Rvet08 Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 ---- I apologize in advance for the very long post - this is my first time posting on here and I really need help from you all ----- For the last month or so, I've been in a huge dilemma on whether or not I should break up with my girlfriend. On one end she is an incredibly amazing girl with many great qualities that I see in a long term partner, but on the other end she has some terrible qualities and personality traits that have been slowly destroying our relationship for the last couple of months. I've been dating this girl for seven months now, she is 22, and I met her via one of my old co-workers at a football game a group of us went to together. I need ya'lls opinions on what I should do: stay with her and work out our problems, or scrap it all together. In summary, I am her first ever boyfriend. When we first started dating everything was absolutely amazing, and this lasted for approximately for the first three months of our relationship. We never fought, we would hang out together whenever we had free time, we'd talk to each other all day, we would go out together... essentially it was the perfect relationship. After this three month honeymoon period ended, the relationship took a completely different turn out of nowhere and we began fighting and bickering at LEAST once literally every single week to this very day (essentially the last four months). This is when all her cons manifested themselves. I've just about had it and am beginning to give up. Here is a list of pros and cons about her: PROS: This girl is incredibly loyal. She would never ever consider cheating on me even in her wildest dreams. She is also very honest and transparent. Never has she once told me any kind of lie. I also know she really, really loves and cares about me. We share all the same moral values and have very similar life philosophies. She loves spending time with me, and goes out of her way to do nice things for me. For example, on my birthday she surprised me by flying my brother out to Chicago where I live to surprise me (he lives in Delaware). If I'm ever sad or in any kind of stressful situation she has my back and will always be there to help me or comfort me. She also is supportive of my personal hobbies, interests and career goals, even if she doesn't necessarily understand them. She also gets along very well with my family members - they all generally like her. I also get along very well with her family too. Our parents have met and they also got along. Lastly, we have a lot of fun with each other one-on-one (given that we are having a good day) - we love hanging out and going on new adventures together and have very similar definitions of how we like to have fun. And quite obviously, I find her to be very beautiful. I really love these pros about her. On a good day, we click incredibly well. The last tumultuous four months, I have been clinging on to these pros for dear life. The first three months of our relationship were amazing because this is all I saw in her. I am afraid to break up with her for fear of losing a girl with these things. CONS: As much as I love my girlfriend, she has an immense amount of SERIOUS cons which cause 97% of the fighting and bickering in our relationship. First off, she refuses to let go of the past. To this day, she still gets very upset and angry when she thinks or is even reminded about my old hookups that happened ages ago before I even dated her. She always brings them up in an uncomfortable and passive aggressive way that causes tension repeatedly after I have told her nicely many times to stop. Likewise, she is very insecure about her personal appearance and my loyalty to her. Even though she knows I've never even come close to cheating on her or done anything to question my loyalty to her, she always asks me if I think other girls are hot, if I would get with another girl while I'm out and she's not with me, and things of that sort. She has zero self confidence in herself and her personal appearance. She has even admitted to going to events with me before to make sure I wouldn't hit on other girls and cheat on her. I have some incredibly platonic female friends that first started off as a fling a long time ago that she hates that I associate with. These friends are very close friends now despite our past, and it really puts me at a crossroads. She also feels threatened by the most random girls such as her best friends and roomates. She expects constant validation from me but never believes my compliments. Also, her mood changes immensely from day to day without warning. One day she'll be happy, the other day she'll be upset, the next depressed (her moods are mostly negative). It confuses me so much and I hate it because I'm always a happy person and she brings me down all the time with her constant mood changes. I never know when shes going to get into a bad mood when we are hanging out. It can happen at any time. Another con is that she is an incredibly clingy and anxious person. She expects me to give her constant attention in person and via text if I'm not with her. If I don't text her back for an extended period of time then she instantly becomes worried, bummed or upset. She also is very invasive. She has snooped at my phone countless times, even after I told her to stop, just to try and find dirt that is nonexistent. She finds small little things and makes assumptions about them before even asking and gets mad. Not just with my phone, but she demands to know every tiny little personal detail about my life and friends. I feel like I have literally zero privacy anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I just feel like she's ALWAYS in my space. And lastly, she is OVERLY sensitive. I can't give her a constructive criticism about anything, even regarding our relationship, without her getting offended or withdrawing herself from the conversation. When I try to communicate with her about anything serious, she automatically gets uncomfortable and refuses to communicate clearly or directly. Now, I understand all couples have these problems, the real issue comes from my girlfriends absolute emotional immaturity. She has the emotional maturity of a middle school girl, which makes it TERRIBLY difficult to solve these relatively minor problems. Any one of these various things listed above can bother her, however, she is so afraid of communicating with me that she keeps these things bottled up and lets them fester and acts like everything is just fine. Eventually, they manifest themselves by overreacting to these things instead of communicating them to me CLEARLY and RESPECFULLY. She will begin insulting me, saying terrible things about our relationship, being very negative about our future, telling me that I should go hook up with other girls, knocking my drink out of my hand, breaking my picture frames, and etc. She has even told me that she tries to insult me on purpose to try and get me angry and has personally admitted to being very immature. She's gone as far as to convince me that she's going to go have sex with an old hook-up, change her relationship status to single on facebook, and egg me on to break up with her among other things. The list goes on. When I try and be level headed and apologize or try and solve the problem she continues to insult me and make an even bigger deal of a smaller situation. This leads to me getting incredibly upset at her back and makes the situation even worse. Because of this terrible cycle we have broken up countless times that I lost track. We always end up regretting it and getting back together. We discuss exactly what happened and vow to do better. We have even identified this exact problem but she is showing no signs of changing how she communicates problems with me. However this lasts approximately a week until the cycle repeats itself. I've had it, but I'm afraid of losing the times when she is in her pros. I'm not saying I'm 100% perfect myself, but she even admits that the grand majority of our problems are due to her. I was incredibly happy being single, and now I feel like my life is much more stressful because of her in it, but breaking up with her would be brutal because I know we have so much potential if she could just get over her issues and begins communicating clearly with me. I don't want to give up. I am so confused at what to do... please help. Apologies once again for long message if you made it this far and I truly appreciate your help. I just can't keep fighting my best friend every week anymore.
goldway90 Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 Now, I understand all couples have these problems Sorry but no they don't have these problems, you're dealing with someone with some emotional issues that hasn't been addressed, whatever you do isn't going to help, it's not gonna work i'm sorry. Honestly just end it and save yourself from this, i wouldn't be surprised if this girl has BPD. 3
d0nnivain Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 Her behavior is over the top & unlikely to change. Do you know why you were her first BF at 22? that is kind of late. Where does her paranoia about cheating come from? If you are her 1st BF it can't be because she was cheated on unless her parents' marriage ended because of cheating. Is her paranoia based on her insecurities about her looks? I'm a pretty blunt person so I'd probably talk to her & say something along the lines of the following: I really do care about you & parts of our relationship are amazing but the parts that are bad are ripping us apart. It takes trust to maintain a relationship & I resent the fact that you don't trust me. What did I ever do to make you so paranoid? [when she tells you what you did, vow to change that if it's valid; if she admits that it's all her, ask what she's going to do to be more trusting.] You need to stop snooping in my phone. I have nothing to hide but the fact that you feel compelled to snoop annoys me. If you want to see my phone, ask. I'll give it to you but stop invading my privacy behind my back. We also need better conflict resolution skills. We can't be fighting all the time. What do you think we need to do to stop the fighting? [Listen to what she says. ] Finally I can't help that I have a past. You still can't judge me or make me feel bad about things I did before I met you. That's not fair. You have to look at how nicely & respectfully I treat you. That is all that matters. Seriously, how can I help you to be more confident in our relationship? This clinginess is getting old. You either have faith in me or you don't. But you can't be blowing up my phone because I didn't get back to you fast enough. Do not raise your voice during any of this. Take what she says to heart. If it's completely ridiculous, at least you know you tried. Good luck. Personally unless this women gets counseling I don't think this relationship can be saved. Sorry. 1
rushed Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 (edited) My last boyfriend was a pretty amazing guy - fun, spontaneous, handsome, intelligent, and I knew he loved me fiercely. BUT. Jeez, this guy was crazy insecure and jealous. At one of my new jobs he had me report back to him almost every day because I worked in a small office with two other guys, one of which was really good-looking. He got upset when I told him I wanted to go back to school or join a gym or take up krav maga because he was scared I was going to meet another guy. He got mad when I went running with a male coworker during lunch. He would pout when I went out with my girlfriends or coworkers (and this was just to go out to eat at a restaurant). Guy, break up with her. You remember how happy you were when you were single? Yeah. That happiness comes back. It's like being able to breathe again. My current boyfriend has zero jealousy issues, and it's just freakin wonderful to be able to do things again with friends, male or female, without the weight of your significant other's disapproval hanging over you. You can't change people without them wanting to change. Given her young age and immaturity I don't think your girlfriend is at that point yet. Edited March 15, 2017 by rushed 4
Tressugar Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 OP, seriously consider Rushed advice. My ex husband was very similar in the same way, but worse. An insecure person is not attractive at all.
act00 Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 She's young and immature. Also, the fact that you are her first boyfriend and you have had multiple hookups and a past is a tough pill to swallow, especially if you maintain friendships with these women. I remember being this way when I was her age, and even blowing up about it, but eventually you grow up and "get over it." I'm sure my emotional garbage played a role in some deterioration of some of these relationships, and life and experience really do make a difference. Even now, if my BF was friends with past relationships, I would have a very, very difficult time with it. My ex-husband maintained a couple of these friendships, and I learned to accept it, but it was hard. Any type of flirtatious behavior is going to be a real problem, so be careful around that, keep yourself in check, and even tell this ex-hookup, "You need to knock it off," if she gets flirty or playful. With your GF, you're looking at a bomb exploding, and probably with no trigger. She needs to work on her jealousy issues and insecurity. You can't fix her or convince her, and it's going to lead to the demise of this relationship. She shouldn't be dissolving into a puddle of tears or becoming a raging lunatic because you ask her to rinse her dishes or tell her you like the other pants/dress better when she asks. Honestly, she's an emotional disaster area, and I see my past bad behavior as you describe some of her traits, which lessened with age and experience. She needs to grow up, and I don't think you will be able to help her do it. 1
Ieris Posted March 15, 2017 Posted March 15, 2017 I was incredibly happy being single, and now I feel like my life is much more stressful because of her in it, but breaking up with her would be brutal because I know we have so much potential if she could just get over her issues and begins communicating clearly with me. I don't want to give up. I am so confused at what to do... please help. Apologies once again for long message if you made it this far and I truly appreciate your help. I just can't keep fighting my best friend every week anymore. I think you're better off being single and stress free rather than staying with someone who drains your energy. It sounds like she lacks confidence and is afraid of you going to find someone better. If she doesn't feel good about herself then nothing you say or do will matter and even if you cut all contact with the opposite sex it still won't be enough. I'm sure you've talked about the problems with her many times but you're still going around in circles because nothing has changed, she hasn't changed. It's not an easy fix and I'm not sure how long you want to stick around to wait for that to happen. I know you're clinging on because of the potential you saw from the start but I think people are always on their best behavior at the start, then gradually you see the negatives. Once the negatives outweigh the positives, you're just better off letting them go. 1
Author Rvet08 Posted March 22, 2017 Author Posted March 22, 2017 In summary, the last four out of seven months dating my girlfriend have been horrible. My relationship anxiety has been off the charts. For the last four months we would fight literally once a week about the most stupid stuff. She does not know how to fight nor communicate well, which got me even more mad, and would lead to a "breakup." Then literally hours later or the next morning make up for it and get back together again and the cycle repeats: we are amazing during the week, but fight non-stop over the weekend. Last weekend, I confronted her about this and drilled her until I believe we got to the root of the problem, which made a lot of sense. The problem we have had apparently dates back to four months ago to a mistake I made. Essentially, when I was only just talking with my current girlfriend (shortly before we dated), there was another girl that I was interested in. I told my current girlfriend that I could no longer be with her despite the fact that I had showed interest because I wanted to pursue things with the other girl. She was understandably very upset as what I did was very uncool. Eventually this fling with the other girl ended, and over time my current girlfriend and I began talking again and now date. I profusely apologized for how I treated her in this situation, and after approximately three months she finally fully forgave me. I have zero interest in this other girl and am incredibly happy and loyal to my current girlfriend. This is where the problem begins: one night I was out at a bar and I saw this other girl. My girlfriend told me never to talk to her ever again when we started dating. In my level of intoxication, she approached me to begin a conversation and I ended up talking with her. The conversation was incredibly friendly and non-sexual. We were simply just catching up, I even talked about my current girlfriend. We left the bar and parted ways, the end. Nothing bad happened. I didnt tell my girlfriend about this because I knew she would kill me, but I decided to tell her after two days and understandably she got incredibly upset. Ever since then we have been an incredibly unstable relationship. I told her I was just being friendly with this girl, but she was absolutely enraged that I associated with her and lied to her about it. Since then, however, I have never associated with this girl ever again out of respect to my girlfriend. This is the root of the problem because ever since then she told me that she believes I will hurt her again in that way. It makes her get insecure about certain things and start fights about random stuff. It makes her feel like we are only temporary and that she has to have a guard up. This is also compounded by the fact that she's caught me in a few tiny white lies after I told her I wouldnt have said any white lies to her anymore. After this conversation, she essentially admitted that this relationship is doomed and we mutually broke up (for probably the 10th time) with me 5 days ago. Frustrated and feeling down with myself that I screwed up a relationship with an amazing girl and am now single, I wanted to make myself feel temporarily better by texting a friend to set me up on a date with one of her friends. The next morning, she came over with flowers and apologized and again, we got back together and had an amazing day. However, at night, she randomly snooped through my phone while I was in the bathroom vomiting with food poisoning and found those texts and was absolutely livid I sent that text. I told her I hadnt told anyone we broke up, which was a lie, but she is more upset that I did something disloyal. I then kicked her out of my room because I was super upset that she went through my stuff while I was sick. She initially refused to leave my room until I yelled at her to leave, which really startled her, and alas, we broke up again. The next morning I felt bad about yelling at her in that way to leave my room and I begged for her to not break up with me on that note. After a day of talking, she warmed up to the idea of taking me back again so long as I promised to change certain things. Here is where the problem lies: The last three days she has been incredibly rude and aggressive towards me. I'm trying to understand her point of view because I lied to her about texting one of my friends to set me up with one of her friends after we broke up. Also, I understand why she dislikes me for having raised my voice at her to force her to leave my room after she refused to leave. I've been getting jab after jab of all my very small mistakes and all my flaws this week. She claims I always say how much I want to change but never follow through and doesnt beleive that I will change this time, but then continues to date me which confuses me. I've been trying to be the bigger man and understand where she's coming from, accept my faults, tell her how much I love her, and how much I will change for her. However, she continues to behave very immaturely and very rudely towards me despite my actions. After four months of her constantly jabbing me about my mistakes that I've tried very hard to overcome, I feel like I can't do this anymore. Everytime I'm around her I feel like less of a man because of how frequently she attacks me. I feel the only way to become my happy and confident self again is to end this relationship and start from scratch, but when I think about fully breaking up with her I realize that I would be losing an amazing girl who really does love me very much. On top of that, we are supposed to vacation together this summer, and breaking up would lead to her losing a lot of money on that. I just dont know how I can last until then getting constantly attacked for my mistakes, and this situation about the text messages and yelling at her makes it seem like this relationship is doomed. She actively told me how much she hated me and despises me, but then ends up calming down, but then gets very mad again. This is so unstable now I can't handle it. She shows signs of love on occasion, but at any time she can start being emotionally aggressive towards me. It is actually beginning to depress me in a way. My goal is to show her how I can change week by week, but not if it involves me being her emotional rag doll to insult all the time whenever she's reminded of the past. Can this relationship be saved? Should I end things or no? They say if you love something let it go.... I just don't feel worthy of her anymore. I feel like I have ruined this forever. I want so badly to continue with her, but I feel that if I do I'll always be "the bad guy" and feel terrible the entire time. I used to be so confident and happy with myself, but I can't in these circumstances. I know it will take a lot of time to change, I'm just worried that this cant be saved.
Redhead14 Posted March 22, 2017 Posted March 22, 2017 ---- I apologize in advance for the very long post - this is my first time posting on here and I really need help from you all ----- For the last month or so, I've been in a huge dilemma on whether or not I should break up with my girlfriend. On one end she is an incredibly amazing girl with many great qualities that I see in a long term partner, but on the other end she has some terrible qualities and personality traits that have been slowly destroying our relationship for the last couple of months. I've been dating this girl for seven months now, she is 22, and I met her via one of my old co-workers at a football game a group of us went to together. I need ya'lls opinions on what I should do: stay with her and work out our problems, or scrap it all together. In summary, I am her first ever boyfriend. When we first started dating everything was absolutely amazing, and this lasted for approximately for the first three months of our relationship. We never fought, we would hang out together whenever we had free time, we'd talk to each other all day, we would go out together... essentially it was the perfect relationship. After this three month honeymoon period ended, the relationship took a completely different turn out of nowhere and we began fighting and bickering at LEAST once literally every single week to this very day (essentially the last four months). This is when all her cons manifested themselves. I've just about had it and am beginning to give up. Here is a list of pros and cons about her: PROS: This girl is incredibly loyal. She would never ever consider cheating on me even in her wildest dreams. She is also very honest and transparent. Never has she once told me any kind of lie. I also know she really, really loves and cares about me. We share all the same moral values and have very similar life philosophies. She loves spending time with me, and goes out of her way to do nice things for me. For example, on my birthday she surprised me by flying my brother out to Chicago where I live to surprise me (he lives in Delaware). If I'm ever sad or in any kind of stressful situation she has my back and will always be there to help me or comfort me. She also is supportive of my personal hobbies, interests and career goals, even if she doesn't necessarily understand them. She also gets along very well with my family members - they all generally like her. I also get along very well with her family too. Our parents have met and they also got along. Lastly, we have a lot of fun with each other one-on-one (given that we are having a good day) - we love hanging out and going on new adventures together and have very similar definitions of how we like to have fun. And quite obviously, I find her to be very beautiful. I really love these pros about her. On a good day, we click incredibly well. The last tumultuous four months, I have been clinging on to these pros for dear life. The first three months of our relationship were amazing because this is all I saw in her. I am afraid to break up with her for fear of losing a girl with these things. CONS: As much as I love my girlfriend, she has an immense amount of SERIOUS cons which cause 97% of the fighting and bickering in our relationship. First off, she refuses to let go of the past. To this day, she still gets very upset and angry when she thinks or is even reminded about my old hookups that happened ages ago before I even dated her. She always brings them up in an uncomfortable and passive aggressive way that causes tension repeatedly after I have told her nicely many times to stop. Likewise, she is very insecure about her personal appearance and my loyalty to her. Even though she knows I've never even come close to cheating on her or done anything to question my loyalty to her, she always asks me if I think other girls are hot, if I would get with another girl while I'm out and she's not with me, and things of that sort. She has zero self confidence in herself and her personal appearance. She has even admitted to going to events with me before to make sure I wouldn't hit on other girls and cheat on her. I have some incredibly platonic female friends that first started off as a fling a long time ago that she hates that I associate with. These friends are very close friends now despite our past, and it really puts me at a crossroads. She also feels threatened by the most random girls such as her best friends and roomates. She expects constant validation from me but never believes my compliments. Also, her mood changes immensely from day to day without warning. One day she'll be happy, the other day she'll be upset, the next depressed (her moods are mostly negative). It confuses me so much and I hate it because I'm always a happy person and she brings me down all the time with her constant mood changes. I never know when shes going to get into a bad mood when we are hanging out. It can happen at any time. Another con is that she is an incredibly clingy and anxious person. She expects me to give her constant attention in person and via text if I'm not with her. If I don't text her back for an extended period of time then she instantly becomes worried, bummed or upset. She also is very invasive. She has snooped at my phone countless times, even after I told her to stop, just to try and find dirt that is nonexistent. She finds small little things and makes assumptions about them before even asking and gets mad. Not just with my phone, but she demands to know every tiny little personal detail about my life and friends. I feel like I have literally zero privacy anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I just feel like she's ALWAYS in my space. And lastly, she is OVERLY sensitive. I can't give her a constructive criticism about anything, even regarding our relationship, without her getting offended or withdrawing herself from the conversation. When I try to communicate with her about anything serious, she automatically gets uncomfortable and refuses to communicate clearly or directly. Now, I understand all couples have these problems, the real issue comes from my girlfriends absolute emotional immaturity. She has the emotional maturity of a middle school girl, which makes it TERRIBLY difficult to solve these relatively minor problems. Any one of these various things listed above can bother her, however, she is so afraid of communicating with me that she keeps these things bottled up and lets them fester and acts like everything is just fine. Eventually, they manifest themselves by overreacting to these things instead of communicating them to me CLEARLY and RESPECFULLY. She will begin insulting me, saying terrible things about our relationship, being very negative about our future, telling me that I should go hook up with other girls, knocking my drink out of my hand, breaking my picture frames, and etc. She has even told me that she tries to insult me on purpose to try and get me angry and has personally admitted to being very immature. She's gone as far as to convince me that she's going to go have sex with an old hook-up, change her relationship status to single on facebook, and egg me on to break up with her among other things. The list goes on. When I try and be level headed and apologize or try and solve the problem she continues to insult me and make an even bigger deal of a smaller situation. This leads to me getting incredibly upset at her back and makes the situation even worse. Because of this terrible cycle we have broken up countless times that I lost track. We always end up regretting it and getting back together. We discuss exactly what happened and vow to do better. We have even identified this exact problem but she is showing no signs of changing how she communicates problems with me. However this lasts approximately a week until the cycle repeats itself. I've had it, but I'm afraid of losing the times when she is in her pros. I'm not saying I'm 100% perfect myself, but she even admits that the grand majority of our problems are due to her. I was incredibly happy being single, and now I feel like my life is much more stressful because of her in it, but breaking up with her would be brutal because I know we have so much potential if she could just get over her issues and begins communicating clearly with me. I don't want to give up. I am so confused at what to do... please help. Apologies once again for long message if you made it this far and I truly appreciate your help. I just can't keep fighting my best friend every week anymore. PROS - One and half paragraphs . . . CONS - More than half the page . . . 'Nuff said'?
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