Outside in my Own Home

Dear Amy,
I drove up to the place I live with my boyfriend and he walked into his shop with one of his friends that’s a girl. I know of her but do not actually know her. He doesn’t even acknowledge that I am there. He said I should of just walked in there but I felt he should of made the effort to acknowledge me and introduced us. He said its’ my problem but since its his friend I felt he should taken the more of the effort to make me feel included. Am I wrong for feeling that way?

Dear Outside,

      Feelings are neither right or wrong, they’re just feelings and you’re fully entitled to them. My personal opinion: he should have introduced you. But some people have a different idea about what is proper in social situations than I do and it may simply be that he figured “she lives here” so he didn’t feel like he needed to make special introductions. Was he kind of a jerk? Yes. But is it an unforgivable offense. No, not really.
     Here’s the thing. What’s he’s saying is sort of true. It is your problem. You felt left out (rightly so, in my opinion) but he’s not in charge of your feelings; you are. However, I believe that not being in charge of another person’s feelings doesn’t relieve you of responsibility for your actions. It was sort of rude of him to just leave you hanging there. And its perfectly okay for you to let him know how it made you feel.
     So here’s what I suggest. Tell him that you understand that your feelings are your own and then tell him that when he leaves you out like that, it makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s not unreasonable to ask him to introduce you to new people and if he’s not willing to consider your feelings about that then he’s really not being very kind to you. My guess is he probably just got defensive and if you talk about it with him without accusing him and if you take responsibility for your own emotional reactions, he might just come around.
     Work on trying to understand his point of view and maybe he’ll see yours a little more clearly.

Amy