Hi! (22m)
TLDR: My LDR girlfriend acts up whenever she learns I am talking to a girl, and this has ruined her birthday, that hurt her even more. I’ve been tryint to deal with this for 1.5 years but I feel I am not enough.
I’m seeking advice on a very peculiar case. I have been in a long distance relationship with a woman from the Philippines for 2 years. (almost). I feel I love her deeply, even though never physically met, for reasons beyond my control. I will not expect you to understand how I got into this situation, but I don’t want to hear any comments about the Long Distance nature of our Relationship. We are managing it’s not easy though. Please if you are willing to help focus on the problem at hand. That said… the issue:
She is quite protective. She had expereiences in the past where assholes abused her and even once she was mortally threatened, her family threatened, and many times was she played for a fool. Because of this she has trust issues and shared very little detail of her life for a good amount of time. Now we are comfortable with each other, I learnt to accept her secrecy (no there is nothing fishy going on), and when I am finished with my studies I am planning to meet her and if God wills it marry too.
But of course she can’t get over the notion of me having other girl “companions”. Say I go to a party where there are girls she keeps asking what happened. I answer honestly, but no matter what she just stiffens… I can feel her voice going fainth. As if I did something wrong. Worse yet, is that I used to go to an amateur acting group, in High School. From there I have many close friends. Almost all girls. I used to basically look at them as distant family, and shared pretty much everything. Ties have losened to be sure. But I’m still close to them. Further complicates things that one of them, I used to have a crush on and recieved bit of a heartbreak from her. Of course we got over that, and I don’t want anything from her romantically, but I still like her as a friend…
My love though. She can’t accept any of this. It’s not that she thinks I’m doing something wrong. But she can’t control her fears. I once seeked advice from said friend and that almost lead to a break up. Everytime there is a girl near me, or I talk about a girl, I consider a friend, she keeps asking question, and acting suspicious, which is okay. But then she retreats and doesn’t want to talk to me. She gets completely thrown off for potentially hours and days, and I can only worsten the situation, by asking what’s wrong. And when she does this I feel terrible.
As for me it has gotten to the point where talking to a girl who is not about as ugly as dirt makes me nervous. Even though I want nothing from her, what if my girflriend finds out I’m talking to this attractive girl? What if she gets jealous. It paralyzes me. I feel a chest pain and what not, that I have to keep this under the rug even though it is completely innocent. Literally just a friendly chat with a nobody. It even awakens thoughts in me I probably wouldn’t have harbored otherwise. Which I hate even more.
Then when I mention my friends it’s really bad. Because she straight up feels threatened. Let’s say we talk for hours and she goes asleep but I still stay awake for a while, and end up talking a bit with one of the girls who are my friends. She feels betrayed, hurt even. Which is especially bad for me, because there very thing I did to that girl, was gush about how much I love HER. So she retreats and doesn’t talk to me for days. And then when she does, she blames me. I hate this, because 1) I feel powerless. 2) I feel frustrated. I did absolutely nothing wrong. Not even micro level cheating happened. And I get punished??? It’s draining to say the least. Because I honestly have no malice in what I’m doing, and yet it still hurts her.
Of course I could just not talk about these conversations, but then she asks me every time she gets “the jealous” if there is something she should know about. Well… fuck me? Should she? Should she not? Does that smile and “Hi” to one of the people I’m mentoring count? Does me talking to a friend count? Or does she mean just if I’m fliriting with someone? (which I of course wouldn’T) WELL honestly I feel like not even she knows…
And on the 26th I made a terrible mistake. It was her birthday. I surprised her with some lovely presents at midnight, and she was all over the place. I was really happy to see her laugh and smile on my video. She fell asleep early, and I was browsing around, finding a meme, that reminded me of one of my friends. I sent her the meme, we shared a laugh did a bit of catching up. Then left it at that.
I shared this with her the morning little after waking up. I did because recently we had an issue about me not telling her about a girl I talked to, and I just wanted to make sure she knows this time. And everything went to shit. I ruined her mood, and I ruined not just her birthday, but it seems I ruined pretty much her whole week. She told me she didn’t need to hear this, and that I have thought of a another girl on her birthday, when she thought I was thinking of her, and she is hurt by that. And that I do this purposely, every time we have a good moment I sew in something to throw her off and generate drama.
You can imagine how devastated I was, as I planned for pretty much the whole year to surprise her. She still doesn’t want to talk to me, and I honestly feel like it is over. This comes up way too often. Like the last argument like this was 2 weeks ago whereupon she saw my IG message history. (Full of girls because there is no one but girls on IG from my friend circle) Most of the messages were months or years old anyways. Some before I knew her. She started asking questions, and it turns out, even I forgot… I talked to that past crush, and behold my stupidity I asked for her advice, ON THE VERY ISSUE OF JEALOUSY.
yea…
I’m not saying I’m handling things expertly but at this point I’m honestly completely out of ideas. I feel like this is plagueing our relationship, and I wish I could start with a clean slate and if she just accepted “I’m not interested in her, I love you” would calm her down.
6 comments
Also just to be clear, if she points at someone, that she wants me never to talk to again, I’d straight up do it… I’d cut her out
But she doesn’t ask that from me. She wants me to retain my relations with friends. And even then I feel like it doesn’t matter what so ever if I actually have a past with that girl. It’s a girl I talked to at my leasure. So she is a threat.
Dude it sounds like your girlfriend has some serious trust issues and honestly it’s not really fair for you to have to constantly reassure her and tiptoe around the fact that you have other friends. It’s not cheating to have friends of the opposite sex, and it’s not cool that she’s punishing you for it. Have you tried talking to her about how her insecurities are impacting your relationship and how you feel about it? Maybe try to get her to open up about why she’s so worried and see if there’s anything you can do to support her. But at the same time, you can’t let her control who you talk to and hang out with. That’s not a healthy dynamic. Just be upfront and honest with her and try to find a balance that works for both of you. Best of luck, man.
Buddy. You gotta leave this girl. This is disturbing and controlling behavior that is only going to get worse, and that is deeply, deeply fucking with your mind. Please get a therapist and discuss this with them, or with any friends- this isn’t acceptable behavior or something you can accommodate.
You’re letting someone you’ve never met control your life… way too much. This is a horrible situation to be in. Stop subjecting yourself to this drama.
Even if y’all make it long enough to close the distance, do you think her jealousy will magically get better?
Get yourself a girlfriend who’d be fine with you hanging out around so many girls but bear in mind that most grown up women won’t be fine with it, especially from non western cultures. For example you had a crush on a girl and remained friends with her… not cool.
I don’t think the problem is entirely your girlfriend, even though the distance here doesn’t help. I think you need to realize that at a certain age if you want a serious relationship, for many people opposite gender friends are a big no no.
It’s called toxic. Move on