[25F] Do I have conflict resolution backwards?

Two times I have been immediately dumped over opening a conflict. It did NOT involve yelling, verbal abuse or ultimatums. More like "Your (woman) friend is acting a little inappropiate towards you. Can we talk about this?". In both cases, I didn't want them to stop hanging out-or even hang out less, I just wanted to be reassured and taken into consideration. Not that I actually got to expressing the last sentence-they both went into overdrive "OMG OMG you're possessive, I need to get out of this ASAP " territory.

Now, when I look at other relationships around me-they seem to solve their conflicts in a much more emotional/primal manner i.e. He sometimes doesn't answer the phone? She will intentionally not answer the phone. I personally find this immature, but it seems to work. Also, one thing that makes me insecure is the fact that one of ex's exes would actually yell and throw things around the house whenever she got jealous. THAT you can handle without considering her possessive, but an attempt at a mature conversation drives you over the edge?

With another ex...whenever HE was upset about something, I would say "I never thought this would bother you. I will stop doing this in the future"(and I did). He HATED it. He called it lawyer talk. His ex would never, ever change behavior(at least not long term), but she would get guilty/sad/generally emotional if he brought up something she did that bothered him. He didn't say it specifically, but it was clear he much preferred it.

I consider myself an empathetic and emotionally open person. Maybe I don't show it enough? Maybe my experience is very particular and not applicable further than those particular people? Is there something deeper? I don't know.

TL;DR It seems like guys prefer you act over emotional rather than rational when something bothers you. It confuses me, since it seems to go against everything we would be thought in a, say, conflict resolution class.

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My bf keeps looking up half-naked/naked girls on ig

My bf M/22 and I F/21 have been together for almost 3 years now. Everyone around says how much he loves me, families included. I don’t think we have ever argued seriously about anything but one thing. Naked women in his phone. The first time I saw it on accident in his photos once I brought it up all of it was deleted and never came back to the topic. A few months after I just had an urge to go through his phone (yeah yeah I know privacy etc and I hate that I do that too) either way I found receipts and notifications of him subbing for OF. Whatever came to agreement about it. I forgave him and even was able to build up the trust again, it got better than it even was before (didn’t check his phone didn’t have an urge or feeling, nothing just trust and happiness). Until one day I woke up in a middle of the night and first thing I felt was the urge to check his phone which resulted in me finding him thirsting over naked girls on ig. Argued with him, ended up taking on this topic for 2-3 hours, him praying on his mama and yes I forgave him. But forgave does not mean forgot, so I kept periodically checking his phone in the morning which was always clean until about a month ago I found in his search history a OF model that he personally knows from his school as well as a convo w his friend talking about one of the reels you can imagine what kind. This was a crazy day because I feel like a little more stress and I would have ended up w panic attacks in a hospital. He lied to me that the only reason he searched the girl was to show her acc to that friend. In the conversation there was no sign of her being mentioned which he said he deled convo so that I wouldn’t make my own picture in my head and not to stress me out. I said to text that friend and ask for screenshot of his side of chat he refused and a minute later admitted that he did in fact search her up not for his friend but just to check on her life. I went in panic mode and when escalated he was the one to call me down haha that sounds so ridiculous honestly. Though he begged for last chance said he won’t fuck it up he sees me in his future. I had to think on all of that for a few hours and ended up staying, yes, you can call me stupid. Though I told him if it will happen again I will pack my stuff and leave. Now I have not found anything and yes I’m looking through his phone still. The only thing I found was porn which I had never had problem w it. Though now when I saw that in the video it was basically just the girl and the only thing from dude is a dick I did start feeling a typa way at the moment but still don’t care whatever watch porn. But tonight I pretended to sleep and when he came back from shower was just peeking at his phone and saw that before he put his phone away he checked specifically for his search on Ig. He went directly from Home Screen to IG search and when he saw that there was nothing to clean up, he just closed ig and turned to sleep. Now I do not have any evidence but for some reason I’m sure that he still does it all but now I have no evidence since all of my moves he know so he knows what to hide I assume. Now you might ask why won’t you leave him? Maybe because I’m stupid, maybe because I love too much or attached too much idk call it whatever you want. But he is the person I’m looking forward to seeing at the end of the day. He still treats me good besides this, compliments, flowers, appreciates me, long talks, sometimes I feel like we the same person in different bodies, I just feel that connection to this day even after all the hurt. The thing is I don’t even know if it bothers me at this point that he does it. In a way I still get that feeling going through his phone but even when I found all of it the last time I felt nothing about it until he got me on the conversation about it. He is also the person who helped me learn to communicate in relationship because before I was avoidant about it and would bottle it up in me which is what’s happening rn

Damn I just realized how long this is. Sorry for the yap dump but I literally have no one to talk to about it. If I tell my mom I will end up crying my ass of and she will probably will take me back home. And I don’t want to ask friend for a shoulder because everyone already has their hands full w exams etc.

I just don’t understand at this point why.

TL;DR;: basically have a feeling that he still continues to check out the girls even though he promised and begged. I worry less than I did a few days after last time. But it is still on my mind and slowly eating me, and I have no proof if he does it or if I’m just making up scenarios like I usually do.

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* This article was originally published here

I (25F) broke up with my boyfriend (25M) of 8 years to live abroad and I fear I will regret it

I recently returned from solo travelling in Australia for 2 months. I absolutely loved every minute of it and it really boosted my confidence. I was always such a homebird and it was really a leap out of my comfort zone.

I have been with my boyfriend for 8 years, since we were both 17. He is kind, generous, loyal, and I can tell that he genuinely loves and cares about me a huge amount. However, there are also aspects of our relationship that make me unhappy. I feel that we cannot really have vulnerable conversations where I express what I’m dissatisfied with in a constructive way. When we do this, he gets angry or frustrated. This has resulted in him calling me names in the past.

He also seems to harbour resentment towards me over past mistakes. We have been together since we were both very young (17) so inevitably we both have made mistakes along the way as this is the first relationship either of us has been in. But this resentment can manifest itself in him being very angry towards me when drunk for example. There have been quite a few incidents when he’s been drunk where he will act completely irrationally and his resentment towards me will come out. For example, he has called me a whre, to KMS, fck off, that I would have no one without him, cursing at me etc. It just seems to come out of nowhere which concerns me because it makes me think he is very unhappy in the relationship. Afterwards, he will be extremely apologetic and will show genuine remorse. But it still happens again.

I know this is hard to believe with the information I’m providing, but he is not a bad person. He feels a lot of shame after he acts like this, and he has lovely qualities. He has always had a lot of difficulty regulating his emotions. And it’s not an excuse. He is still responsible for his behaviour but I don’t think he is inherently a bad person. Which is what makes it difficult. But despite me expressing many many times how his behaviour makes me feel uncomfortable, there is no consistent change. Sometimes he’s not even aware of it being an issue which is almost more concerning.

But basically, I want to live abroad in Australia for a year. He was very upset when I told him this. I asked him to join me multiple times. He says it’s just not something he wants to do. This lead to us breaking up because I felt we wanted different things in life. He says the he will never stop loving me, and that he is ‘incredibly depressed’ that we broke up, and that he will never meet someone like me and how special I am. What confuses me is that he was not even open to compromise. I know he doesn’t want to hold me back from doing what makes me happy, and I appreciate Australia isn’t what will make him happy. It is a big thing to move to the other side of the world and I can’t expect him to do this if it’s not for him. But at the same time, when I suggested that we compromise, he was not open to this.

Even if he did move to Australia with me, we would want to do different things. He dislikes most of my friends, so we would be drawn to different people. I would like to go to late bars and dance, he hates dancing and to be honest when he’s drunk he can be mean to me.

But he is extremely loyal and I fear I won’t find this again. That is something I really value in a relationship. He makes me feel like I am the only girl for him.

Since we broke up, I don’t feel as sad as I thought I would. I think I may have started grieving the end of the relationship a long time ago. It was a mutual decision, but I feel very guilty that he is so heartbroken and I worry I will regret it. He was extremely sweet during our break up, and supportive of my dreams and it reminded me why I fell in love with him.

TLDR: Boyfriend (25M) of 8 years and I (25F) broke up because I want to travel and he doesn’t, and I fear I will regret it

My fear is that I will never meet someone as loyal as him and that I will regret losing him.

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* This article was originally published here

i (19F) found a dating app on my boyfriends (21M) phone

i (19F) and my boyfriend (21M) have been going out for almost 6 months now and i wanted to ask advice. after our first month of dating while my boyfriend was on his phone i noticed on the screen a dating app, this wasnt too shocking to me as we met on a dating app ourselves and even tho it made me a little uneasy i knew that we hadnt been together that long and wernt too serious at the time so i forgot about it. fast forward to last night while we were out these guys came up to us asking us to do that tiktok loyalty test thing were we go through eachothers phones. my boyfriend gave me his phone with no hesitation. and while i looked at the screen i saw that the same dating app was there. i didnt say anything and we continued until the guys left and we joked about how random it was. but im still thinking about why he still has the dating app after 6 months. we are so close and i genuinely love him so much and belive he loves me too, i just dont know how to talk to him about how it makes me uncomfortable. first off i in no way think that he is cheating or being unfaithfull, but how do i bring up this conversation about the app and calm down my mind. thankyou

TLDR: found dating app on my boyfriends phone after 6 months and want to talk about it to him.

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I (F28) broke up with my boyfriend (M27) because he broke a promise. Am I being unreasonable?

TL;DR Boyfriend attacked me while he was drunk. I took him back because he promised to stop drinking. He drank for the first time in months, so I broke up with him. Am I being unreasonable because he has improved in certain respects?

For context, my ex and I always had a rocky relationship. One of those ones where “when it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, it’s really bad”. I’m talking arguments that resulted in terrible name calling, threats to break up, even having the police called.

Summer of last year, I started a new job. He expressed to me, as I began, that he was feeling insecure about me cheating with my new colleagues. I did everything I could to reassure him, but 2 weeks into my new job, I went out for after work drinks with my colleagues. When I returned home, he was extremely drunk and accused me of cheating from the moment I arrived. After a big back and forth, he ended up attacking me. I immediately called the police and he was taken away. This resulted in him legally not being allowed to talk to me or see me for a month. But that didn’t stop him. He begged and made so many promises, the biggest one being that he’d stop drinking forever. We both agreed that if he broke that promise, it’d be over. I was in a really vulnerable state at that point, so despite what he did to me, I took him back on his promises.

Fast forward to today and he has made many improvements and has become a better partner in most respects. However, I left the country for a few days for a short trip and one night, he ended up getting black out drunk, which I found out through his texts and calls to me. In that moment, I stuck to the deal and said we were over. He battled hard and said he made a mistake and promised that this time, he’d really stop because he can NOW really see the damage his drinking would cause.

With everything in the past and the broken promise, I put my foot down. But still, I can’t help but wonder if I’m being unreasonable because it was one slip up out of all the other improvements that were made? Will he really be better and stick to his promise this time? Or have I made the right decision?

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* This article was originally published here

I took custody of the dog in an ugly breakup. Was I wrong for what I did?

My ex and I got a golden retriever puppy together in the middle of Covid. It was perfect timing because I was working from home so I could keep an eye on her, take her out frequently, and work on training. I taught her everything she knows.

I would say I was her primary caregiver, and my name was on all of the receipts and her vet paperwork. This is important.

When we broke up he made it clear that he thought splitting custody would be the best. He wanted do two weeks on/two weeks off.

I was planning on moving back home post breakup, which would make it a 3 hour drive between us. I was simply not interested in continuing to have him in my life for the next ten years. The breakup was messy and not on good terms at all.

He told me that if I didn’t want to split custody that he would then be taking the dog solely. Things were getting ugly at home and we were still living together while I was looking for a new apartment. We were beginning to hate eachother.

So basically I realized the only way I could keep the dog is to basically just go ahead and take her. So I left one day while he was at work. He came home and we were both gone. I feel cruel for the way I did it…

I feel horrible about how this all went down but I felt like I had no other choice. My ex was devastated. His mother called me and said she had never seen him so upset, that he was sobbing. He promised me he was going to sue me for custody, but I think he realized he had no grounds and eventually texted me to let me know that he wouldn’t be suing me, and that the dog is mine now, best of luck, etc.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? The guilt of everything is eating me alive, but I feel I had no other choice. I also worry about how my dog is dealing with this, if she misses him too. I’d like to hear some of your experiences with dog custody issues. Thanks in advance!

TL:DR One day I just up and left with the dog and moved to another state. My ex is devastated and wanted to split custody. Was I wrong for what I did?

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* This article was originally published here

The Guy (39,M) I (30,F) Like Is Sponsoring The Mother Of His Children

I (30,F) really like this guy (39,M) I met online but know I should not be subjecting myself to this world of chaos. We have been dating for about a year give or take.

He’s 39, has two children, and lives at home with his aging parents. In addition, the mother of his children is living with them as well, along with the two children. She isn’t a citizen of the country and doesn’t work so he feels obligated to support her for the sake of the children. According to him, she’s disrespectful, lazy and unappreciative to him and his family. He says their relationship has been over for a while, that he is not attracted to her and does not want a relationship with her. They are not together and both date other people.

Due to the fact that she is not a citizen, he’s in the process of legally sponsoring her, to ensure she can remain in their children’s lives, as they have autism and have grown very attached to their mother. The mother of his children does have family in the country but he says he does not want her living with them and risk having his children growing up in a bad neighborhood considering she’d have the children full-time while he works.

I really do like him, but know and understand I’m getting the really short end of the stick and this probably isn’t going to work out long-term. I can’t go over his house, won’t be able to get married or have children of my own with him. It absolutely sucks, because when we’re together, we have such a great time and spend so much time laughing with one another. But ultimately the cons outweigh the pros. I should also mention he’s been to jail in his earlier days and works, but money is always tight. Him having a criminal record does not make it easy for him to secure a job that pays more, which means I’m always paying for things. It doesn’t really bother me only because I’ve never been with a man who has or could provide for me, so I’m used to spending a lot money while dating.

Truthfully, a part of me thinks I may like him out of desperation and loneliness (I’ve been dating for a while with no success) but also has genuine interest in him, enjoys spending time with him and remains hopeful, stupidly. He says he loves me and wants to be with me, but I don’t know. It’s probably in my best interest to remain friends and seek to date other people. I just feel a little stuck. Please don’t be mean to me. I’m obviously a little delusional and wear my heart on my sleeve lol.

For some reason, I equate sponsoring her with marrying her in my mind, because he’d be legally responsible for her for 10 years according to his lawyer. I even told him he might as well marry her.

TL;DR : The guy I like, is legally sponsoring the mother of his children but says he loves and wants to be with me.

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* This article was originally published here