I pushed my girlfriend away but she is giving me another chance

[Fleetpelican123]

Hi everyone, I wonder if you can help me. I've been with my girlfriend for almost eight months now and yesterday we had a bit of a provoked falling out.

 

When we first started out everything was absolutely perfect and we were both very much in love. However sometime a few months ago I started becoming a bit insecure, over protective and controlling. I always had these hints she was losing interest because of these things but when I confronted her she reassured me that she was still very much in love with me and wanted to be with me.

 

Throughout the relationship I have been rather clingly and perhaps smothered her to the point where she is sick of me, that in combination with being controlling is a bit of a recipe for disaster. Yesterday I rang her complaining how she had went out with some guy friends and not answered my calls. The argument resulted in me asking her if I even still make her happy to which she said that she hadn't been very happy lately, I proceed to tell her I loved her and she said that she didn't know anymore.

 

I went and met her shortly after the phonecall and we talked about the situation and how things haven't been the best but we also discussed fixing things, she told me that basically I'm not the guy she fell in love and that my insecurities have made her not feel free to which I agree with 100% and don't want to be like, we went on a walk and agreed to give things a try. She told me she is still in love with the old me but she doesnt get to see him very often cause we always argue. My approach is to give her a lot more space and inbetween spending time with her I will try and avoid texting her at all.

 

I just want to know if there is still hope for us to fix things or if I have messed things up for good and how I can make things work again?

[fromheart]

Have a look at Corey Wayne on youtube, some useful advice there.

 

Im guessing when you started seeing each other, she felt free but along the way you had expectations as to how she should be.

 

Give her full freedom, and become more detached with her. Super caring, but let her come and go. That should help alot.

 

Yes, at least one of the guy friends wants to sleep with her and he's waiting in the wings to see if she'll be single. Thats the way it gos, you can't control other peoples actions. If she's a good woman, she wont entertain him in any way and you have nothing to worry about.

 

Bear in mind that now she's done a dump, she'll be more inclined to use this as a control method herself. If she talks about ending things again don't beg, plead or talk about it. Just politely walk away.

 

There's alot of hope, but the clingy behavior must go!

[ExpatInItaly]

Can you give us some examples of things you said or did that came across as clingy and controlling?

 

That will give us a better idea of your situation and how to go about remedying it.

 

Also, don't just stop texting her all together. Tone it down, of course, but I wouldn't suggest pulling a complete 180 either. You need to strike a balance.

[mavendark]

I'm going to preface by saying that I'm on the other side of this relationship. Or... past relationship. It didn't work out for me, I broke it off with the guy just last Sunday. His neediness, clinginess, smothering eventually drove me away. It became an insane roller coaster ride where he said he would give me space, and then 5 days later get into another argument with me about how I'm not giving him enough attention/emotional support (what happened to giving me space?), etc. Same cycle over and over again.

 

If you think you can be HAPPY by giving her space, then please tone it down and give her space. Otherwise, if you are still going to be unhappy even though you know the right thing to do is to give her space, then perhaps she may not be a good fit for you.

 

Your story almost sounds exactly like mine. I gave my ex one more chance, and he mucked it up. Don't muck it up and just give her the space she needs.

[Fleetpelican123]

Well for example it's not really as if I control her in a sense in which I'm telling her what to do all the time, more like me giving her grief for doing something differently to how had seen it going in my head. For instance one time we had plans to go for a nice quiet dinner at this local restaurant and she text me saying that her best friend and a couple other friends were coincidentally going around the same time so she suggested we joined them. However me being largely selfish I called up rather angry stating how she had 'ruined' are dinner plans and how I just wanted to spend the evening with her. Obviously in hindsight I should have been a lot more casual about the whole ordeal and just accepted it.

 

A similar thing happened not so long ago in which I was arranged to be spending time at her place before she went on holiday for a week and I had literally left the house on my way to hers when she text me telling me that she had to go to someone in her extended family's birthday party, I do however feel that most people would get annoyed or upset in this situation however it was how I dealt with it in which I'm not proud of. I called her up asking her to come to my house instead and massively guilt tripped her by comparing her to me saying things like 'I would never do that to you'. After all the shouting and arguing she agreed to come to my house for a little bit before she left. In hindsight I should have simply put across that I wasn't a fan of her waiting till the last minute to tell me and left it at that instead of making her feel bad for it.

 

Other instances of sort of insecurities are things like me comparing us and measuring our actions in a sense. For instance I buy her flowers and stuff on the regular and I may criticise her sometimes for not doing anything for me although I have come to learn that people simply manifest their love in different ways.

 

I realise what I have been doing is very tiring for both of us and I have been taking steps to concur my insecurities from within because I really want to be with this girl and just be happy together.

[bummer]

I proceed to tell her I loved her and she said that she didn't know anymore.

 

I'll go ahead and read between the lines here and say you probably can't successfully "tone it down" and keep this sustained. She doesn't want to hurt you and she doesn't want to be with you. The damage is done. it's like driving your car into a mailbox, you can't just slowly reverse to fix it...