I(25nb) and my girlfriend(28f) of 4 years had a very hard conversation when I woke up. As a very important note, we are both artists and writers. We write together a lot with our own stories and plots as well as do art together. We talk constantly as we live together so every moment is spent together. We have boundaries set in place I can’t talk explicitly with others(friends or not) about ships or our characters together. I stopped talking about suggestive things, even get uncomfortable now when people bring it up and try to steer conversations else where. We have great communication and talk about things constantly.
Recently, I started a new ship with a person I’ve been chatting with in servers. We are both taken and they talk about their partner often. It is a very simple ship with little talk between us. Random bursts of headcanons and talking. Nothing explicit. I lied to my partner that it was a platonic ship when it was not. I know I fucked up. I feel awful for it and because of it she feels I emotionally cheated on her.
We come from two completely different backgrounds of writing as she grew up writing novelas with friends with no intention of ships while I created friendships through pairing characters together. We can both separate people from their characters but she still hates it none the less. She feels like I betrayed her and for lying I did. I accept that and feel awful. But now she’s asking I fully stop doing what my entire childhood was built from.
It is a massive foundation of me and how I met all of my now life long friends. I am more than willing to do it, and though it hurts and feels like I’m cutting off a limb, I’m willing to. Because me feeling suppressed from talking about ships with new and old friends is better to me than her feeling like I’m cheating all the time. She fears though that I’ll become resentful of losing that part of me and that one day I’ll hate her like I hated my ex who did similar, but in my exes case she told me to stop while doing it herself. So it doesn’t seem similar to me.
Either way there is no compromise we can make. I’ve tried in the past which is what I’ve been doing but now she wants it to fully stop as a whole. I am willing to, it hurts a lot, but I am willing. She fears I will hate her and that she feels she’s holding me back and away from people. I’d rather be in a bubble than her feel she’s been cheated on. I can grow past it and heal but she has BPD that makes her see things in a very black and white way. I’ve learned enough about how she is to know she can’t grow past it. She hasn’t in 4 years and never will. So I have to learn to remove this foundation of my character. My friends are all very understanding and don’t see her any differently as well. Everyone is very ok with this as they know it’s a very hard subject for her. But I feel like I’m under heavy pressure that I can’t use my outlets. So any advice on how to grow or put that outlet in other places?