Still trying to figure out this "Do what you want" stuff

[Enjaycee]

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/romantic/dating/482071-gf-wants-me-do-what-i-want-do

 

Please read the previous post in the link above if you wish to get a little bit of a better understanding of what's happening in order to give me some advice.

 

As well, here are some other things that I neglected to mention in my previous post about my new long-distance gf:

 

1. When we were talking, we talked for about a month before we decided to become exclusive. During that time, I made the grave mistake of thinking with my junk and had a girl over for a weekend and slept with her...after we had done the deed, I caved in from the guilt and remorse and ended up telling her about it, she was not happy...(she said that I shouldn't be "talking to other girls romantically" while talking to her, and I took it a step further and had sex with someone else...so yeah, felt horrible...regretted it, wished I could go back and stop myself from doing it.) Having done something so profound so early on was not my smartest move.

 

2.

A few weeks after we started dating, that same girl that I had slept with Snapchatted me and told me about the vacation she was going on. Being the nice/stupid guy I am, I decided to respond and ask where/when/how she was going, blah blah blah. I told my gf about the convo. Again...she wasn't too happy.

 

In hindsight, I could have avoided all the drama and gotten away with it from those two incidents if I just kept my mouth shut about it and moved along, but I was honest and told her because I didn't want to be sneaking around and hiding things from her.

 

3. This is actually something new:

The "friend" I mentioned before in my previous post is someone who I had also met online, almost a year ago, who lives in another city 4 hours away, and that I had driven to go on a single date with and got rejected the next day, but ended up becoming good friends with later on. What made my gf really upset was that I had offered my friend a few weeks ago to drive, by myself, all the way to go visit her and comfort her since she had just broken up with her bf (when that time could have been spent with my gf instead, duh!). Again, told my gf about it because I thought it was a harmless thing to do. I was wrong, and she was fairly upset (I had to kind of coax her to let out her anger and frustration on me this time, which she did. Kind of helped things a little since she tends to bottle up everything).

 

4.

I have another female best friend/family friend who is like my surrogate sister, and I have known her for 2-3 years now. I can't count how many times people have thought that we were dating. She has a boyfriend of 4 years, and the thought of dating someone who I consider like my sister is just sickening to me. We pick on each other like a brother and sister would, and have a strong bond, but never have we been intimate or kissed or anything. Again, the thought is sickening...Her family has taken me in as their surrogate son during my years in college, and their home has become my home away from home (they let me raid their pantry and fridge whenever I was hungry, I was always welcome to come over whenever, and many times I have spent the night sleeping on the couch there, I was invited over for dinner and family picnics many times, her parents have given me great life advice and never once seriously complained about me making myself at home in their house. I am so blessed and grateful that there were people as nice as them and to have taken me in). My gf has actually met her when everyone and their parents met up to watch me graduate from college a few months ago. Even my gf thought there was jealousy coming from her when they met, but I reassured her that it wasn't anything like that at all. My gf's mother couldn't believe that I never once had an attraction to her all this time. Now my "sister" comes to visit me at my apartment every so often, sometimes with her boyfriend. To this day, I do not believe that my gf has a problem with this, but I would not be surprised if it turned out she did

 

Looking back, given these incidents with these other women, besides no.4, it's no wonder that my gf is bothered by me and all these girls. I've made myself out to be a player and it's making her feel like she's just "holding me back." Couple this with her already dark history with past guys being unfaithful/inconsistent, right now to her I probably seem like all these other guys.

 

 

Fast forward:

I had a gut feeling last night that my gf was bothered by something. And sure enough, she did. I noticed her texting patterns when we talk have now reflect her attitude that I had previously described as "nonchalant" about things.

 

On Saturday, I went back to my alma mater to celebrate my fraternity brother's 22nd birthday. We went to the bar and had drinks, and then some more drinks, and then some more drinks. I wasn't planning on it, but I ended up being your typical frat-boy wasted...the night was fun, it was good to see some of my boys again, reconnect/catch-up, all that good stuff. Told the gf what all went on and she sounded like she was cool with it until she mentioned "I think getting drunk is bad." Sure enough, the drinking/partying bothers her too (I'm of age now, in a fraternity, and I was in college, and I've done it plenty of times, who hasn't? It's to be expected, right? Since graduating, I don't do it nearly as much anymore, but every once in a while, like Saturday, I come out to have a few with my brothers and have a good time. Now, Saturday was pretty bad because I know I had too many, even if the occasion was for someone's birthday. I get that, but surely its not so bad to go out at a rate of what is now once every two weeks with people I know and have known for a while?)

 

 

Couple that with the "other girls" problem, the arguments we've had already, and apparently the fact that not once has she "been on a date without being expected to pay." This last one I think stems from her past as well, but I have also not fully paid for a single date between us yet. The way it's been going down is we meet up somewhere for whatever it is we are doing, and we usually end up buying stuff at restaurants for meals, seeing a movie, paying for some kind of service. Combine that with gas and you easily have a $100+ day. To make things fair, I have always asked if she was fine paying for this while I paid for that, and she's always seemed ok with it, but apparently this may not be the case. I did it like that so it wasn't so one-sided and so she wouldn't ever feel guilty for me paying for everything. I thought this one was a little ridiculous, but given that I have a big-boy job now and I'm on salary while she's still hourly, I don't have a problem with paying for everything on a couple dates, especially around paydays. Apparently she's spent more on me than anyone. The thing that gets me here though is that she mentions this money problem, but then says that she doesn't care that she did it because she wanted to and doesn't expect anything. Really though, a money problem already? I've been raised to believe that it's not all about money, so that's why I see this as a little ridiculous.

 

Point of this extremely long post being, given what's all occurred, she tells me all of these grievances, tells me still that I should "do what I want" with "anyone" and "don't think about me" so that I don't feel restricted about my decisions while at the same time distancing herself from heartache, but still tells me that she cares for me deeply, and now she mentions that she feels rushed in the relationship and we should slow down to get to know each other more. Mind you, it HAS only been two months now, and we already talked about marriage and kids and moving closer and all that, so this I can understand (I tried to slow things down at first because she WAS all into me, but then we had a fuss about that too when I freaked out about it going too fast, so then I went full steam ahead and now the shoe's on the other foot. She admits I was right in the first place). She is 19 and I am 22. I guess I'm still considered "young" but she's even younger, but she tells me that I am young and still need to explore, like she has all this wisdom or something, and quite frankly I find it a little insulting, but I haven't really said anything about that. When I apologize she says "don't be". When I reassure her that she's not dragging me down or anything like that, she refuses and really believes she is. When she says "do what you want" and I say "I want to be with you" she doesn't see why. I don't get it! I can't get through to her and no matter what I say gets turned around or shot down. I keep trying to be reassuring, but now its to the point where I feel I have to take a day of vacation just to drive four hours to her town in order to surprise her and make a statement that she's the only one I want to be with.

 

Inevitably there are some of you who actually read this and would probably tell me to get out while I can. Well you should also know that I'm one to try to fix my relationship problems instead of leaving. So please, if you don't have anything to offer besides that, don't bother commenting. I'm trying to make things right with a young woman who I feel I could really have a healthy, successful life with once I clean up this mess that I made. Any advice or encouragement besides that would be greatly appreciated.

Edited June 23, 2014 by Enjaycee

[TXGuy]

I'm not suggesting that you move on from the relationship. Keep pursuing it, if you want. I would suggest that getting wasted twice a month is excessive. Especially when you have a history of cheating when drunk.

 

What I'm suggesting is that it might be too late. In my experience, when a woman says "do whatever you want with whoever you want" it is followed by the unspoken, but universally understood, "because I plan to do that too."

[Enjaycee]

I told her that if I'm keeping a female friend then she can. So far, she still only wants to be with me. At some point, it's probably inevitable she will find a guy-friend to hang with, and I will have to be okay with it whether I like it or not.

 

Getting drunk all the time is something I used to do because of the environment I was in. I enjoyed it, yeah, but growing up, graduating from college, realizing that most successful people don't do it nearly as much, and being out of the environment now, I don't feel the need so much anymore to drink excessively. A beer here or there is fine, but getting wasted was not in my agenda last weekend. My buddy and I realized this ourselves the next day. Now it's up to us to stick to that resolve, instead of getting the itch to do it again and indulging in it.

 

And now just today she told me that she thinks I'm changing myself for her. I don't feel like I am. The decisions I make are my own. But apparently that's not the case. This is exhausting...

[GemmaUK]

Apologies, I go bored of reading it all.

 

How much is she supposed to be putting up with?

 

I'm not surprised she is nonchalant.