance, better quality time, wanting to feel seen or prioritised? Knowing whether there’s an unmet need behind your upset feelings gives you useful information for discussion. Reflecting on this may also reveal jealous or insecure parts that need a bit of your attention, acknowledgement and work.

Can you shift from ‘cool’ to conversation?

Having crunchy conversations is difficult for many of us in all sorts of contexts and to avoid them we happily downplay our emotions and needs. We pretend things don’t bother us. We disguise our emotional truths by being ‘cool’. But here’s the thing: authentic intimacy can’t flourish without stinky truths and awkie conversations.

Probably the most helpful thing you can do for yourself right now is tell your partner how you are feeling and why. And I mean getting past ‘niggly’ to the honest oil. Use words that express your truth about how you’re feeling such as ‘ insecure’, ‘lonely’, ‘unseen’, 'unimportant’. And let him know your needs. Try something like, “I totally get that your weekends away with the guys are important, but I’ve also been missing our time together and I'm starting to feel like maybe I don't matter as much as they do. Can we make some more space for us too?”

And once you have shared, pass the talking stick with curiosity. What do these weekends away mean for him? How does he see the situation? How is he feeling about how much time you are spending together? And how might you co-create a solution?

This isn’t about laying down the law. It’s about laying down your truth, exploring his and finding an ‘us’ solution.

These sorts of conversations don't usually start happening til the limerence is over but they sure do need to happen if you are going to ride the relationship waves together. How he responds will tell you whether your values are compatible, what his weekends away represent for him as well as how understanding of your emotions and needs he is. If your partner responds with empathy, curiosity, and a willingness to work through it — jackpot. That’s the foundation of a relationship that grows. But if you’re met with ridicule, shutdown, defensiveness or a refusal to even hear your discomfort, that’s worth knowing. Relationships should make room for both people’s truths, even when those truths feel inconvenient.

Hopefully this has shed some light on the question of your reasonability and what might be a healthy next step. All relationships hit the skids once you get past the limerence but the sooner you can swap cool for courage, the sooner you will know if you still choose him despite his inconvenient love of the boys or whether you might indeed send him an extra long weekend without a return ticket.

This Tiare Talks column originally appeared in the Sunday Star-Times here.

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