Can I [F23] not be platonic friends with any man other than my bf [M22] ?

Basically, I’ve been talking to a guy [M28] on fb (mainly about his relationship issues lol) but at some point he told me that I despite him giving up on love I was giving him butterflies in his belly. I was a bit taken back by this but continued replying to his messages. I showed his message with the butterflies remark to my bf who didn’t say anything. I then asked him if he wanted me to stop talking to that guy since he wasn’t saying anything and he said “You can do what you want”.
Few days later I reply to his messages but he had sent me a lot of voice messages which shocked me so I showed my bf “wtf so many messages it’ll take me a lot of time to reply” and he said “don’t reply” but I already did by the time he replied to me. I didn’t think much of it but then he says “you know when I told you you could do whatever you wanted it meant stop talking to him you know I don’t like this”.

And another guy also sent me something on fb, a supportive message because he saw I wasn’t well. I told my bf about it because it was a long message and I wasn’t expecting it. My bf said “We all know why a guy in his 40s is trying to be nice to a girl in her 20s”… idk what to say or think, I thought he was… just being nice bc I’m depressed and wanted to help by offering an ear ?

I don’t care much about the second guy but I liked the first one as a friend we get along pretty well which is kinda rare for me :(

Should I stop talking to them ? Idk what to do.

TL;DR : Bf upset because I didn’t stop talking to a guy who told me I give him butterfly. I don’t like that he’s upset but I don’t want to tell the guy I have to stop talking to him

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* This article was originally published here

Toxic relationships: Battle within and outside - Gomantak Times

Toxic relationships: Battle within and outside  Gomantak Times

* This article was originally published here

Need advice on dealing with my (24m) girlfriends (24f) rich Asian controlling dad situation

Backstory: I (24M) met Sarah (24F) (fake name) around 1.5 years ago on an online dating app. Me and Sarah are both each others first relationship. We first met when I was doing an internship in the area, and then agreed to do long distance when I went back to school. Fast forward, and a few months later Sarah got laid off from her job. Sarah was very distraught by this and moved back home to her parents house. Her parents live in SoCal, and I live around ~500 mi away from her parents in a neighboring state for grad school. Sarah’s parents are extremely wealthy ($15+M houses, etc) and it is both a result of generational wealth and running successful businesses. As a result, Sarah has never had to pay for anything like rent ever, even when she was working independently and making money.

The troubles: Sarah has a very controlling dad who is not willing to accept anyone who is not both Asian and at or above their wealth/class level. Sarah has essentially been hiding me from her dad as a result. Sarah’s dad says this is because he wants someone that can be on equal footing with her and also fit into the Asian family. About me, I am about to graduate and make decent money in a STEM field (wrapping up interviews and deciding between multiple offers right now but generally on the order of 130-160k, depending on cost of living but mainly MCOL/HCOL). Decent in my eyes, but even if I worked very hard and worked my way up to 500k+ big tech senior roles, I still couldn’t come close to their wealth. I am white and grew up middle class in a LCOL Midwest area.

As a result of this, I only get to see Sarah when her dad goes on buisness trips. Sarah’s mom knows about me and is fairly cool with me too for reference. These buisness trips happen every ~4-8 weeks and usually for a week. However, these are unpredictable in nature, scheduled and rescheduled last minute. As a result, I have to plan my schedule around last minute trips to see Sarah all the time. Luckily, my grad school (and most likely future work) schedule is decently flexible and can accommodate some remote work. However, this still is very stressful and a huge annoyance in my life, and I have to drive 500 miles last minute, and sometimes leave last minute at night if dad is coming home early. Sarah currently works for her dad’s company as well, and this makes her seeing me much more difficult because all “time off” would have to obviously go through dad and would be questioned.

If word of this relationship got out to her dad, she would immediately lose all monetary and social privelages that she benefits from currently and would be kicked out of her parents house. Sarah would get fired from her job, and she does not feel confident in finding her own (although she could and is smart). Sarah’s biggest concern is probably losing access to her parents network, rather than materialistic things (although there is some of that too). She has met lots of powerful people regularly and enjoys this sort of elevated social standing.

While I am about to graduate and relocate, I am having no luck finding work by Sarah so will likely have a similar long distance thing going on. I feel like this constant last minute travel and planning around her dad’s schedule has been very tough on me. At the same time, Sarah is not ready to be independent mentally yet and leave her parents without her facing a massive QOL downgrade for the rest of her life. Sarah could probably make around 60-120k if she took a market rate job in her area and field in my opinion. She has had everything taken care of by mom and dad (including previous job), and this relationship is the only downside to living at home for her (everything else is actually decent) so it’s hard to justify leaving too. She is not used to failure, and I know her past layoff (she was living in a different city not at home) hit her very very hard.

Sarah is very sweet, smart and kind. Our relationship outside of this has been great, and I would hate to let this go. She is slowly working towards being more independent (she does want to eventually stand up for herself with this I feel), but I anticipate it’ll be a few years at best if she ends up getting the courage to get her own job and live independently, as well as give up her entire rich person network. However, all the unpredictable last minute travel avoiding dad and dealing with his unpredictable schedule has been taking a noticeable toll on me, and ends up being costly too. I’m not sure what to do as a result. How long should I give Sarah a chance to be independent while also being fair to myself with my needs and schedule? Any advice or encouragement? I am able to clarify in comments as well if there are questions.

Tl;dr - gf has had everything taken care of by dad whole life, dad would never accept me, gf not ready to live life independently

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* This article was originally published here

My (34F) BF (33M) is angry because I told him I hadn't slept and missed work because he got sick in bed last night due to his own lifestyle choices. Am I wrong for this?

From time to time my partner goes out with friends and then he'll eat late, have late coffee that keeps him wide awake all night and he smokes half a pack a day. Last night he would be back by 11.30pm but it got to 1 am. I was a bit worried, so I stayed up til he was back. That night he kept turning and he said his stomach was hurting and he was hot and cold. I asked what he ate at the restaurant and he said kangoroo steak... He said he felt nauseaus. I told him to make some fresh ginger tea but he didn't want to try.

Anyway, both of us kept waking up all night. I missed work due to exhaustion. I told him in the morning that the fact that he was so late and his unhealthy choices had stopped me from getting proper sleep. It is like this at least once a month. He said that it was easy for me to blame him. I'm angry because who else am I suppose to blame? I couldn't sleep because of his poor lifestyle choices. I think he is angry because I asked him if he doesn't care about my job. Maybe I was a bit harsh. But I still feel disrespected. He said I could have gone to bed earlier if I wanted to. Doesn't seem to understand how sleep works. I called out sick from work. He felt fine. But came home for lunch all pissed off. I cried in the morning and now again because he is a avoiding me while I lay crying in the couch in the living room. Was I really wrong to say those things?

Tl;dr my bf's health choices keep him turning in bed some night. I wake up exhausted and miss work. He's pissed that I blame him. Who's in the wrong?

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* This article was originally published here

Absolutely gated the gift my girlfriend(22,f) gave me(25,M).

TL:DR My girlfriend, got me a Kalimba as a birthday gift, and while i opened it up, she said "she's always wanted to buy one for herself but couldn't justify the buy, so she got it for me instead". I don't like music(especially the kind it plays, she knows all about it), I have fat fingers, and i have a tonne of other hobbies she knows very well about.

Full version:

I am turning to reddit because I didn't know where all to go.

My girlfriend(22,f) of three years, just got me a kalimba for my 25th(M) birthday. And I was very disappointed by it .

She likes listening to the extremely romantic, slow, melodious songs and I don't. Infact, when we are driving and if she plays it, I just ask her to not play them and we could just talk instead. She knows I don't like the music one bit. I don't mind her listening to it, I just don't want to listen to it myself.

And we just recently started long distance, since she had to move cities for education, i stayed back for work.but while I was opening it, and she was on call, she says that she has always wanted one, but couldn't, justify buying it, and that if I don't like it, I could give it to her.

Then she asks me to learn to play it, so that when she comes back for Christmas I can play it for her.

And the note she sent me, said, "it's a good gift buns(that's what she calls me), learn how to play it, so you can play it for me."

I mean, even on my birthday, I have to do something that I don't like to make her happy!!

I expressly told her to not get me anything, but then when she told me she'd sent something for me, then my expectations weren't of a little musical instrument that could play "you're my sunshine"

Shes been in a relationship with me for three years now, she knows i love reading history, I do bird watching & wildlife photography, i carve and Whittle wood and i have been learning how to sculpt with clay.

I told her I loved the gift and that it's super thoughtful to not hurt her feelings and ruin my birthday with an argument. But I really didn't like it, and i don't see myself in it one bit.

I just got her, her first vibrator for her birthday, and while she opened it up today, it kind of slipped out of my mouth and I said "and that's how you give awesome gifts" right after she tested it out on the call with me. She picke dit up, and has been mad at me about me taunting her and me not liking her gift.

What should I do?

submitted by /u/FindMeAHole
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* This article was originally published here

Feeling insecure

Hello, this is hard for me to post, even anonymously because this is something I've never dealt with before and I am having a lot of difficulty getting through it. Please delete if not allowed. I'm just hoping that hearing from strangers might help me a bit more since hearing from some of my close friends didnt do much for me. About a month ago curiosity got the best of me and I used my boyfriend of 3 years laptop to see his Facebook account. I went through his activity and saw that he had looked at about 10 very pretty girls in the last 4 months (i couldnt keep going because i felt sick). He didn't like their pictures or did anything beyond that and he was very apologetic and remorseful when i asked him about it. However, this hurt me so much because I've never had the curiosity to look at other guys on Facebook so I couldn't understand why he would do that unless he feels like I'm not enough. My close guy friends (all of which are in relationships) told me and reassured me that all guys are like that, but I don't know if they only said that to make me feel better. This is the first time I've cared about what my partner is doing on social media, I've never really been in love before I guess. I forgave him and he deleted fb on his own accord but this event left me feeling very insecure and paranoid. I feel like maybe he is getting bored with me or there's something I don't have that he wants. I keep feeling like I'm not what he wants, no matter how much love and reassurance he gives me. I already hated my body but now I don't even want him to see me naked. I know time cures all but it's been a month and I'm actually feeling a bit worse. I would like to know if anyone here has experienced this and what did you do to get over it? Please don't tell me to break up with him, that's not going to happen at this moment, maybe in the future if I feel like I can't get past this. He is an amazing person and has never done anything on purpose to make me feel inadequate. If all men do these things then I feel like breaking up would be a mistake if my next partner will do the same, or worse. I am truly in love with this guy and this is the worst thing he's done.

TLDR: boyfriend was looking at pretty girls on Facebook and now I'm feeling insecure about my body and our relationship.

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* This article was originally published here

Jealous, bitter and salty at my best friend

tl;dr Feel excluded and lonely over lack of time spent with best friend.

So we’ve known each other for almost two years already. We hit it off rather quickly and at some point we were spending all our free time together. I moved to the same country K lived in for several years(she wasn’t the reason of the move). Now we live together.

When K visited it would feel rather awkward. Later we discussed it. So everything was cool ig?

I don’t celebrate my birthday but K said she will visit bc im her bestie. So me and my other friends threw a bbq. K had to leave wayy earlier even before bbq bc her friend she gave a ride needed to go back to their city.

Later, around May-June period I would get busy with working additional hours to make some extra for the moving and also got busy with university stuff. K started hanging out with our mutual friend A more often. It was fine, only in July I would start feeling more excluded. We still texted each other almost all day and K would stream for me and play together after my shift.

Then I moved in with her and her other roommate for two weeks before our apartment was ready. I felt soo excluded and lonely because she would spend all her free time with A. I didn’t want to be obnoxious and just waited if she’d invite me to play with her. It got to the point that I talked to K’s roommate more than I did with her. I had to pull “ohhh I would love to play(the game I bought for her and it was “our” game) with you guys” several times before K actually invited me. And when she did she yelled at me for some stupid shit. We talked about it and forgot. Then when I was interested in the game again she suddenly decided that she doesn’t want to play it anymore. But played with the mutual friend often.

When the invited me to play new game for me and I would try to talk they would rarely answer. I got lost in the game and had to figure out where I need to go for 15 minutes. Because they ignored me everytime I asked where I should go.

Also some other occasions that I can’t remember well enough to describe right now.

Now it just feels weird. Like I’m really jealous all the time and don’t think we’re each others best friends even. I don’t think K cares anymore about me. I don’t think K wants to spend time with me. Conversations feels forced.

K often leaves me on delivered bc she’s too busy spending time with A and her university. She is a good friend and was there when I needed her. But lately I just feel sooo bitter and I don’t know how to fix it.

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* This article was originally published here