To all the women out there...

Dump him. It’s not anyone’s place to tell you what to do or not to do, as long as it’s something legal. I had one b/f who tried telling me who I could and couldn’t be friends with, which turned into what I could and could not do when he wasn’t around, so I left him. Once you let him get away with telling you what to do in this sense, he won’t stop.

Well instead of just being a child and just DUMPING him with out even thinking about it. Think of why he might not you want to go to this certain place or hanging out with this certain person. Then (this is a great idea) TALK to him about. No one ever communicate, that is the reason for 99% of all world problems. After you do that you can figure out if he’s just being a jerk or not.

I agree with simone54 that you should talk to him about it. You shouldn’t dump him just because he is acting irrationally. He is acting this way because he feels very strongly about whatever behavior you are engaging in. While he may not be responding in the most mature manner, this in no way excuses you from doing something as equally and more so immature as dumping him without even discussing the matter. He may not like it when you go clubbing (to borrow an example from you) not because you are clubbing but because of how you act while doing it. You have to ask him about it. Without trying to work through this problem you are not only doing him a disservice by valuing him so little to not even question why he would ask this of you, but you are doing yourself a disservice by refusing to take the steps to grow together as a couple, and also as an individual.

Yeah, you can do whatever you want, but there are two people in a relationship and relationships are all about compromise. If that’s impossible for you, maybe you’re better off single.

Dump him.

A good relationship is based on equality, on partnership. We each of us have our own individual destiny, our own reason for corporeal life. Neither can fully know or understand the other’s. If you truly love someone, you negotiate, you discuss, you come up with valid reasons for asking your SO to behave or not behave in a specific way. You never lay down the law and tell them not to do something or see someone “just because”.

When my husband and I were still courting and discussing marriage, one of the very first things that was mentioned was our long time friendships. Each of us had deep, personal relationships with someone of the opposite gender. Yet he asked, and I immediately agreed, that our life together did not discard these people from our lives. This was the second time around for us both, too. So he has a female friend he’d known for 20 years or more and my male friend I’d known for even longer. We share things with our deepest friends we sometimes don’t share with each other.

Everyone needs secrets. Moreover, everyone needs someone with whom they can share their deepest secrets. It’s ok if this person is not your spouse. When you marry someone, or simply enter into a long-term relationship, you are basically planning to pursue your life destinies side by side, to share the path as much as possible. But you can’t always share every part of that path, and shouldn’t. It is not healthy, spiritually, emotionally, to be too much in each other’s back pocket. Some people may be able to live that way, but the majority of us can’t.

I’m not female, but I’ve represented men and women who have had these sorts of differences.

I think we don’t have enough information from you to give you good advice. Each of the posters above gives you good advice, depending on different assumptions about why this conduct is occurring.

If possible, I think you need to have a conversation with him and, if possible, rationally and calmly discuss why he is making this request. Your use of the word “banned,” if it is an accurate description of his conduct, suggests he feels very strongly about this.

Think about what he has requested. He may have made this request because he does not have enough information about your conduct. If he has “banned” you from going clubbing with a very attractive man, for example, and he doesn’t know this man is your second cousin who is gay, then giving him this information may change his position. On the other hand, if this man is your former lover of 5 years, his position might not change.

I suspect what it will come down to is whether he is trying to control you and your relationships with others, or whether he is trying to protect you and your relationship with him.

Another possibility is his problem is not so much with your activity away from him, but that your time away from him is having an effect on the health of your relationship with him. For example, there would be a difference between you having lunch every other week with an old friend, and your clubbing 3 nights a week with a number of people who themselves engage in questionable activity. Ask yourself whether it would be a problem for you if he engaged in equivalent activity.

It may also be that it is not the people you are with, or the time you are away from him, but that he simply is a person who does not like to go out or be with other people. This could even take the form of a psychological concern. You will then have to consider whether you can have a healthy relationship with a person who wishes to spend their life significantly different than how you wish to spend yours.