Relationship Struggles: Seeking advice (22F)

Hello everyone, I'm a 22-year-old female who recently had a major disagreement with my 23-year-old boyfriend. It all stemmed from a Snapchat message from three years ago, and I could really use some advice.

Here's the backstory: We've been officially together for three years, but we were talking for a year before that. One night at a party, a question was asked during a drinking game that caused a huge fight between us. Despite my attempts to downplay it, my boyfriend had a hard time trusting me afterward. Another incident occurred when I reached out to a lecturer for help with a software issue. Even though I made it clear I was in a committed relationship, my boyfriend accused me of flirting.

To regain his trust, I went to extreme lengths, like blocking men on social media when they want to request to follow me ,to constantly reassuring him. But despite my efforts, trust remains an issue.

In the most recent argument, about three weeks ago, my boyfriend stumbled upon an old Snapchat message from three years ago probably just before our relationship or the beginning, might even be from the short period me and my boyfriend had a very small minor break up . Despite my explanation that I didn't even recall having the person on Snapchat, let alone a message, he struggled to believe me. This followed a situation a week prior where a this same man,who is somewhat of a local celebrity, liked some of my old Instagram pictures, prompting me to express discomfort to my boyfriend. Despite my efforts to be transparent, the trust issues persist, leaving us both at an impasse. He called all 3 of these fight infidelity based on my part.

I feel stuck. My emotions are being disregarded when i try speak to him , all he cares about is how i hurt him, and I'm tired of constantly trying to prove myself ,when i know i didn't do anything wrong. My boyfriend says he knows intellectually that I haven't been unfaithful, but emotionally, he struggles to believe it. He's asked for space, but I'm not sure if I should continue trying to fix things alone (per his request, that because i broke it i should fix it ) or consider taking a break. Because I'm angry and hurting too

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

TL;DR

Hey everyone,

I'm a 22-year-old female seeking advice about trust issues with my 23-year-old boyfriend. It all started with an old Snapchat message and has escalated from there. Despite my efforts to reassure him and be transparent, trust remains a problem.

I feel stuck and unheard when trying to communicate my feelings. My boyfriend struggles to believe I've been faithful, even though he acknowledges it intellectually. He's asked for space, leaving me unsure whether to keep trying to fix things alone or consider taking a break.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

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GF(21) just brokeup with me(22M) due to boundaries being constantly overstepped.

Hey Guys, im in a bit of pickle rn. My girlfriend(ex now maybe idk) and I had been dating for a year and 3-4 months now. We both were invested in this relationship for the long run with hopes to get married within 3-4 years after my Master’s degree.

This wasn’t your usual relationship with empty words and promises like those of teenage relationships. Her main problem is disrespect during arguments. I was raised very differently compared to her so stuff that was normal to me was incredibly hurtful to her. She said from day 1 she can’t handle disrespect and I reassured her I’d work on it, and I did improve quite a lot but it’s not nearly finished yet. Our main problem is when we argue, we’re unable to resolve things calmly and more often than not stufff gets escalated to the point where it turns into a bad fight.

I know communication is an integral part of a relationship and she’d been tolerating me working on this but seems to have given up for the time being. Our chemistry and vibes are off the charts and I don’t doubt for a second that what we have/had is real considering the fact that I’ve been in around 7-8 relationships by now. She’s basically asked for space and distance but has called it a breakup. It seems I took her for granted and thought she’d always stick around which was a huge error on my part and the fact that It took a breakup to make me realise this is pretty shitty.

Im genuinely broken without her and I don’t want to go on in life without her. I’ve respected her wishes and told her I’ll be taking time to work on myself personally, to make sure that I get rid or this problem completely and that I’ll wait for her however long she needs because she’s the only girl I want my best self to be with. The place where I need advice now is for the people who have broken up and gotten back together eventually, Did you all give your partners a fair second chance? How long before you guys realised it’s not worth letting go and should be atleast tried to make it work again before completely giving up? And if you did get back together, were things better than before? Were you glad you gave it a second shot? Thankyou for reading and I look forward to what you guys have to say! TL;DR: My girlfriend brokeup with me because of constantly overstepping boundaries and Im not sure she’ll be coming back.

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girl I’m dating suddenly distant, how should I respond to last text she sent me?

So I’ve been dating a girl for the past 2 weeks. Both of us are in our 30’s. We’ve had 4 dates, and I feel we have a genuine connection. We shared a lot about our lives, all the dates went well. She’s scared of commitment and super busy with work. She’s currently in medical residency. We’ve been intimate already couple of times.

All of a sudden she’s acting more distant. Called her last night and texted her after saying “hey I just called to say hello, call me back whenever.” and no response. She texted me the next day saying she’s been busy with work stuff lately and that she hopes I’m having a good week. She has anxiety and gets overwhelmed easily.

So it seems she’s pulling back. I don’t know why. Here’s my question:

I’m going to give her space. But Do I text her back to acknowledge her text to me?

Something like “hey, I completely understand- let me know if things free up for you this weekend, maybe we can catch a comedy show?”

Or leave it more open-ended? Something like “hey I completely understand, let me know if things free up for you”

Or no response at all to her text?

I’m planing on not reaching out after and respecting her space.

What do you guys think??

TLDR: girl I’m dating suddenly distant, how should I respond to last text she sent me?

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Dragon's Dogma 2 Romance: Is There Relationships? - Turtle Beach Blog

Dragon's Dogma 2 Romance: Is There Relationships?  Turtle Beach Blog

* This article was originally published here

[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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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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