So, we’ve been dating for almost 2 years. Two years in August. I know she wouldn’t say it, but, things haven’t been going well. Lots of bad conversations. Talks that turn into both of breaking down or having panic attacks every time.
The first thing I want to mention is that I really don’t feel like I can bring anything up with her without her breaking down and taking it the absolute worst way. One thing that I’ve wanted to talk about is how we literally text/snapchat all day 24/7. Literally like a text every 2-5 minutes or more if we’re not together. I don’t like this, obviously it’s not because I don’t want to talk to her but anytime I take more than like 10 minutes to respond, her mood changes. It feels terrible. I don’t feel like I can play games with friends, let alone hangout with friends often because I’d have to check my phone every minute or so. I’ve wanted to talk to her about this but I can only see it going really badly.
To be honest, it might seem obvious to some, but I don’t even feel like I should talk about some things that happen in our relationship because people would tell me I should not be with her anymore.
A lot of this started to get on my mind with an argument we had in May. She was going on a work/school trip and a few weeks before we agreed that I would pick her up from the school when she came back. It’s about an hour from my house. (We live about an hour apart right now.) About a week or so before she left on the trip my family planned party at my house for my birthday, this would be the day that she came home. I told her that I could pick her up and bring her to the party but she kept declining with “no, it’s fine” or “I’ll be too tired anyway.” I kept insisting because I could tell she was upset about something. Eventually she said “well I asked you to pick me up first anyway.” I know that, I know she did, but I had no idea my family was planning this for me. I thought she would understand because it was planned for me. She was clear that if I went with my family she wouldn’t want to come over and said not to pick her up. She said “you can go to that I’m just going to be upset.” I had no idea what I was doing wrong, I told her I could still pick her up before, the only difference was my family party happening. Eventually, I said, and I’m not trying to make myself just sound better, in a calm and open way, “I don’t want to feel bad for choosing between you and my family.” She instantly got really upset. She raised her voice at me and said “You always do this! You try to make me the bad guy and make me sound like I’m keeping you from your friends and family.” I never once during our relationship or this conversation that I thought she was doing that. I explained how she was making me feel by saying she would be upset if I went with my family. After she raised her voice I started having a panic attack, I wasn’t expecting it at all. We were in my car, I cowered to my side and cried. After a while, she started to comfort me and telling me to breathe. We talked, I tried to explain how what she said made me feel like I was doing something wrong for being with my family. She said that she didn’t mean that I would be upsetting her if I did. I just took the peace we had made and we went and ate.
A few days later at work my friend says “How did your talk over the weekend go?” I was baffled, I had no idea what he was talking about and he said that his at the time girlfriend had told him that we had a talk about how I was “Always making her the bad guy” and “Making her fix everything.” We did not have this talk. I was upset by this because during our argument in the car, I tried so hard to make sure nothing else was wrong and she promised me it was all okay. I was upset but I texted her and said “Can I come over after work so we can talk about some stuff?” She grew really anxious and kind of reacted rudely, asking me to tell her what it was about right now. I told her it would be better in person, I said over text things could get more confusing and the wrong points could get conveyed.
I got to her house and instead of asking about what she had told my friend’s girlfriend asked very calmly while sitting beside her, “How do you feel about me? What can I do better for you honey?” She seemed confused by the question, I felt like she knew what I was eluding too but she didn’t think I knew what she said. So finally I just said, “They told me that I was always making you feel like the bad guy and making you fix everything.” She got really upset quickly that they would tell me that she said that. I tried to explain that they thought I already knew about it and that’s why they asked, they didn’t do anything wrong. I tried to ask her why she was feeling that way and how I could help be better in that regard. The way I’ve always felt personally is that if I don’t bring things up and start the talk, things never get talked about or fixed so her saying this really caught me off guard. I’ve never twisted her words or gotten aggressive in the slightest towards her. She didn’t address what she said to me, instead just explained how upset she was that my friends told me that she said those things. Eventually, I told her it was okay and we moved on without further discussing this. It ate at me for a long time and we didn’t actually talk about it for a while.
Eventually, we finally talked about it and I asked her why she felt that way. I wanted to make sure she could honestly and openly tell me why she felt that way, I wouldn’t get angry or upset if she felt any way. She never gave me a reason. She instead said, she didn’t really mean those things, she only said those things because she was upset about our argument. If anything, this was worse for me. Why would she say those things if she didn’t mean them? Only because she was upset? It didn’t make sense but that’s the answer I have to live with now.
More recently, last week in fact, a bigger situation happened that has been eating at me since. We were going to a concert and I had bought tickets for the both of us. My original plan was to go with a friend but he had covid the week before and wasn’t sure if he would be okay to go by then so I asked if she would like to go. The day of the concert, I could tell something was up, she was being closed off and seemed annoyed by something. I told her I would come down after work so I could help her and talk to her about whatever was bothering her. I got there and for a while she wouldn’t tell me, she didn’t want to talk about it. But from dating her I know that she takes some talking to in order to open up. She eventually told me and was in a better mood after. However, right before the concert she asked what the plan was after the show and I told her I was going to be driving my friend home with me since he took the train to get into the city and lives closer to me. She said she was bummed because she wanted to spend time with me after. I told her I would’ve loved to have more time after too but “Hey, at least we got some time before the show, just us two.” She said in a negative way “I mean, I didn’t even expect you to come over so whatever.” This was confusing, I figured if she didn’t expect me to come before, wouldn’t me coming be a good thing? Not a whatever thing? This made me feel pretty bad and pretty unappreciated for even coming all the way down before the concert. While driving she noticed I was a little quieter and I just said “I feel bad that you’re upset we can’t have time together after the show.” She said it was fine and don’t worry about it. This didn’t help. She asked why I was upset and I said in a calm and soft tone “I felt a little unappreciated for coming down before the show to be with you after what you said.” She got annoyed when I said this and stopped talking to me. I asked if we could please talk about it and she just said “I’m sorry.” But just not in a genuine way. I wanted it to be done with so I told her “It’s okay, I was just overreacting and overthinking about it.” We talked more before the show and seemed to be on good terms.
After the show, we went out to eat with my friend before going home. We were just having a good time, laughing and talking about whatever. At one point, she made a mistake about the correct president of a country and my friend and I found it funny. We had all been going back and forth about everything and I’d like to clarify that she teases me about things like this all the time so I thought this was totally fine. I laughed and made a joke about the mistake. She got very flustered, stood and said “don’t laugh at me.” And then slapped me in the face. She has play slapped me in the past but this just felt different. First of all, it hurt, and secondly I knew she hit me because she was upset. I am not somebody who is okay with hitting people or resorting to violence over things like this and I just started shaking as she hurried to the bathroom. It wasn’t clear to my friend that this was real and so I said “I think she was actually mad.” She took a while so I texted her “Are you doing okay?” she responded with “im fine.” Eventually, she came back and started talking with my friend like everything was fine but she didn’t pay much attention to me. I was trying really hard to keep eating and not shake. Finally, it was time for me to drive her home. My friend was in the car. She was extra talkative and joking about everything, I could tell she was nervous about what had happened and was hoping that I was okay about it. When we got to her house, I walked her to her door and she asked if I was okay. I didn’t think it was a good time to talk about anything because my friend was already waiting in the car so I just said “I’m okay.” She kept asking so I finally told her “It really scared and hurt me when you hit me earlier.” She dodged around saying anything about hitting me and just apologized for getting upset. I gave her a hug and I went home. I wanted to talk to my friend about it all but I just feel like I can’t. I feel like she would be upset if I told people about it, like it’s too personal for our relationship.
The next day she was extra cheery while messaging me through the day which was very unusual after something like this happening but I just went along with it because I knew she just wanted to move on.
There’s a lot more to say but I don’t have the time right now. I don’t know what to do. I feel like the right thing to do is to end this relationship but I’m so scared of what she would do and how she would react. She’s told me about how she treated her other exes after they broke up. Having her friends harass them on social media and irl and what not. She even told me about a time where she dated somebody after breaking up with an ex just because she knew it made him uncomfortable. She can be very thoughtful and sweet and I think she really is a good person but I do believe she manipulates and controls to keep things going her way. I don’t know the last time I’ve felt happy in this relationship. It feels like I’m constantly on my toes making sure that she’s okay. Please give me thoughts and advice. I’m scared of what could happen, please help.
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TL;DR:
My girlfriend get’s very defensive and aggressive when I express how I feel. And recently, she hit me over a teasing joke I made.
4 comments
You should break up with her. She’s abusive, and her threats of how she will treat you after are part of the abuse. She is not a good person, good people don’t hit their partners. Break up, block her and any minions she sends your way. You deserve to be happy, and she isn’t going to make you happy, ever.
Oh honey. This is very hard to read, especially because you seem juuuuust self-aware enough to know this isn’t good – you said so yourself, you’re afraid to write out all the things because you’re afraid people will say to just break up.
Now. You don’t have to break up, but the way the relationship is now is not sustainable. You need to have a series of conversations (not just one big one) about how to establish & maintain boundaries. You shouldn’t feel obligated to respond to someone for fear of how they’ll react if you don’t. However, based on what you’ve said about how she reacts when you do try to confront her, this could be (at best) an incredibly long, drawn-out process which would likely last several months, maybe years. Doesn’t mean it’s impossible! Just that people can change & unfortunately most people choose not to because it’s hard & takes lots of time.
You said something at the end which is VERY telling: How you haven’t been happy in a long time, how you feel like you are always trying to avoid making her upset. While it’s technically statistically possible to make this work, without reading the entire post (tbh I did not, there’s plenty of evidence in the beginning & end without reading the whole middle – no offense) *I don’t think you can fix this.* In fact, trying to fix it will be to your detriment. What’s more likely to happen is you will lose yourself, you will not be able to take care of yourself, & you will always be the bad guy. She sounds incredibly immature (which, i mean, at 21 isn’t totally surprising) but this does not bode well for your relationship.
Anyone who says to dump her is not trying to be a jerk, they’re just being real with you. You need to be real with yourself. I recommend re-reading your post & pretending it’s a stranger who wrote it, or better yet your close friend. What would you tell them to do?
Final point: the longer you stay in this relationship, the harder it will be to develop healthy relationships in the future. I speak from experience!! Do not subject yourself to this. Move on & if you can get some therapy. I wish you luck.
If you’re only in the relationship because you’re scared of what she might do in response to you leaving, that’s a pretty good indication that a) she’s a *terrible* person, and 2) you still need to get out, ASAP. Ultimately if she’s going to go off the deep end it’s going to happen however long you leave it…
Do you have a friend or relative who could come with you and be there for moral support (and as a witness to however she might react)?
Okay, so it was clear way before you mentioned that she’s hit you that your girlfriend is very toxic and immature; she lashes out at you in petty way, attempts to control your time, and acts aggrieved when your focus is on anything but her. And that was bad enough, already it was enough that you should break up with her, until you said that she also hit you.
She hit you…and then got happy, actually. She hit you and was suddenly cheery!
You’re scared because you know you need to leave this person who is abusive and escalating. Do you think she’s never going to hit you again? The reason you’re afraid to tell people about what she does, because they’d tell you to leave…is because YOU SHOULD LEAVE.
You’re afraid of hurting her, but she has no problem hurting you and I do not just mean physically. The rest of what you described is emotional abuse. I’m sorry, she’s not a good person making mistakes or whatever you want to call it. There is this thing, where people in abusive relationships say “oh they’re really the best except X”, like their partner is 2 people. She is not two people, she is one person who abuses you. Whatever she says about you after you break up, whatever her friends do, is not worse than what she is already doing.