The issue:
In the past when I've had problems with girls, the usual advice I get is "You are an AFC with oneitis get rid of her." While in many cases that is true with girls I've never even kissed, I don't think every relationship problem should just be dismissed as this. That is why I haven't been here much lately because things have seemed fairly good for a time. However, I'm ready to dismiss any "yesmen" and have real advice. This forum is brutally honest, and I need that now.
My girlfriend and I have been through the stages of a relationship, the "Ooo, who is that sexy thing?" to the hooking up stage, to the hooking up without being in a "facebook official" relationship, to being in a new relationship where you're in the "honeymoon" stage when everything is good, so good that we'd joke about when our first fight would be, to the plateau stage where things are stable, with an occasional fight, to the fighting-make-up-sex-complex, to where we currently are: we've been together for two + years, are we compatible reevaluating stage?
Background
This girl and I met my first senior year of college (her freshman), she was hooking up with this other guy, but I wooed her away and she eventually left him for me, although they weren't official. By the beginning of the spring semester she said I took her virginity after she convinced her parents to put her on "the pill" then we hooked up from January until late March where she applied pressure to be in a real relationship because she felt "used." For a long time, I held all the power she wanted me more than I wanted her, and things were good. The girl grew on me, and I wanted to keep her around so I made her my girlfriend. We didn't talk much over the summer at first but then we were talking all the time, we visited each other and I met her parents and they seemed to like me. My second senior year and her sophomore year, one morning while she was going to class or something, I heard her say I love you. She denied saying it first, but after she did I started to also. We had our first fight that October, but we recovered. She got mad at me while drunk because I walked away from her to talk to a girl about girls in general, because my girlfriend was giving me silent treatment for some reason. For the rest of that school year, we'd fight every other weekend or so, largely because alcohol at parties amplifies emotions. We recovered though and stayed a couple, she basically lived at my apartment. The only other major fight is when I came to pick her up from a party (I had a lot of homework that day) and she was very drunk dancing with another guy. I almost lost it, everyone sensed the awkwardness. This guy's girlfriend was in the room, but I know my girlfriend would never have done that in front of me. To make things worse, I had gotten a traffic ticket to get her, I went down the wrong way of a one-way street for a few seconds, noted the error, and was trying to turn around when the police got me. I was already angry when I got in there, and she wouldn't let me even talk to her, but I eventually cornered her and was like, "I'll overlook what I saw for now, may we please just leave?" We eventually left and the next day she apologized and I forgave her, but I still can never get that image of her with another guy out of my head and I feel like she's capable of doing it again. Maybe dancing is just dancing, but to me, the sort of dancing (grinding) people do now is just a segway into sex, but girls insist its different. There were no more incidents that year.
That summer she took me to her grand parent's beach house and she got me to sign this ancient family bed that many others had signed before me, it was some sort of family initiation ritual? Later in December, I went with her and her family to her grandparent's place in Florida. My feelings are that girls don't bring their boyfriends to spend a couple of weeks with the grandparents unless they are very interested in something meaningful. Then the next school year I was just taking one class at a time trying to finish up, she was a junior now, we had another fight and after that fight I wasn't allowed to come out and party with her anymore. Her friends are very different than mine, although some of her friends are friends with mine, there isn't a whole lot of friendship group overlap. She got mad at me for being werid, but I seem to remember it differently, I remember making people laugh. My theory is that she wants power in her quasi Greek volunteering group, and she's afraid I'll complicate things for her. I finally graduated college this spring, and she said if I didn't graduate this May she'd break up with me, so we're still together. Despite being taken on family vacations and giving me lavish gifts, like an iTouch for my birthday this past January, I see problems.
She went to a beach with her group of friends for a week, didn't invite me, saying she thought I wouldn't have fun. I counted the minutes we spoke on the phone for the whole week, it amounted to 50 minutes. She said it was rude to ignore her friends (but neglect her boyfriend?! A balance could not be reached?) Then she went to Europe for 5 weeks with two female friends (she's getting home today). I wasn't invited because she said she thought it would be awkward for her friends. She even said this would be a way to see if I can trust her and if we can survive. She's made 5-6 male friends on Facebook, and from what I could read they outrank me in maleness with bigger muscles, "cooler" hobbies, more education, etc. No female friends, she said she thought other girls were mean/*****y. She told me that "Italian men are very direct" and said they kissed her cheek and grabbed her butt. I don't know about you all, but "direct" is quite a polite euphemism for sexual harassment! This about European males is true, at the bottom of this are links to jokes exploring these stereotypes. While stereotypes are bad for all the obvious reasons (makes everyone the same, no room for individuality, hurtful, a short cut for comedians in joke making, etc), stereotypes exist for a reason, they are not generated in a vacuum, but they are not true 100% of the time. She communicated with me via wireless internet with her iPhone and my iTouch. We facetimed about once a week, and some days she said she wasn't near wireless and I sort of verified this by checking her friend's facebook and there were no updates some days. During this time, I discovered that she does not list me as her boyfriend on facebook. She claimed on her facebook that she is my girlfriend; however, people looking at her profile cannot see it. She said that she made it not displayed on facebook when she got mad at me on her birthday (I had a hard time sleeping the night before so I slept in really late that day). To me, not showing you're in a relationship on facebook is the electronic version of trying to look single by not wearing your wedding band. Her facebook pictures do show her wearing the jewelry I gave her though.
What I need to know from you
She arrives back in the US tonight and she's told me she's coming to see me at my apartment tomorrow. I've given you all a lot to read, but I really can't make up my mind what to do. I don't know if I should trust her, break up with her forever, take a break (which I think is just a coward's way of breaking up), or what to do. I don't think a girl can have sex with a dude hundreds of times and not harbor some feeling for him forever, especially if its her first sex partner. We've been together for over two years and my emotional brain is still bonded to her, but my rational side is suspicious. This is why I'm hesitant to just end it with her. If I break up with a girl, I could never be her boyfriend again in the future and have it be the same as before. If this was a girl I knew for less than a year I would have just ended it.
Could it be that this girl is a young girl (she's 20, I'm 25) and she's afraid of spending her best years with one guy she isn't 100% sure about, and she's trying to ready herself for being single? Maybe she acts the way she does because she wants to be single, but can't bare to make herself be the one to "put the dog to sleep." Or maybe she's just been playing me all the time and she's completely insidious, using me for a safety? Or maybe she does truly love me (I don't think a girl can have sex with a dude hundreds of times and not harbor some feeling for him forever, especially if its her first sex partner and bring him to meet her super conservative grandparents), but she's just scared that she does love me and would want to marry me eventually, but she's testing my devotion?
I'm also thinking about going to Europe too, because if I don't go now I'll probably never get to go, since I just got out of college and I don't have a real job yet. And if I'm recently single, what would be better than going to another place for a change of scenery and possibly hook up with some hot European chicks? I'd never do it while in a relationship, but without a relationship to hold me back there'd be no stopping me. There are so many things to consider, I have never been in a relationship this serious and this long, I have no experience with this. What should I do?
Links to jokes:
Italian Spiderman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzb3Ynz3gk
European men and American coeds: http://www.unwind.com/jokes-funnies/sexjokes/romanticeurope.shtml
American couple in Italian restaurant SNL skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32wC5pC5LBQ
In the past when I've had problems with girls, the usual advice I get is "You are an AFC with oneitis get rid of her." While in many cases that is true with girls I've never even kissed, I don't think every relationship problem should just be dismissed as this. That is why I haven't been here much lately because things have seemed fairly good for a time. However, I'm ready to dismiss any "yesmen" and have real advice. This forum is brutally honest, and I need that now.
My girlfriend and I have been through the stages of a relationship, the "Ooo, who is that sexy thing?" to the hooking up stage, to the hooking up without being in a "facebook official" relationship, to being in a new relationship where you're in the "honeymoon" stage when everything is good, so good that we'd joke about when our first fight would be, to the plateau stage where things are stable, with an occasional fight, to the fighting-make-up-sex-complex, to where we currently are: we've been together for two + years, are we compatible reevaluating stage?
Background
This girl and I met my first senior year of college (her freshman), she was hooking up with this other guy, but I wooed her away and she eventually left him for me, although they weren't official. By the beginning of the spring semester she said I took her virginity after she convinced her parents to put her on "the pill" then we hooked up from January until late March where she applied pressure to be in a real relationship because she felt "used." For a long time, I held all the power she wanted me more than I wanted her, and things were good. The girl grew on me, and I wanted to keep her around so I made her my girlfriend. We didn't talk much over the summer at first but then we were talking all the time, we visited each other and I met her parents and they seemed to like me. My second senior year and her sophomore year, one morning while she was going to class or something, I heard her say I love you. She denied saying it first, but after she did I started to also. We had our first fight that October, but we recovered. She got mad at me while drunk because I walked away from her to talk to a girl about girls in general, because my girlfriend was giving me silent treatment for some reason. For the rest of that school year, we'd fight every other weekend or so, largely because alcohol at parties amplifies emotions. We recovered though and stayed a couple, she basically lived at my apartment. The only other major fight is when I came to pick her up from a party (I had a lot of homework that day) and she was very drunk dancing with another guy. I almost lost it, everyone sensed the awkwardness. This guy's girlfriend was in the room, but I know my girlfriend would never have done that in front of me. To make things worse, I had gotten a traffic ticket to get her, I went down the wrong way of a one-way street for a few seconds, noted the error, and was trying to turn around when the police got me. I was already angry when I got in there, and she wouldn't let me even talk to her, but I eventually cornered her and was like, "I'll overlook what I saw for now, may we please just leave?" We eventually left and the next day she apologized and I forgave her, but I still can never get that image of her with another guy out of my head and I feel like she's capable of doing it again. Maybe dancing is just dancing, but to me, the sort of dancing (grinding) people do now is just a segway into sex, but girls insist its different. There were no more incidents that year.
That summer she took me to her grand parent's beach house and she got me to sign this ancient family bed that many others had signed before me, it was some sort of family initiation ritual? Later in December, I went with her and her family to her grandparent's place in Florida. My feelings are that girls don't bring their boyfriends to spend a couple of weeks with the grandparents unless they are very interested in something meaningful. Then the next school year I was just taking one class at a time trying to finish up, she was a junior now, we had another fight and after that fight I wasn't allowed to come out and party with her anymore. Her friends are very different than mine, although some of her friends are friends with mine, there isn't a whole lot of friendship group overlap. She got mad at me for being werid, but I seem to remember it differently, I remember making people laugh. My theory is that she wants power in her quasi Greek volunteering group, and she's afraid I'll complicate things for her. I finally graduated college this spring, and she said if I didn't graduate this May she'd break up with me, so we're still together. Despite being taken on family vacations and giving me lavish gifts, like an iTouch for my birthday this past January, I see problems.
She went to a beach with her group of friends for a week, didn't invite me, saying she thought I wouldn't have fun. I counted the minutes we spoke on the phone for the whole week, it amounted to 50 minutes. She said it was rude to ignore her friends (but neglect her boyfriend?! A balance could not be reached?) Then she went to Europe for 5 weeks with two female friends (she's getting home today). I wasn't invited because she said she thought it would be awkward for her friends. She even said this would be a way to see if I can trust her and if we can survive. She's made 5-6 male friends on Facebook, and from what I could read they outrank me in maleness with bigger muscles, "cooler" hobbies, more education, etc. No female friends, she said she thought other girls were mean/*****y. She told me that "Italian men are very direct" and said they kissed her cheek and grabbed her butt. I don't know about you all, but "direct" is quite a polite euphemism for sexual harassment! This about European males is true, at the bottom of this are links to jokes exploring these stereotypes. While stereotypes are bad for all the obvious reasons (makes everyone the same, no room for individuality, hurtful, a short cut for comedians in joke making, etc), stereotypes exist for a reason, they are not generated in a vacuum, but they are not true 100% of the time. She communicated with me via wireless internet with her iPhone and my iTouch. We facetimed about once a week, and some days she said she wasn't near wireless and I sort of verified this by checking her friend's facebook and there were no updates some days. During this time, I discovered that she does not list me as her boyfriend on facebook. She claimed on her facebook that she is my girlfriend; however, people looking at her profile cannot see it. She said that she made it not displayed on facebook when she got mad at me on her birthday (I had a hard time sleeping the night before so I slept in really late that day). To me, not showing you're in a relationship on facebook is the electronic version of trying to look single by not wearing your wedding band. Her facebook pictures do show her wearing the jewelry I gave her though.
What I need to know from you
She arrives back in the US tonight and she's told me she's coming to see me at my apartment tomorrow. I've given you all a lot to read, but I really can't make up my mind what to do. I don't know if I should trust her, break up with her forever, take a break (which I think is just a coward's way of breaking up), or what to do. I don't think a girl can have sex with a dude hundreds of times and not harbor some feeling for him forever, especially if its her first sex partner. We've been together for over two years and my emotional brain is still bonded to her, but my rational side is suspicious. This is why I'm hesitant to just end it with her. If I break up with a girl, I could never be her boyfriend again in the future and have it be the same as before. If this was a girl I knew for less than a year I would have just ended it.
Could it be that this girl is a young girl (she's 20, I'm 25) and she's afraid of spending her best years with one guy she isn't 100% sure about, and she's trying to ready herself for being single? Maybe she acts the way she does because she wants to be single, but can't bare to make herself be the one to "put the dog to sleep." Or maybe she's just been playing me all the time and she's completely insidious, using me for a safety? Or maybe she does truly love me (I don't think a girl can have sex with a dude hundreds of times and not harbor some feeling for him forever, especially if its her first sex partner and bring him to meet her super conservative grandparents), but she's just scared that she does love me and would want to marry me eventually, but she's testing my devotion?
I'm also thinking about going to Europe too, because if I don't go now I'll probably never get to go, since I just got out of college and I don't have a real job yet. And if I'm recently single, what would be better than going to another place for a change of scenery and possibly hook up with some hot European chicks? I'd never do it while in a relationship, but without a relationship to hold me back there'd be no stopping me. There are so many things to consider, I have never been in a relationship this serious and this long, I have no experience with this. What should I do?
Links to jokes:
Italian Spiderman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzb3Ynz3gk
European men and American coeds: http://www.unwind.com/jokes-funnies/sexjokes/romanticeurope.shtml
American couple in Italian restaurant SNL skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32wC5pC5LBQ
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