u/Artistic_Tea_4768

My (f31) bf(m32) spends a SERIOUS amount of time playing video games. He works from home and from 9am-midnight can be found at his desk. Unless I nudge him to do otherwise or something comes up, it’s where he is at.

I have told him before I think he has an issue with gaming but he insists it’s not about the game itself, but being able to stay in touch with friends.

My bf moved away from his childhood friends 7 years ago and has not made new friends since. His friends aren’t the type that do social media, and they aren’t the type to “call and catch up”. These were the best friends he played sports with and played video games with. And now, all those friends are childless, single, and self-proclaimed “elite competitive gamers”. They spend their work-from-home days grinding in whatever competitive multiplayer game is out.

Even when they aren’t online my bf is gaming, because there is the circle jerk with rankings and keeping up. I’ve never once seen my bf play something single player, or for sheer enjoyment. He mainly plays TFT, though sometimes it’s WoW, LoL, COD <insert whatever they are on>. There’s been times I got into a game with him, and as soon as the boys stopped playing it he ceased to touch it again. I myself am a gamer (healthy moderation) and he has a hard time playing anything with me if it’s not what his friends are playing.

Does this still constitute as an addiction? A friendship addiction? Lmao. Or is this actually an element to how addictions can happen? I wish he would branch out and make more friends. It especially sucks because those friends are 3 hours behind us, which means he has to stay up super late to spend time with them. I’ll admit if he doesn’t keep up, they do sort of leave him in the dust and not reach out to see what he’s up to. IMO I think there might be some outgrowing, but he refuses to admit that. He says “it’s an excuse to hangout and catch up” but I have been in so many of these calls where there was never so much as a “how’s the family” or “this happened in my life” moment.

Last year me(f31) and my bf(m33) attended couples therapy together. We decided to go because I was unhappy in our relationship due to him having anger issues, making condescending remarks, and in all just being a bit of a jerk at times. I was beginning to think my relationship had abusive elements and I wanted a professional to help us sort our issues.

We went about 5 times before I left in tears after a session. On this particular day the therapist wanted me to “air out” things that he had done that I felt were an issue.

The main thing I talked about how was: One night my bf planned to pick me up from work and we were supposed to have a date night. Well when my bf came to pick me up the plans had changed and he decided to take me home so he could “game with the boys” instead. He was quite agitated and driving recklessly. I asked him to slow down and he was ignoring me, speeding up, and slamming on his breaks. When we got to my house I was in tears and he further demanded to come upstairs because he was “sure I had some guy upstairs” the whole thing was PSYCHOTIC. There was zero reasoning with him and he wasn’t the man I knew. He eventually confessed that he was absolutely wasted, and had gotten into an argument with his friend right before picking me up. (Not relevant but we broke up for 2 months due to this). I told her that since then I have a hard time seeing him differently and it really upset me. This was one example of many where he had blown up at me, when I had done nothing.

Our therapist chuckled and said, “Well we all make mistakes. We all have crazy stories from our past. You wouldn’t want to know the craziness I’ve gotten into!” Then sort of looked at my bf and smiled. The rest of the appointment revolved around “why I couldn’t let go of the past” and how “no one is perfect and I’ve probably done things I’m not proud of”. Well I can confidently say I have never put anyone’s life at risk because I was pissed about a COD match.

She asked me if I was projecting my mother onto him, and trying to hold him to unrealistic standards. I told her that no, the situation seemed completely reasonable to dump someone over. And I wanted to work through his issues for why he did something like that so it wouldn’t happen again. Once again, focus was put back on me and why I felt this way. She actually began to insist that maybe I’m not comfortable forgiving and moving on and that was causing him to act out. She even said me ending our relationship for 2 months and not working through it, was more damaging than his reckless drunk driving.

I basically left crying and never went back.

Do therapists sometimes… pick a side? I hate to say that. I feel like it would be really uncommon for that to happen. But something about our sessions often felt unprofessional and like she would shoot the shit with my bf about colleges they went to or sports they liked. She never called him out on his behaviors or tried to dig deeper. When I brought up a concern she would ask me “why” and then never explain to my bf how it could be harmful.

Ex: my bf complains that I was tired after work and forgot to take out the trash. She would tell me that’s damaging and doesn’t show team player attributes. How it’s upsetting to him because he can’t “rely” on me.

Ex: I tell her that my bf lost it in an argument and told me I thought I “was hot shit because I have a shitty little manager position at my retail job and would be nothing if it weren’t for him”- and suddenly it “we all make mistakes, I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

The drunk driving once tho really bothered me. I’m not a therapist so idk but I feel like that should have been treated as a serious manner not laughed about.

Am I wrong?

I’ve had a reoccurring theme in most of my relationships to date with my partners belittling my music tastes. My partner before my current one was a HUGE metal head (I like metal too, but I like other genres as well). My ex would emotionally blow up at me if I played anything alt, indie, or god forbid classical. Turn it off if he heard me playing it. I wasn’t allowed to play my music in the car. Needless to say it didn’t work out. Music is very important to me and I have strong emotional ties to certain songs.

Due to that experience I became a bit more withdrawn with my music tastes. I honestly like a bit of everything from a Tim McGraw song or two, underground rap, EDM, 90’ metal, - you name it I probably enjoy a song or two.

My bf that I’ve been seeing for 4 years expressed that I didn’t “share enough” of my interests with him and was a bit too private. I explained my past experiences and how I had grown to feel like I needed to keep things close to me to my chest. He explained that his ex girlfriend was the same way, and he hated feeling judged for what he liked.

Now my bf only really listens to EDM, nightcore, Europop. I enjoy these genres as well so we typically listen to it together (though it gets to be a bit too much sometimes… sometimes I feel a bit more low energy) but I have never said anything remotely negative about what he likes. If he send me a song I listen to it and give good feedback.

I’ll say it started about a year ago when he asked me if I would show him some songs I liked. I started with things he probably hadn’t heard before that were a little more obscure. I explained the meaning of the song and its importance to me. He talked through the entire song, ended up turning it down, and had nothing to comment on it after. Seemingly uninterested but I wasn’t offended.

Over the last few months I’ve been listening to a lot more music and there have been times I’ve asked to play a song in the car, or walked around the house playing music. It hasn’t gone well most of the time.

On my birthday I showed him a song in a genre we both like (on our way to dinner) and he turned it down and started talking about a coworkers time share. It went on and on. I asked him after if I could replay it and he got annoyed and said that it was a shitty song. Annoying rhythm. Annoying vocals. And he even agreed with his ex gf about it being trash. I got really upset because he didn’t need to do any of that. He ended up apologizing, but it’s happened again.

Last week I showed him a brand new alternative song. Within 20 seconds he says “why would you show me this” “what do you even like about this” “do you think I’m the type of person to listen to this trash” “annoying basic people music”. Which is essentially imo insulting me because I like it! All he had to say was wait until after and been like “not my thing”. I decided then I wasn’t going to show him anymore of my music.

Today I came upstairs on my day off while he was playing videogames, to clean our kitchen. I was softly playing some Cranberries playlist when he groaned and asked me why I was playing “coworker music”. God forbid I want to remember my childhood while washing some dishes. I have heard him listen to hamster dance on repeat until 3am some nights and never made a comment. He went as far as to say it made him feel sick and repulsed and was giving him a migraine(it was shitty retail music). I got frustrated and went back down stairs. He came downstairs and said I could just use headphones.

I went back up with headphones and he pestered me with questions every 3 minutes and I had to keep pulling my headphones off to talk to him and eventually decided to just clean later.

I often feel small or like I need to guard my interests close to my chest to avoid ridicule. I really don’t mind if people don’t like my interests, but I would hope that people like me enough to not tear down what I enjoy. This is something that started in my childhood (very judgmental angry mother) and has repeated itself in relationships.

Im wondering where I’ve gone wrong. I didn’t think my bf was judgemental but it has started to happen, and now I’m convinced that either sharing my past made him judgemental… or me being so non-judgemental annoyed him to be more like that. Then again, maybe this is how most people express when they don’t like something and I am forcing expectations on people to be more polite/open minded.

It’s really hard for me to have an opinion on situations that I am in, so I would really appreciate if someone could weigh in on my situation. I would also like to know how I should act in the future. Should I turn my music up and be like “well that sucks” or have another heart-to-heart with my bf and explain that his insults bother me? He says it’s all well-intended and he is just expressing how he feels, and that he doesn’t “mean” to cause any hurt. He says he’s always been “blunt” however… he wasn’t like that when he was getting to know me lol.

TLDR: my bf makes fun of the music I enjoy. Due to this I feel like I need to be more private. I need advice on how to either express myself and help him see the importance of that, or maybe a “he’s an ahole leave him”.