komok Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 So my girlfriend (35) and I (34) have been dating for about a year and a half and we keep running into a certain issue. She is very close with her sister and I have witnessed on several occasions particular behaviors of jealousy towards me and dependency towards my girlfriend. At our birthday dinner (her sister and I are a couple days apart) she started arguing with their 7 year old nephew (she’s 29) about who was going to sit next to my girlfriend at dinner and then sulked for most of the rest of dinner as my girlfriend was paying attention to me. Another time she “joked” for at least 10 minutes (literally) about us having an additional room in our house when we get married for her saying she was just joking and then whispering to me “I’m really not joking though.” So those are just a couple instances, but that’s the gist, and I get it she’s not telling my girlfriend to break up with me, but it just doesn’t make me feel 100% safe either. My girlfriend and I have talked about these issues at length, and have basically boiled it down to maybe I’m a bit hyperactive in what I perceive and she both admits a little dependency between them at times (though she says it has gotten a lot better than it was before I knew them) and defends the behavior at times because she feels like I’m saying her sister is a bad person, which I’m not I just think she can tend to be rather immature and I don’t like it when someone challenges me/exhibits jealousy of our relationship. What has made it harder recently is they moved in together and so she’s on the radar a lot more and I have fear of these feelings (her sisters') increasing and don’t feel entirely supported with the move in with her sister to begin with. Either way I find it hard to have someone this close (they’re best friends as well as being sisters) in my life that exhibits this behavior and it’s caused the most friction in our relationship over anything (in fact we generally don’t have friction over anything else). So I’m not totally positive what my question is, I (and she) would love a solution to this, so I suppose any thoughts or similar experiences anyone has had on this would be great. Thanks!
2.50 a gallon Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 RUN! I wish I had a better answer for you. The reason I say this is that in my late 20's I was in your shoes. I and a Hispanic gal were madly in love. Other than her older sister, her family accepted and were happy we wanted to marry, even though I was a blue eyed gringo. In fact her mother once told me she wanted a grand daughter with blue eyes, as in her favorite song, "Blue Spanish Eyes". Shortly after we announced our engagement, her newly divorced and man hating sister moved to our big city. We had to invite her to meet our friends, whom she mostly disliked from day one, as most of them were anglos. Her sister proceeded to piss off almost all of our friends. So her only friend was my GF. It was 2 years of pure hell. It was almost a constant battle. My lady wanted to marry and start a family, but I refused to set a date, until we got things resolved with her sister. After two years, she finally broke up with me. All of this was over 40 years ago, and though I am happily in a loving relationship of 20 years, there is still a little part of me, that wishes her sister had never came into our lives. But at the same time have no regrets about refusing to set a date, as we surely would have ended up divorced. I hope you have better luck than I had. 1
Httm Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 At a year and a half, why are you not living together? That would have prevented this problem from occurring in the first place...
kgcolonel Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 I to some degree with the earlier poster in "RUN".... My wife, sister (unmarried with no prospects or friends) and MIL are also enmeshed with each other. This issue is not with any of the two others, it is with the lack or boundaries with my wife. This is the same with your GF and may be even worse with them living together. You will be made to feel like a third wheel in the relationship. My wife and I have had many discussions on this and intellectually, she sees my point but has guilt pains which prevent her from a "normal" relationship with the sister and their mother. It has been the biggest challenge in our relationship to date of 33 years. Just a warning.
qubist Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 Do not marry her before you live with her first and see how things would be. Sometimes it take some people longer to realize things and I think she is not felling your concerns. 1
mystikmind2005 Posted November 10, 2015 Posted November 10, 2015 I perceived an element about the OP which looks a bit unhealthy here? Guys who have that tendency to desire separating a girl from her family, or feel threatened by her friends or family, it is a big red flag! When i have a partner who is close with her family or sister or friends, it puts a warm feeling in my heart to see that, and i do not expect her sister/friends to be perfect, not at all, i find it easy to be accepting because of the way i perceive their closeness.
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