Love help: Girlfriend Trouble - Help.com

Girlfriend Trouble

I need an objective person’s perspective on this one:
My girlfriend of several years is currently mad at me because this evening, as I was hanging out with her in her apartment, I checked some basketball scores on my phone while we were snuggling on her couch. She asked me several times in a joking tone to give me her phone or put it away, but I refused (I had been busy earlier that day and this was my first opportunity to check scores). I figured out she was upset with me later because as I was leaving she wouldn’t say “I love you” back to me, and then later sent me terse, passive aggressive texts until I asked what was up. That’s when she told me that she wasn’t joking when she asked me to put the phone away.
Now, this may sound like I was being a jerk for not putting the phone away and paying more attention to her. But the reason I was in her apartment to begin with was because she had asked me to come over and hang during time I could have been using to study for an upcoming quiz. In other words, I was already sacrificing some of my own time just to prolong our time together. Also, I was checking the scores while she was talking with her roommate about a topic that didn’t concern me. Finally, tonight’s episode comes on the heels of a two week period where she had been upset with me for raising certain concerns. Ironically, these concerns stemmed from my belief that she hadn’t made much time to communicate with me while she was back at school working on a musical production during our winter break (she claimed that if I understood her passion for the arts, then I would understand how important working on this show was for her and not mind that there seemed to be no space for me in her schedule). We’ve talked about how our interests/passions are very different, and I support her in her pursuit and love for performing arts - though the night I went to see her show, I didn’t get much reciprocal attention from her as she basked in the afterglow of the performance with her friends in the cast/production staff.
I understood that the night of the show was her night, and I let her have her moment. But when we’re together and she’s not engaged in one of her interests, it seems that she’s unwilling to let me indulge in my passions (i.e. following sport scores). Am I wrong to think that she should cut me some slack and not get upset that I checked basketball scores for 20 minutes while I was hanging out with her for over an hour on my own time? Am I wrong to think that she’s upset with me because she has prioritized her interests and need for attention above my own, while expecting me to willingly accept attentional “deficits” on her end as an understandable consequence of the pursuit of her passion? I feel as if there’s a double standard that’s working against me here…

This open post was written 1 year, 3 months ago | V/U/S: 335, 3, 4 | Edit Post | Leave a reply | Report Post

Double standard, Performing arts, Perspective, performance, consequence, Opportunity, Reciprocal, girlfriend, production, ironically, Love (How Tags Affect Reciprocity)

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