About Anisa Expertise I can answer any questions relating to jealousy, envy and self esteem in any relationship (dating, marriage, friendship, etc). I have personal experience with dealing with jealousy and can help you overcome these issues and improve your self esteem.
Experience I can answer any questions relating to jealousy, envy and self esteem in any relationship (dating, marriage, friendship, etc). I have personal experience with dealing with jealousy and can help you get through these issues.
Education/Credentials BS Family Sciences, BA Social Psychology
Question Ok, this is going to be an earful, but here goes.
I have a girlfriend that I have had for almost 2 years now, and ever since then I feel that I have been a pretty good boyfriend. I first 4 months or so I had some trouble with commitment. (this is my first actual long term relationship) so to me, this was a very big step. Like I said we are going on 2 years in October. In the first 6 months when our relationship actually started, things were great.. we were invincible. We would compare ourselves to other couples and say "how do they fight so much, I'm glad were not like that. Sure enough, starting maybe about 4 or 5 months ago, we are definitely that couple we once said we would never become.
I have a couple girlfriends that are strictly friends that she can overreact about. One of them, I had I guess a one night stand with about 4 years ago, and since then there has been no sexual tension or anything other. The other one there is absolutely no history with whatsoever.
Now, with the one that I had a little fling with years ago, we became pretty good friends realizing the other approach we took wasn't the right one. In the beginning of me and my gfs relationship we would still talk and talk somewhat silly together and say stupid things, also say "oh yea i love you" but in my eyes it was clearly in only a friendship way.
To this day my girlfriend will hold this against me and I can't help but feel bad although I'm not exactly doing anything wrong. For the record, we don't talk the way we used to, we don't talk silly or talk in any type of flirtacious way. But my girlfriend will lose her cool sometimes and just tell me I don't care about her feelings, or that if shes mad sometimes, I act like I don't care.
Lately, I will admit that when we start fighting I'm not as interested in solving it because I am just getting sick and tired of dealing with it. I am only 22 and her as well, and we might as well live together because she stays over next to every night.
Her past boyfriends haven't been good to her and have cheated on her and in some ways it feels like she is holding that against me and therefore will not fully trust me. She told me recently when we were in an arguement that she trusts that I won't cheat on her, but doesn't trust that I won't cross the line when talking to these girls.
Personally, I feel that I have been a great boyfriend, I do all those small things I figure most girls would love. But when she throws this all in my face, I always feel that what I am doing is not good enough.
I am really trying not to leave anything out so I can get a good answer.. sorry theres so much :P
Lately this has really been stressing me out and I know for a fact she is extremely attached. If I tell her (which I have) that we shouldnt spend so many nights together, 2-3 times a week instead of everyday, she will get very upset and start crying saying she hates being without me and maybe we should start from 5 days a week staying together and slowly work our way backwards.
I believe she holds this trust thing against me also because she has caught me in a lie maybe twice in the past almost 2 years. However, the things I just decided not to tell her were things I felt were things that would just make her go off the deepend and cause a fight, which I didn't would be worth it, so I extended the truth.
This of course being in the past couple months after experiencing her jealousy and just thinking "well theres no harm in what i'm doing, but I know she would overreact, so I'm not going to bother admitting it"..
Maybe its wrong? I'm not sure, but I just hate fighting when I don't feel there is any threat or anything harmful is being done. I feel if I am to go out for coffee or talk to a girl over texting or whatever, that I am constantly walking on thin ice, or I feel sometimes I have to sneak around, which is completely unhealthy.
All this being said, she has had a couple guy friends as well, which one of them happened to make a move on her while we were together, I obviously got upset and didn't want her talking to this guy since he clearly had no respect. Another guy was an ex boyfriend of about 4-5 years during highschool and they didn't talk for a couple years after that. Then he came into her life again and they would talk a couple times a week. I was okay with this but of course being a little bit jealous but not enough to confront her. I was fine until she told me that the guy told her he has, and always will love her, and that his dream was to give her children... I'm sorry but at this point I lost it, like anyone would. He later apologized because I confronted her telling her that he can't be saying these things to you. In the end they ended up only talking about once a week or so and in turn I was again comfortable enough with it to not say anything. Although it still bugged me, she told him he can't be speaking to her like that anymore. Although I find it odd that it took me telling her this, to make her tell him what he was saying was wrong.
I find it harder being a guy dealing with other guy friends because I find its next to impossible for guys to be good friends with a girl and not have any attraction or feeelings in that way towards them. That being said, I never said anything about her not being able to talk to any of these guys, except the one that made the move on her.
I feel I am being completely fair and that she is not very understanding about all this. I know I am leaving parts out, but hopefully you can give me a head start on how to deal with this.
I love this girl, she is amazing but the jealousy thing has basically torn us apart and I'm not sure what to do now.
Thanks for listening..
Lee
Answer Hi Lee,
For one, it sounds like she has self esteem issues. Not being able to 'live' without you and staying over every night...it's almost as if she has to constantly know that you want and love her to make her feel better about herself. There is also a major flaw in your relationship: trust. She has no trust in you, without trust a relationship cannot grow. Would it be possible to take a break from her? Just until you get things figured out?
