Tell Me About It: He stays late at pal's; she frets

Question: My fiance and I have been together for nearly five years. One of our biggest bones of contention has been his relationship with his friends. I feel like he puts them above me. He says he views them more as family than friends and treats them as such. We live two houses away from one of his closest friends. My fiance often goes over to his friend's house just to hang out.

The issue normally arises when he tells me he will be home at a certain time. I will plan on that by making dinner or other plans. Almost always, the time he told me will come and go, and he will not be home. It varies from minutes to hours, but my issue is that he doesn't value me enough to come home when he says he will. He says I'm being controlling.

Answer: You and he are engaged in a classic, passive-aggressive power struggle, as you sit home waiting for him to come home and prove his love, and he sits at his friend's house quietly declining to live by your rules.

So I advise a complete dismantling of this struggle, in four parts.

(1) Ask him when he's coming home only when you have some need to know - you're cooking dinner, making plans, whatever.

(2) When he gives you a time, you regard it as an estimate unless you've made it clear your plans are time-sensitive.

(3) When it's meal-/show-/whatever-time, do not set your jaw and watch the clock. Just call your fiance or drop by the friend's house to say that.

(4)Do your own thing, one, two, a few nights a week. Instead of fighting your fiance's gravitational pull to his friends, accept it and start finding out whether you are capable of being happy with someone who essentially has more than one home.