My Boyfriend/Husband Says I Smother Him
It’s tough when you’re madly in love and all you want to do is spend every waking moment with your man. When you can’t bear to be apart from him even during sleep, so you dream about him. When you need to know where he is and what he’s doing so you can join him. It’s his fault for being so irresistible, right?
Does this sound like you, ladies?
Then I totally see your boyfriend/husband’s point!
What is a stalker?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “a person who pursues someone obsessively and aggressively to the point of harassment”.
Okay, so calling you a stalker might be a slight exaggeration, but from that definition, you can see that you’re not too far off.
Why Does Your Partner Think You Smother Him?
It could be for one or more of the following reasons:
- you call or text too much
- you constantly want to do things with him
- you impede on his “alone time”
- you won’t let him do things for himself
- you’re always there
- you insist on knowing where he is and what he’s doing at all times
- you’re overly affectionate
But, but, but these sound like things a lover would do, not a stalker, I hear you shouting. Well, to your suffering husband or boyfriend, he can’t tell the difference. It really doesn’t matter what you think about it, if he’s said he feels smothered, then you need to listen to him.
Men are free spirits. Their space is like oxygen to them – they need it to breathe. And grow, don’t forget that part. If they’re constantly being watched or clung to, they can’t be themselves.
How Can You Stop Smothering Your Boyfriend/Husband?
Take a step back.
Being head over heels in love might make it difficult to separate yourself from your man, even for short periods of time, and you might be tempted to never leave his side, but your relationship/marriage depends on it.
So taking a step back is crucial. You can do this in a number of ways:
Spend More Time With Friends and Family
If you didn’t abandon them all when you started your new relationship, your friends and family should still be around, vying for the excess attention your partner doesn’t want. Like a hippie from the seventies, you get to distribute the love.
All healthy relationships benefit from both parties having their own lives, existing independently of each other. Spending time with your own friends, people who know you well, means you have less time to spend with your partner, which is precisely what he wants.
So, now that you’ve stopped stalking him, you have plenty of time to help your mother work on her yard.
Find New Hobbies
Finding the right hobby can get you out of the house and around new, interesting people. Learning a new skill takes time, something you now have in abundance (since you gave up your previous hobby of smothering your husband).
Not only will you be so engrossed you won’t have an opportunity to miss him, you’ll become more intriguing to him when he sees you have new interests.
Some hobbies I’d recommend:
- tennis – keeps you fit and looking irresistible. He’ll be sorry he ever turned you away (that’s not why you’re doing it, of course…)
- yoga – as above, plus meditation. In addition, you can usually find large yoga communities all across the globe, so you’ll meet like-minded people
- bird-watching – nature’s pretty cool, and birds are awesome. Lots of varieties to look out for (though perhaps suggesting any hobby to you that involves binoculars might not be wise. Just saying)
- dancing – salsa, ballroom, street dance, anything will do. You’ll keep fit, have fun, and socialize with people who aren’t He Who Must Not Be Smothered
Feign Disinterest
Your boyfriend/husband is expecting you to be interested in everything he does, so how about not being interested. What if instead of asking him to elaborate when he talks about his friend’s new pet puma, you simply nod and say, “that’s nice, dear”?
Your disinterest doesn’t have to be genuine, and you don’t need to display it all the time, just enough for him to see that he’s not the center of your universe (even if he is, he doesn’t need to know that, that’s the whole point).
Proceed with caution on this one, as being too nonchalant when it comes to things that matter to him might turn him off you.
Let Him Miss You
There’s a reason why they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. The fact is, if you’re always around, you’re not giving him the chance to miss you. That’s why it’s imperative that you be absent from time to time – physically and emotionally.
Your presence and/or affection is what’s suffocating him, so be less present. Don’t always be available when he needs you; show him that your world doesn’t revolve around him.
When he starts to see you’re serious about this, he’ll be the one running to you, begging you to notice him.
What Happens If You Continue to Smother Him?
If you don’t back off, he’ll get sick of you. He’ll think you either don’t trust him, you have codependency issues, or you have an addictive personality, none of which are attractive or healthy for the relationship.
Outside of that, believe it or not, you’ll probably get sick of him, too. You’ll start to see all of his flaws, and he won’t seem so perfect anymore (which, admittedly, might not be a bad thing in your case. It could do you good to realize that the sun doesn’t shine out of his behind).
In any case, your continued suffocating of him will lead to the inevitable: the end of your relationship.
Conclusion
Put yourself in his shoes: would you like it if he were always hanging around, cramping your style, disrupting your “me time” or your time with the girls? I think not!
Try not to take his comments personally, or be hurt by them. Just because he doesn’t want you clinging to him while he’s on the toilet doesn’t mean he’s stopped loving you (well, it might mean that…). He may have been much more enthusiastic about spending time with you at the start of your relationship, but that couldn’t go on forever.
You’re going to be together for a while, at least that’s what you’re both hoping. You don’t want to get sick of each other early on. There will be plenty of time to spend in each other’s company, so try to spread that out.
