I don't want to be a clingy girlfriend

[SamMarie]

My life in general has only been College and being with my boyfriend. I will hang out with friends during college break hours. I'm not working lately because they don't need me right now which is okay to keep up with my studies. However, i'm all of a sudden feeling like I'm becoming clingy in my relationship when I don't want to. My boyfriend and I hang every other days or some days every two days. I think that's a good amount of spacial time for ourselves.. at least I think so. We are almost 10 months in our relationship (My longest relationship). We are both Gamers, so, before we met each other, we would play video games. We would play video games sometimes during our relationship, but work and college or other necessities got in the way. I don't really play games in general anymore. Lately, he got a new game that he has grabbed his attention. He talks to his friends and plays this game a lot, which is fine. But, I felt like he lost his attention on me when I come over his house.

We usually watch movies, but him to be playing a game excessively got annoying, but he didn't completely ignore me. We did have our time together. I'm not sure why I feel this way now. I confront him about it and he states that it shouldn't be wrong for him to have his own time sometimes and that I should understand. I do understand, but I don't know if it's the comfort in the relationship during the length of time we have been dating or if I'm just becoming this clingy girlfriend. I am always available and I want to be able to tell him that I'm busy so that he misses me more so I don't seem overly available and clingy. I'm confused with my own emotions. What should I do?

[PSY]

Some people may disagree with this idea, but here's what I would do. I would tell your boyfriend that you're happy he's found an enjoyable activity (playing this new video game), and that you want him to have "me" time. I would also explain, however, that you aren't particularly interested in sharing that activity with him (whether it's watching him or playing the game with him). Let him know that you will happily come over to his house and spend time with him whenever he wants (assuming it won't interfere with your other obligations), but that the video game needs to be left out of the equation when you two are together.

Your boyfriend shouldn't have to choose between spending time with you and spending "me" time playing a video game. What this WILL force him to do is make time for both activities. If you leave this decision in his hands, he'll probably initially spend a lot of time playing his video game, but after a while, he'll realize you two don't see each other as often, and he'll ask you what's going on. When that happens, you can remind him of this conversation. The key is to emphasize that you aren't "punishing" him, and that he's welcome to play the video game all he wants. You just don't want to share your time with him with the video game. It is completely, entirely up to him on how he wants to divide up his free time.

Another possibility is that your boyfriend will call you over, and after a few hours, he'll want to play the video game. When that happens, you can lovingly, but firmly, say good-bye. You'll have to do this every time he starts playing the game. He may say something like, "Oh, I just want to play it for half an hour, then we'll do something else." Don't take the bait. If he's anything like my first boyfriend, half an hour quickly becomes HOURS. I would say something along the lines of, "That's okay, you can play your video game if you want. I'm glad we had some time together, and next time, maybe we can have more time together."

The worst thing you can do is "punish" him, guilt-trip him, etc. You need to emphasize, over and over again, that you respect his need for "me" time and do not want to interfere with his video game time. You're not asking him to choose between you and the video game. You're just asking him to get all his video game time out of the way BEFORE you come over, or to save his video game time for AFTER you've left. Something else you might want to do is come up with ideas in advance for what you two can do together. Sitting around the house all day can get really old, really fast. For your boyfriend, watching movies and playing video games may seem like the best way to relieve that boredom! It's your job to come up with ideas, so he doesn't feel like he has to resort to entertaining you with movies and video games (which aren't always very intimate things to share with your partner). Propose that you cook a meal together, then take a walk in the park! Get him to do new things with you, and he's not going to have the opportunity to pick up a video game controller when you're just sitting on the couch.

[rac146]

Honestly, I would just talk to him about how you feel. you're a gamer, I'm sure you know whats its like to be sucked into a game...sometimes you honestly don't notice. My bf and I are gamers too, and this happened to us once. He was really interested in a game I wasn't, and after a while that was all he was playing. When I pointed out how it made me feel, he instantly changed the behavior. We'd play a different game or watch a movie, ect. He would play the game while I was studying or something. It worked out well, but if that doesn't work...well what psy said