Is it a bad sign when I want to be home alone at least sometimes?

There’s nothing wrong with you. Your friend is probably like me. I /need/ someone there for me. Once I found that with my SO, it has been nearly impossible for me to function without them. The thought of sleeping without them, or being away from them terrifies me.
However a friend of mine is like you. His wife doesn’t want to away from him, but he wants some time away from her.
It’s normal to feel the way you do. Many people do. Think of it like this: your SO is like family (and with luck someday will become your family) and just like family, you don’t want to be around them 24\7, even if you love them.
Even though we humans are extremely social creatures, almost requiring it to function properly, it doesn’t mean we need that interaction 24\7. It’s okay to want time alone. It’s even okay to say, politely, that you want to be alone. If your SO really loves you and understand you, then they will let you have that time, regardless of how they feel, at least in my option.
Even though it kills me inside to be away from mine, I still let it happen. I even feel the same way you do sometimes. There have been plenty of days where I just wanted to be alone.
I suspect, if you are like me, it might be something similar, in that, there are just days were I want to “revert” to the single lifestyle. I don’t want to be constantly thinking of the needs of my partner, or be on “their schedule.”
As I said, it’s normal to feel the way you do. Just tell your SO you want some time alone. Have them go do something else with their friends or their family, and enjoy a few hours of “you time.” If they understand you and love you, they’ll do it.

Hell no! We all need alone time and that is a healthy desire.
Gah…living with someone again after years of living alone is driving me nuts.
I miss having my own home and being alone.

No shame in that!

I am alone a lot and I prefer it. I even like it when my daughter, who is 6, is not home. It’s peaceful, I can watch what I want on TV, go out when I want to, be quiet and not talk if I don’t want to. What’s not to like?

The mere fact that you explained the latter of your description is proof that is what your preference is.

Also it’s not abnormal it’s a time for you to be able to think and clear some stuff out in your head or just enjoy your surroundings without having to meet anyones expectations etc.

Is there a poison gene in females? I never understood why it seems most women in my life, have compared themselves to situations their friends have instead of just leaving it there. Your envy for friend, albeit not serious, shouldn’t be used to degrade her. Just accept it for how it is, if she struggled while her whole family was away, there’s no need to criticize or badmouth her. Even if she her self said she was going nuts.

It’s ok to ask your significant other for some space. In fact make that space for yourself tell them you need some alone time for meditation or if you want to be extremely nice about it tell them you want to go to a park, or you’re going to exercise for 45 minutes alone. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t not understand

Women of a certain age joke that on the eve of their husband’s retirement it’s “For better or for worse but never for lunch.”

Virginia Woolf, that most broody and mercurial of writers, called it A Room of One’s Own‘s_Own

Disliking too much forced proximity is not bad ,abnomal, wrong or culpable behavior.. It just is, and as such, is not open for debate.

Our solution, wherever we lived, was to have “my space’ and “his space,” places where we could have some privacy to do anything…read, watch TV, write, work, meditate, stare out the wondow, eat ice cream from the carton, talk on the phone, OD on social networks.

Does your husband never get out? Do you? Do you have other places to hang out besides home?

@pleiades why do you think I “badmouthed” her about dying with her husband gone? She only said it by email and I never responded.
How I try and compensate for all this having to be exposed to his tv is I go get into bed at 6pm and watch tv alone until 9pm. And the poor thing always comes in there about three times with some little snippet he wants to say to me about the news or a friend or whatever. But I guess three hours is what it’s going to be. I really want to be kind. He deserves it.

How about having a candid conversation about the different you both have and how to address them? Watching TV alone in bed from 6:00PM to 9PM seems a very strange way of being kind to someone. You need to be equally kind to yourself. That is what contented couples strive for.

Set some house rules and rewards. Ask for his input.

edit: window

Even when I have a s/o in my life I still need what I term “Me Time”, It helps me process things and decompress. Too bad you can’t do that when your a single parent, sometimes I just want a weekend to myself to relax instead of constantly cleaning, cooking and preparing things for them.

It is a bad sign to those around you who cannot seem to ever be alone.
Because they will see that you are able to enjoy your own company and that you are not a co-dependent personality like they are.

@Dan_Lyons there are not people around me except for him. My daughter isn’t around me but I know she finds it very strange that I’m not out driving around to stores and malls and meeting up with friends like she does. First of all, I am a whole lot older than she is and I used to do what she does now. Secondly, I only had three close friends in this town and two have died, the other moved 35 miles away. I just spent an hour talking and laughing with her on the phone today.

I like being alone. It gets unpeasant when it goes on too long though. It’s good to swtch things up a bit.

Most women I know over the age of 40 like having some alone time. They were slaves to their kids for years, many were slaves to their husbands too, and then they reach a certain place in life where they just want to be left alone to do whatever the hell they want, and that usually involves some time alone. I don’t have children and my marriage has always been pretty equal, I never felt like I was doing much more than him in terms of work and household chores, and still I like some alone time. I don’t feel like I want him to leave for a weekend, but I can understand wanting that sort of break. Many couple sleep in separate rooms, especially as they get older for various reasons, so they get to run their bedrooms how they want. Like, I really really like to fall asleep with the TV and my husband won’t. It has bothered me our whole marriage, minor bother, but still a bother.

God, no. If anyone were around me 24/7, I’d go insane. You’re perfectly normal. While it’s nice that you’re trying to be good to your husband, you need to learn how to take care of yourself, too.

I feel exactly the same. I like to have at least one day a week on my own. It doesn’t mean I don’t love my boyfriend, I just sometimes need some time to recharge my batteries. I think it’s unhealthy to be in someone’s pocket 24/7.

Ha, your situation sounds like mine. I often go to my bedroom to read in the evenings, only to have my husband come up 15mins later and turn on the tv in our bedroom. If I’d wanted to be in the room with him with the tv on, I would have stayed downstairs!

We introverts need alone time to recharge our social batteries. Being around other people is exhausting and the more introverted you are, the quicker your batteries get drained. If you have to be around people at work, for example, then your alone time in the evenings is going to be vital.

I’m not sure how successful talking to your so would be, as often the other person needs that company as much as you don’t, if you know what I am saying. But they have the upper hand because it’s easier to actively seek out company but it’s harder to get solitude. My mum had a friend who was so outgoing that she would talk to anyone. One time they were on holiday and isabel waded out to a couple of Italian women paddling in the sea and talked at them for 20 mins. In English. They spoke only Italian. She didn’t care!

Is there any way to make some time to be alone, like leaving earlier for work then sitting quietly somewhere reading? Every bit of alone time will add up, especially if you make sure you try to enjoy it.

@Stinley I loved your answer. I don’t work. We are both retired.
I get what you’re saying about the reading vs tv thing. I go to the bedroom to watch tv at 6pm now. I really enjoy it. When he pops in it makes me jump. And he’ll do that two to three times. Sometimes he will initiate a conversation when I’m watching a movie and I feel guilty because of what I want to say using profanity. LOL
He has lost interest in two hobbies and they were dropped . I used to love it when he’d go for four hours to play cards all the time but his excuse for not going now is he is a Platinum something duplicate bridge player and they are hard to find. I thought gold was the highest level but no; then he got Platinum.
He just sold his golf cart since swinging the club hurt his back and also he doesn’t like the prices they charge here. It’s hopeless. I fully realize he will be missed someday.

@Stinley I love the reference to social batteries and needing alone time to recharge them, so perfect to how I feel. @Aster, Honey get rid of that guilty feeling and NOTHING is wrong with you! How else is a person suppose to think and understand themselves or the world around them if they never get the opportunity to sit quietly and take it all in?