Expert: Andrea - 7/27/2006

Question
Hey. Well i've known this girl for a while now and we've been going out for about 6 months. In this time i know that i have truly fallen in love with her. She says that she has done the same, and is in love with me. But yet, while that seems to be the case on the outside, i'm not so sure that's what is going on. Because she has liked my brother (yea, this is turning into a soap opra, i know) for about two years now and i think she still likes him. Has she just been using me to get to him? Or does she truly love me? I don't know, i'm confused right now because just last night she started sending my brother some texts saying that he's hot and stuff. We were doing it to him as a practical joke, but later she sent another to him saying that she's liked him for a long time and hadn't said anything untill then. This one was behind my back. So i don't know right now. I need some help. Please!!! Thanx!

Answer
Hi Andrew

Based on what you told me it seems that the girl that you have been going out with still has some unfinished business, the fact that she text your brother and said she liked him tells me that those feeling still exist, the reason for me thinking this is because very rarely would a women put their emotions on the line without hopes of any kind of reciprocation.

So she may be testing the waters, before she commits to you, which is not a very good sign, because she is making sure that your brother doesn’t have feelings for her before she can settle with you… key word here “settle”. I am not suggesting that she doesn’t like you or maybe have feelings for you, because she probably does to some degree. But it sounds to me that she is not ready to be in a relationship especially now that you have put your feelings on the line too which makes it more serious.

I want to tell you that in my personal experience I have been in relationships were I have sworn I love the guy and then realize that I only love the feeling of being with someone, whoever it may be, this is what I was talking about “the settle part” Sometimes when you like someone for so long and you don’t tell them or your feeling aren’t reciprocated, we try to fill these voids with someone else, and we may get to like that someone else, but the reasons behind it will never be good enough to keep a relationship. What I mean is that when we use someone (sometimes without even knowing) to fill a void this person can be very easily replaceable and usually the feelings you share don’t last very long. So in conclucion she might not even like either of you she might just be missing something in her life that needs attention.

But the only way to know what is really going on is to talk about it, because regardless of how the situation is going to turn out I think your girlfriend needs some support and she might be just as confused as you are, so I suggest that you talk to her but not in a confrontational way, because you don’t want her to get defensive you want her to let you know her true feelings. May be ask her to share her experience of liking your brother and not saying anything, and where that took her, I know this will be hard but if she can be honest with you may be you two can get to the bottom of the situation.  Try not to focus on the fact that she wrote him a message but rather on the fact that she may have unfinished business that she is not aware of.  

If you need more assistance on the kind of things you should be taking to her about or on anything I wrote  please feel free to e mail me at andrea70s@hotmail.com, I hope this information is helpful to you in understanding your girlfriend and what she is going through,  as well as understanding your relationship.

Andrea