re: How do you handle a "Free Time Imbalance? in a relationship?

Narcicissm is usually projection. They hate themselves, so they tell everyone how great they are hoping they believe it. How hard was it to see his penis? It sounds microscopic.

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Narcicissm is usually projection. They hate themselves

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Maybe. I'm not a psychologist. He was ultra concerned with his image among his professional colleagues. They all were. It was like a competition. Who has the most expensive sports car, who has the hottest trophy wife. To him I was a possession.

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Women are like law school classes. They throw this massive volume of information at you every day, far more than any person could reasonably commit to memory. In this information is everything you need to make your decisions about what she wants prioritized, what she needs from you, and what she wants to eat. It's all subtle, but it's typically all there. The task is to somehow pick the pertinent information out of that massive sea of claptrap she spouts just to vent out her emotions to find the select few nuggets of important information you need.

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Watch this video if you've never seen it

The “Nothing Box”: One Way Men and Women Are Different

My wife no longer works but when she did she used to go to work by 8am and I usually stroll into the office before 9am. Anyway, she would have to get up to get ready much earlier than me and I would be in bed and she would constantly mutter "it must be nice" while I was still laying in bed even though she would get home before 5pm and I wouldn't get home until around 7pm. Now, she is in bed when I leave and I have never said a word. That's how women are. Jealous and petty.

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Maybe. I'm not a psychologist. He was ultra concerned with his image among his professional colleagues. They all were. It was like a competition. Who has the most expensive sports car, who has the hottest trophy wife. To him I was a possession.

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Classic projection. He has an image he is chasing. He is insecure and wants others to believe he is hot shite. So, he does all this stuff to appear more important than he is. It comes across as narcissistic, but in reality, it's the opposite. He projects narcissism because he feels self-loathing. People who actually have a really high opinion of themselves and their accomplishments really don't rub it in anyone's face. They don't have to. They know they're worthwhile and believe their accomplishments speek for themselves. People who get caught up in this "keeping up with the Joneses" are typically self-loathing, vain, and petty people who seeking validation from others to make up for the fact that they have no validation from themselves. They will never be happy no matter what they possess. There will always be greener grass, a bigger house, a more expensive car, etc that they will chase obtaining.

You weren't a possession, you were ornamentation, a line-item on a resume.

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I also reminded her that I don't ask her to do anything, AND I lived without her and got by just fine.

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How did that go over? Hasn't worked well when I've used it.

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Do you see the couple's time as shared, so the partner who has more free time has an obligation to use that free time towards mutual interests/needs? Or is that time the individual partner's and the mutual time should be split evenly between the partners? Does an economic imbalance change your opinion? If the partner with free time makes more money, can this ever escape utter jealousy long term?

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In general women aren't rational about this kind of thing and will let frustration about their own situation get the best of them, but men can be just as guilty. People in general will shift goalposts in their favor until you call them out on it. This applies to any relationship in any context, be it business, friendship, or romance.

My SO is an attorney and rarely gets out of bed before 8:30 am, "works from home" at least once a week, and will randomly get day drunk with coworkers at lunch. The trade off is that every few weeks they will have a deadline and will work 16 hour days, weekends, etc. Just the culture in her firm that the schedule is caseload dependent.

I work a normal "9-5" as an engineer but am up every morning by 5:30 AM. I will routinely have 70+ hour weeks during a big project. I've stayed in hotels near work for days at a time because commuting back and forth didn't allow me enough time to get things done. Every few weeks, I'll cash in a fraction of my comp time and leave at lunch on Friday, or take a day off. The first few times it happened while we were together, she would casually throw in a "must be nice" type comment.

I shut that shite down quick. I reminded her of all the things I described, and said that my time off came at a cost, just like her leisurely mornings sipping coffee and workdays spent on the couch watching netflix came at the expense of long hours the week before. I made it clear that I certainly wasn't going to be spending that time cleaning the house or running errands out of some notion that since she was still working then I should be. We both contribute around the house and if it gets out of whack we call each other out.

Point being, a relationship has to be built over these little negotiations. Passive aggression is the enemy of happiness. You will have to communicate with each other constantly and set expectations, and stand up for yourself when need be even if it means an uncomfortable confrontation. There is no one size fits all answer that is canon, you have to find something that's mutually agreeable. If you don't talk about it and work out what you want it's just human nature the other will take what they can get. The agreements might not seem fair to someone looking from the outside in, but who gives a shite. All that matters is that the two people in the relationship maintain respect for each other, cause once that's gone it's over. Sounds like one of your friends in the example has lost respect for the other, and that's probably due to deeper issues than the one here on the surface.

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Diver Diva

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Weren't you just bragging about cars in another thread?

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my husband bought a Maserati.

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he's a fricking idiot, then

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Then you should have seen what happened when one of the wives got a breast enhancement.

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If you'd post some goddamn pictures, we might.