So, I need to have a talk with Real Estate, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm afraid he will take it wrong, but the only way I will know is if I have this conversation.
I need some space.
Not like in a bad way, "I'm not sure if this is what I want and I might break up with you" space. In an, "I love spending time with you, but I'm spending so much time with you that I never see my friends anymore and I don't have time to do my laundry and focus on things that are important to me, and I need a little more balance in my life" space. We spend every weekend together, regardless of whether or not we have actual specific plans... and an entire weekend is a LOT of hours to take out of my schedule. I work full-time, plus my commute, Mon-Fri. If I spend all weekend at his place, that only leaves me with Mon-Thurs evenings (3-4 hrs per night max) to do everything else that I need/want to do, like laundry, groceries, meal prepping, seeing my friends. I've had to resort to, "Hey, friend, I would love to hang out with you, but only if you come over and we drink wine while I do my laundry and clean my room." And all this time spent at his place on the weekends... if we don't have anything specific planned, we just hang out and watch TV/movies, which really isn't quality time.
I don't think he realizes just how much time that is for me to take out of my schedule. He has mastered the Tim Ferris 4-hour work week or whatever. Literally, he works at MOST 2-3 hrs a day... from home. So he doesn't have to deal with a commute, or even showering, if he doesn't want to. He can work in his pajamas, if he wants to. It isn't like he's hurting for extra time the way that I am, so I think it just hasn't occurred to him.
So I'm going to have to say that I can only spend one weekend day... or I'm only coming over if we have definite plans to do something. Something like that. I have plans and goals that I want to work on, like writing my novel (finally), among other things. He is very supportive of these, but I need TIME to accomplish them... and he's being a huge time suck right now, and the time we're spending together isn't always quality time, and if it's not quality time, it's not a good use of my time.