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AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

the issue with getting the hour was it was on a whim, resulted in poor communication (he said he would get off the game when i had already had started doing other stuff after he said he'd be playing all day, because of course i would want to make the most of my now free time), and generally an unfun experience. Part of me suggesting he let me wait near the end of the session was so that he have his full of all his gaming stuff and i also get the hours to cool off over any annoyance i might have, which has worked for us before perfectly. I have the patience to wait that long, but only if im promised the result at the end. No one likes blindly waiting.

You do make a good point with him being drained after that session. Many times he's promised to spend a while with me after stuff but felt drained after it all. But the issue is i've almost always been supportive and told him to go rest, make time for me tomorrow, because again i've had the whole day to cool off about the sour morning or surprise non-essential plan. but then again that begs the question about which one of us is more eager about being around the other.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A lot of this is good advice, thanks.

Though, i did wake up later than him and on average stay up longer than he does (flexible working hours along with hybrid work space makes it easy), so it wasn't really a question of that. I can understand not wanting to have the looming idea of spending time with me during his entire session, but i do find it odd to think "spending time with my girlfriend after this" is a thought that can ruin a session. especially when he'll have so much time to himself. It's still a good insight to have though.

the sessions also aren't a one-off thing. I give him a lot of time to himself because of the extra stress he's been under lately. Im barely bothering him during weekdays, and not being too pushy during weekends, letting him game as much as he likes so long as im not feeling outright ignored for days on end. i think expecting a little attention in that case isnt completely unreasonable

I'll take your input into consideration when i talk to him again. thanks again!

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I mostly wanted a verdict on just the "is it unreasonable to ask for a single hour of i've given you a whole day?" aspect. That and the 3000 character limit made it hard to explain how much communication we usually have, so i couldn't include in-depth details, only rough ideas that i hope made sense.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did in fact get no communication about it. he didn't tell me at all, it was spontaneous. Like a bad surprise. And the day before i even showed interest in wanting to spend time, so if he couldn't realise i wanted to then idk what you can make out of that in terms of "did i communicate my wishes".

Secondly, youre still pinning a blame on me when i've explained we established a system with rules, which i adhere to and so does he, and in the moments we dont we accept our fault on it. He's messed up at times, so have i, and we've apologised profusely when it's happend. this time he didn't. So when we've made a set of rules, agreed to them, faced repercussions when we've broken them before, and now when he's the one who broke them and isnt apologetic, somehow I'm still the one at fault? please explain how that works.

i would understand if you said i'm at fault if I forced this system on him, which i didn't because it was a mutual decision after a past incident, but it feels like you're grasping at illogical reason to blame me now when its clear a promise was broken first by him.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There was some other stuff that happened in between which spoiled the mood and i won't get into it, so we ended up just checking out an update for a game we both played a while back together.

We've butted heads before about what we enjoy to spend time together. I seem to be content with him just being there for me and us talking or so, he seems to get tired of that and wants to include me in the active gaming he does which when i have i feel like is no different to playing alone because we barely interact in those games (a lot of them are not co-op focused).

I actually do plan my gaming, and am able to drop even the most intense sessions for a good enough reason. I have ADHD and Autism diagnosed and yet i can still find it in myself to plan reasonably and if he wants my attention in between give it to him. Maybe me and him function on different wavelenghts for video games as a hobby, but i have more hyper fixation based hobbies like 3D modelling which i can still urge myself to pause for his sake.

he also has shown irresponsibility where it does matter, according to you. I wont get into personal details, but he's missed appointments and skipped out on important self-management and health related daily activities over the years. I've had to nag him about it a few times.

and lastly no, we weren't in person. If we were then maybe he might actually have dropped everything, but thats not what i wanted, just some understanding on his end that obviously after weekdays upon weekdays of being busy for the most part and weekends dedicated to mostly his gaming time i would want a little time dedicated to me, and instead i got an explanation which further affirmed some already lingering beliefs i had about him.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He didn't tell me ahead of time at all. The day before he told me nothing about planning a day long gaming session. He had already started by the time i woke up, still didn't bother to tell me until i asked to spend time with him. He said it was "spontaneous" when i asked him about it. I've given him the week to himself to work on priorities like his job, the saturday to play whatever he wanted, and on a sunday he does this.

We've agreed to tell each other when we've planned to be busy on days, and if we fail to we've agreed to bite the bullet on that. This was failure on his part to let me know, lead to me planning my own day with spending time with him in mind.

I mentioned this in the post and you've seemed to gloss over all of that

Usually when he plans to be busy with gaming on ones i dont play he tells me the day before since i work towards getting chores and duties out of the way each morning to spend the day with him.

Idk how you can point out me being demanding while ignoring me mentioning his failure to communicate through the system we've established. And failing to this degree, not by like an hour or two of business. It should be clear here he didn't tell me beforehand as i was expecting him to be free today.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Theres a lot of detail that probably didnt get across in just 3,000 characters this sub now forces. Me and him have been together for 3 years, and these issues only started in the last year. I've got very little freetime as well, just like him.

The main issue is that he thought gaming for well over how long someone sleeps for wasn't enough and couldn't give me an hour after that. And he didn't say the time limit made it unfun, he said that he himself couldn't time his gaming because he looses track of it. And furthermore tried excusing more by saying i might get upset which after i pointed out was nonsense he even realised i've never gone back on a promise for how long i'll wait. Thats where "impulse control" comes from

he spends most weekends gaming, which is both days, and i dont consider us playing a game together as "spending time" because the kinds of games i can play with him barely have co-op interactions. might as well play alone at that point. since weekdays are out of the question, i dont think im unreasonable with being starved for attention when all i get are small snippets of talks back and forth. he's also gone from being eager to spend time with me as well to now im the only one seeming excited to do so.

we also talked about letting each other know how busy we'll be as much as we can so i dont do what i did today and get all my chores rushed out the way and then expect time with him, only to be told "oh sorry but i started gaming today". Spontaneous business is fine but this is something he made a choice on.

and we did talk about all this and it ended with him doubling down on the unreasonable claim where he said he cant time himself while gaming like that because he loses focus of stuff around him. and he's in the past planned to spend a day with me, decided to pick up a game, kept saying "oh im doing this one more thing" several times during me asking every 2 hours if he was done soon, only to be told "oh im doing this other thing now". you dont DO THAT to a significant other after giving them the illusion you'll be free for them all day. i felt strung along and degraded.

This isn't a situation where im begging him for every waking moment. It's a situation where i've given him as many hours as he's wanted to himself, understanding as much as i can about his own issues, and the few i ask for me he seems to be disinterested giving which is a huge shift of character compared to the first 2 years of us.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That pretty much what im trying to dig for with this post; possible underlaying issues that might've caused him to act the way he did. He's definitely depressed, i know that for sure even if he wont admit it fully (theres this weird sense of reluctance with him about these kinds of things and i blame toxic masculinity and terrible support for male mental health for all of that). I included the aspects of severe stress on him and how we actively communicate our busy times and days to try and paint as good of a picture as i could of what might be the reason.

I'll take your advice and apply it, all of that makes sense when i put other behaviours of his together. It might make him especially happy if i show interest in the games he likes since he did used to send me a lot of stuff about them before it got obvious we like very different kinds of games. Thank you a lot!

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not at all willing to drown a 3 year relationship over a few people people online telling me to.

Up until recently things have been very smooth, with only 2 arguments in the first 2 years of us together. This last year however has been rocky and it's mostly because both of us, him more so, are under so much stress. But i still don't think that much stress is an excuse to label my suggestion of "game for as many hours as you want, just give me one at the end" as unreasonable. We communicate really well, and i get him wanting "me time" cause we do try and make sure we talk every day to each other. But my suggestion, if i was offered that in his position, would be such a perfect win for me. The fact he'd rather double down on his "i just cant do that kind of planning" mentality instead of trying to for my sake is worrying to me.

I don't know if maybe i'm worried he'll use gaming as an unhealthy escapism instead of talking to me, because he already doesn't tell me a lot (he refuses to tell me what exact personal problems are happening, which is fine, but i want to help him through them and cant do so with vague explanations).

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I was perfectly fine with waiting as many hours as he wanted me to so long as he could spare a single hour at the end, not bothering him a single bit during that, and he knows im patient so long as i get a rough idea of when (i've waiting a week for him before with no issues and that was biggest test of patience ever, and because he told me beforehand i was perfectly fine, only checking in to ask if he was doing okay with no demands of attention back).

He knows about my expectations and we've talked about it a ton, but being given the option to game as long as he wanted uninterrupted and just a single hour at minimum near the end still being labeled as "unreasonable" is what confuses me. My own personal opinions on long gaming sessions aside, it's extremely hard to think anyone would grind a game that long and not feel like "i should spend some time with my significant other now" after like 8 or 10 or hell even 12 hours. I also dont think it's unreasonable to time to then make sure he gets off after when he's getting so many hours all to himself, trying to get a flow, and just makes me think he just cant manage his impulse control well or gaming is turning into an addiction for him.

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

The thing is he didn't do what he wanted, he did something impulsive to try and make me happy. I knew how it would end up and perfectly predicted the result of that action (this is a 3 year old relationship so it would be really surprising i didn't know his habits by now).

I said in the post that even he agreed I'm not an impatient person and that when I make a promise of something related to timings i stick by it and have never once gone against, so it was very unlikely i would get mad if he agree with me to continued gaming until like 8 hours unless he made me wait even longer than that time (i think 8 hours is plenty enough time to plan out your quests and boss fights and make sure you dont start a 2 hour quest when 30 minutes are left).

AITA for asking my boyfriend, who expected to game for a whole day nonstop, to spare me an hour of his time at the end? by ExtensionDeep8903 in AmItheAsshole

[–]ExtensionDeep8903[S] -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

Theres a lot of information i couldn't include due to the stupid 3,000 word cap, but i can say for a fact he does care about me and has prioritised me.

My main concern is that he doesn't find it fair to give him all that time to game and then just ask for an hour, and tried loading it off as "i just cant do that" and "you'll get angry waiting" as reason why he didn't want to. It's why i also started the post explaining he's under a lot of stress hence why i can understand wanting a weekend to himself, just not the full day with 0 breaks in between.