My girlfriend (F20) got upset when I (M20) told her I didn’t want her talking sexually to to other guys. What to do?
We’re both in college and have only been dating for two weeks. Her friendgroup is composed of her two female suitemates and this other guy on their floor – let’s call him Alex. He doesn’t have any other friends, so they invited him to live with them next year too. Let me preface that I like this guy and don’t in any way worry about him.
The other night, us three are at the dining hall, and my girlfriend made a sexual comment to him jokingly, along the lines of “maybe you’ll find out tonight” (i forget what the lead up was, but she said it with a very sexual tone and even did the whole eyebat f me eyes look.) She has friendzoned the dude into oblivion but still acts flirty with him, which never really bothered me enough to confront her about – but when she said this, I shot her a nice ten second stare to the tune of “are you kidding me?”
We went our separate ways and I was pissed the rest of the night. Dry and distant over text. The following morning I’m done with being aloof and cold so I text her and ask her to hash this out, which she agrees to. I meet her in person and tell her she probably knows what’s bothering me, and she says she doesn’t. I tell her that I didn’t like the way she spoke to Alex and she shot me a look like I was out of my mind. She started to deflect and bring up things she was upset at me for, many of them trivial, like she was grabbing at anything, and told me that me ‘telling her how to talk to her friends’ was such a dealbreaker, and goes against her values in a relationship, and insinuated breaking up with me. Frankly, this scared the hell out of me – I’ve had girlfriends in the past but never been as into any of them as I have been with her, and in that moment, as I felt my heart beat faster than it ever has, I let her control me, and ultimately, I was the one that ended up apologizing.
After an hour of reflection, I realized that she completely took my power away, and I shot her a text outlining the fact that a personal, very general boundary of mine is that my girlfriend doesn’t make sexual comments to another straight guy in front of me, and I can’t be in a relationship with her either if she can’t agree to such a small thing. I compromised by telling her she can say whatever she wants to him when i’m not there, but I really just don’t want to be there to hear it. Again, I’m not a jealous person, and confident in my own shoes, and Alex is not the kind of guy to worry about, but it’s a personal rule of mine that I feel most people can get behind. But not her – she refused to see reason and asserted again that me telling her how she talks to her friends is a huge dealbreaker and ‘goes against her values’. I tried to tell her that it’s not me telling her how to talk to her friends – which would be very unfair of me after only knowing her for a month versus the amount of time she’s known them – I simply don’t want to hear her saying suggestive things to another straight guy in front me, regardless of context. She just does not see where I’m coming from in any way shape or form.
We haven’t talked in damn near 36 hours and are at a stalemate. I don’t see her apologizing any time soon, and if I were to give in myself, I would lose self-respect, which is something much bigger than me and her. I really don’t want to break up with her, but just don’t see where to go from her
TL.DR – girlfriend is very quirky, jokes with her straight guy friend sexually, i’m not worried about him but told her it’s not okay regardless, she is now upset with me and threatened to break up, i threatened to break up back, stalemate, no contact for 36 hours+