I have no idea what to do. I am lost and this is my first long term relationship. I started dating my girlfriend about 8 years ago. We dated for a few years and eventually broke up mutually due to issues and were split up for a month. Eventually we got back together, mostly because of me. I found I missed her which could have just been loneliness. So we have continued to see each other and eventually moved in together nearly 2 years ago.
She is a caring, successful, very intelligent person but has abandonment issues and low self-esteem. She does not understand her own emotions and why she acts out sometimes. I think it is because grew up in a single parent household where there was no emotional support system.
Unfortunately her insecurities have led us to have many problems and fights over the years. Issues ranging from her looking through my phone and deleting/blocking female friends on social media to accusing me of ogling other women and yelling at me in public about it. I do not really try to maintain any friendships with females due to not wanting to hurt her. I never really had many female friends so it does not have much of an impact on my life.
When we workout together at the gym she is looking at me often. I think a lot of the time she is trying to make sure I do not look at other women there (although she denies this). It feels like I am walking on egg shells. I told her I am committed to her and regardless of if I find other women attractive I will not cheat. She says ok, but I know she is always worried about me leaving her for someone “better” in her words. She has said it many times and I have told her that her worrying and acting out because of this thought counter productive and will only push me away.
I just want her to trust me. It seems like we have made progress since we were fighting much more in the beginning of our relationship.
The most recent fight as an example was the other day when we were drinking with my friends and two girls walked in wearing revealing clothing. She immediately became angry and accused me of ogling them. I tried to persuade her I was not and since it was going nowhere I decided to go outside and avoid the conflict. Eventually she came out and she was yelling at me while I tried to calm her down, but when she gets upset it seems like she blacks out in rage and I cannot calm her down. It ended with her taking an Uber home still very upset. I slept on the couch that night and in the morning she apologized.
I try to forgive her and accept that she is struggling, but it hurts me for days to be an emotional punching bag. She apologizes, but it does not feel sincere. It is like she does not understand what it is doing to me when she acts like that. Even after apologizing she tries to justify it saying, “you were ogling them though.”
Every time we have one of these fights where I do nothing wrong and she lashes out at me I can’t help but wonder if this is going to work out. I feel terrible from it and it makes me not want to try to grow with her and be committed to our relationship. I pretend everything is ok, but internally I distance myself from her for days and contemplate breaking it off. I never end up doing it because the thought of it is painful and I want to make it work. We have had many good times together and I really care about her and want to help her. I know this is her problem and I shouldn’t feel responsible for her mental health.
I wish I had done something sooner to help her. I finally told her that she needs to see a therapist in person once a week to work on the issue or we need to break up and I am moving out. She was really against this at first, but agreed to do it. Even still I find myself constantly planning what I need to do to move out and get my own place and wonder if I would be happier on my own.
I feel like these years have been lost…While I have grown in my career and I feel successful professionally, our relationship has not grown. Is there anyway to save this or am I destined to feel like the grass is greener.
Has anyone else gone through something like this? I am afraid of the aftermath if we break up. I am a fairly reserved person and do not have many close friends to talk to about my feelings.
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TLDR:
Long term relationship of 8 years with a girl who still does not trust me and constantly thinks I am going to leave her for someone better. I don’t know if I can save this relationship.
3 comments
This relationship ran its course when she got on your phone and started blocking people based on her lack of trust. Every minute after that is you setting yourself up for years of therapy while you work through the trust damage she’s done to you. There is absolutely no reason for you to feel bad about ending this relationship. It’s toxic, and it’s not going to get better.
If you learn from this, and move forward with intelligence and commitment to maintaining good boundaries…then this was not all for nothing. (Look up the Sunk Cost Fallacy though.)
If you can, I’d say get into therapy for a bit and work on your boundaries and self respect, because what she’s been doing to you is not ok.
Drop her, she is extremely immature and dealing with very unhealed parts of herself that she projects onto you. Is this what you want for the rest of your life?
Also, I should tell you that what she is doing is emotional abuse. As soon as one person starts “forbidding” the other to do a harmless thing, it is abuse. I would know. Run from this relationship. You will find better, I promise.
In 8 years it seems like you have matured and desire a mature driven relationship, but your girlfriend got stuck at 20, and still playing early 20s girlfriend role.
You have outgrown her, and no one or two conversations is not going to make up for 8 years of maturity. When you breakup, only then will she have to do some self reflection and hopefully some individual therapy to START to become more mature in relationships.