I just realized that when my anchor partner says "I need alone time" what he's actually saying is "I need a break from you time". He's still talking to his metamours, his gaming friends, pretty much anybody except for me. And that's really hurtful. Not because I don't think he should ever get a break from me (he definitely should), but because "alone time" seems like a disingenuous statement when it's less about being alone and more about not talking to me.

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I've thought back on my own alone time, and that usually means actual, literal alone time. I'm reading or gaming a game that doesn't require other people. I might watch TV, or craft, or watch a crafting vid. I could be writing or listening to music, or cleaning. Whatever it is, it's truly minimal interaction with people.

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I'm curious about what everybody else thinks about their own alone time, and what it means. Does anybody distinguish between true alone time (as in, "go away world, I just want to do my own thing with no human interaction") vs "I just need some time away from you" time?

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I think part of what bothers me is that alone time for him used to mean that he was taking a break from all relationships but now it really does seem to mostly mean just a break from me. I am debating asking that both of us specify in the future if we mean actual alone time or "I need a break from you" time. In part because for this particular case, I'm starting to become concerned that Partner might actually be kinda unhappy with our life (or some part(s) of his life), and refusing to look at that. So he wants increasing "alone time" away from me, and fills up a lot of his time with gaming or talking to people about nothing at all related to his life. This is totally a theory only right now, but if he seems to need time away from me at the end of the night when our work schedules are such that we often don't see each other for days at a time AND Monday - Friday if he's not working, then he's home alone, away from me, and after 2-3 hours together he STILL wants more "I need a break from you" time, then there has GOT to be something going on that's he's unhappy about.

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But that's a whole other ball of yarn.

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What is and isn't "alone time" to you? Has there ever been a time where you were bothered by a partner's definition of "alone time"?