It’s normal and natural for a 20 year old who maybe is going out and having late nights for the first time in her life, to want to have fun with friends and reconsider whether life with a husband and a passel o’ kids is what she wants right now. If you are keen to settle down she may be realizing she’s not ready yet. And that’s nothing against you, and nothing against her.
Sometimes people are just not in the same place at the same time, and that’s sad and sometimes heartbreaking, but if either party settles down “because they didn’t want to disappoint” instead of “because they really want to,” that’s the express train to divorce.
In fairness, they’ve only hung out twice ever all together outside of work and thats been in the past two weeks.
I know she is going through this new experience, but knowing her and her family, she wont have time for this once nursing school starts. She even mentioned to me that her girlfriend that she was with last night had an 8AM exam this morning and that she would have never gone out with anything like that so early in the morning.
I plan to hang out with the new group here soon, hopefully in the next couple of weeks or so.
Smh. You shouldn’t have to drop any hints. My girlfriend always invite me to go out with her and her friends, no matter what. Although I try to get out of it as much as possible so I can go do other things…
She always talk about me to them. She never hangs out with any of the other guys alone. The last friend that tried to push up on her… She cut him off. Refuses to go anywhere if he’s attending.
The fact is, men will be men and If they’re attracted to each other then there’s nothing you can do about it. Something will happen despite who is there with them. Don’t trust her friends to be honest with you. They’re HER FRIENDS.
Go make you some new friends and stop obsessing over that girl before you go mental. Give her space. I wouldn’t even call her as often. Let her call you.
And so, for that matter, may be the OP. Speaking for myself, I got married for the first time right before I turned 25, and it was too early. I was unprepared to be a truly self-sustaining adult, let alone a husband or father. It ended the way you might think.
It’s up to you, obviously, but if I was in a relationship I’d expect my girl friend to have her own circle of friends, and her own social activities, in addition to the time she spent with me.
You should figure out with your girlfriend what your expectations are from the relationship, and if they’re compatible.
This paints a pretty terrible picture, in my opinion. You’re so clingy and insecure that she feels she has to keep checking in and reassuring you throughout her evening out with friends, call you before the concert is even over, and thank you for “letting her go” to an event on her own.
No one in your situation can actually hear advice, but here goes anyway: break up with this girl. Date other people. Become someone with a complete life outside of their relationship and learn how to add someone to this life without subsuming them or being subsumed by them.
When you do finally break up with this woman (and you will), do you want to know what her primary feelings are going to be? Relief. Freedom. She’s going to realize how much she likes getting to do things without having to tend to the anxiety garden of a jealous boyfriend all the time.
It seems like he was the majority of her world and he got used to it. (By no means, am I saying that’s healthy) For this summer, she’s been able to develop a social circle and a life where he is not the main focus. He doesn’t know how to interpret it.
I don’t picture it as jealousy as much as he was so used to being the focal point of her life that now that she’s becoming her own person with an identity outside of their relationship, he doesn’t know what it means. I see it more as insecurity, which can go hand-in-hand with jealousy at times.
OP, it’s a good thing. You should encourage it. Let her have her interests and her social circle. A few months ago, there was a thread about whether a person would be interested in / date someone who didn’t have any friends. I’d recommend searching for it and giving it a read. It might provide some insight.
Well… you’ve trying ever more desperately to hang onto a 20 year old woman who is just now spreading her wings socially. There is nothing a human female despises more than smell of a desperately clinging man.
Making lifelong “white picket fence” plans with a 20 year old woman who is just discovering herself socially, professionally, and as a person is IMO an extremely optimistic exercise bordering on foolish. You have been her boyfriend since she was 18, her sexual and emotional experiences with men and the world has been limited and she’s realizing that now.
It’s almost unfair to her for you to be expecting her to stay attached to you. IMO she is way too young to settle for having one relationship at this point in her life and it’s obvious you are fixated on the possible threat of losing her. I think you need to put her age in perspective and back way off on the monitoring pressure.
I understand she is 20 and if it was any other 20 year old out there in this world, I would agree with you. I remember when I was 20 (although it feels so far away)
She isnt your average 20 year old. Her whole life all she has wanted to be is a “mommy” as she likes to put it with a white picket fence.
If I could go re-do my original post I would say she was 25. We are very close to actual maturity levels, we’ve been ring shopping already and both know what we want.
I know she’s the one. I know it in my heart. I also know, these friendships are not permanant right now and are fun for her because they are new. I also know there will be more new fun friendships for her thoughout her life, but this experience has helped me a ton.
Bingo. This describes my situation perfectly. Im still trying to adapt. I am insecure because of previous relationships and I will admit it. This is just a very hard time for me right now.
In my experience, every relationship I’ve been in where I had feelings like the ones you’re describing was on the fast track to dumpsville. If you don’t trust her (and needing to check up on her multiple times in a night or being concerned because she is on a boat with her friends counts as a lack of trust) you need to look inside yourself and find out why.
Astro has a good point. I can tell you love this woman and wild horses couldn’t drag you away, but there are realities that need to be faced. I wouldn’t say it’s foolish to be with someone that young, necessarily, but just try to understand it from her perspective. I feel like I can relate somewhat because I’ve been with my husband ever since I was 19 (though we are the same age.)
Fortunately for us it worked out great, we grew together, but it’s still really weird when I sit down and think about the fact that I’ve been with this man for my entire adult life. While most people were dating and screwing around I was in a relationship where we both knew the end-goal was marriage. I certainly don’t regret it, but there’s no way you can have an experience like that without missing out on something. I never dated or experienced life as a single woman, so I have no idea who might have been interested in me or what kind of friends I might have had if I weren’t hanging out with his friends all of the time. I don’t know how much of my personality can be attributed to having known him, in a way I don’t know who I am without him.
Weirdly enough, we didn’t really get a solid sense of an identity apart from one another until we got married, and even then it took a few years to really reach that ideal balance between total dependence and total independence. But it was a really tough habit to break. There was a lot I was afraid to do without him. And he really struggled to let go as well. Now that we are truly on equal ground I believe our relationship is a lot stronger and it’s certainly more enjoyable.
So what I’m saying is, get that shit nailed down now, before you have years of co-dependence to undo. In order for this to work, you need to accept that the risk of losing someone you love is an inherent part of having a relationship. No matter how well you know someone or how much you love them, you are taking a gamble. Even after 12 years with this man I am all too aware that nothing is ever a guarantee. In this case, you have to take the risk that the two of you will grow apart. But you can’t reap the reward without taking the risk.
I don’t doubt she is not average for her age. Neither was I. From the time I was in 4th grade my life plan was to go to graduate school (I wanted a Ph.D. in clinical psychology*) and then get married and have children. In 4th grade, I kid you not, I would not ‘‘go out’’ with anyone I didn’t think was marriage material - and by that I mean someone who didn’t demonstrate the maturity necessary to eventually excel academically and professionally and manage the responsibilities of a household (Needless to say, I was a very lonely 4th grader!)
My life expectations didn’t really change as I got older. By the time I was 19 I had been financially independent for two years. I didn’t want to mess around with someone who was going to waste my time and create drama. Life went in a different order than planned (we married after we finished undergrad, not grad school, and we still haven’t had children) but basically I’ve always wanted the exact same thing out of life. And he always has too. That’s one of the reasons we work so well together.
And still, dealing with that level of commitment at the age of 20 has a very real impact on the way you view the world and yourself. It’s inescapable. No matter how mature you are, and no matter how bad you want it, there will be a consequence for that.
*I know better now. My husband will have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology as of Fall of next year, after 7 YEARS, and I can’t fathom why either of us thought that was a good idea.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I feel we are in the same situation as you two are/were. The main thing that attracted me to her was her maturity and family situation and how she viewed her life.
Gosh, she even asked me on Sunday again after we had talked when I was going to put a ring on her finger as she had discussed the possible dates with her boss.
Knock this shit off immediately. Don’t keep crying about wanting to meet her friends. Don’t push this. If she doesn’t want you to meet them, that is trouble, and your hinting/whining won’t do a thing.
Stop it! You don’t want to meet them anyway-you just want to assure yourself, and, in the meantime, you are coming across like some shrewish jealous old woman.
You sound to me like you are losing touch with reality, and trying to hang onto the ‘white picket fence’ dream that you/she used to have.
You are scaring me at this point…“she isn’t…average”…
“I know she’s the one. I know it in my heart…”
You don’t know fuck all about her…you are at home whining, trying to convince yourself that she will stick with you, and she probably won’t.
She went out boating, and getting drunk on the boat??? That’s a good combination. I just hope next time, somebody brings the guns.
(Wasn’t there a recent thread about drinking and going to church the next morning, with some horndog with the cuckold’s gf?)
She blew off her plans with you to go with somebody else??
It don’t look good to me.
Don’t whine/beg/cry anymore. Find yourself a life. If you want to keep her, don’t cling, and don’t let her see that she is hurting you. She doesn’t want a baby before she gets pregnant. She has carefree friends, now…she doesn’t need some bitch to babysit. If you are going to get dumped, be a man about it, and keep some dignity.
Expect a Dear John letter soon. Start shopping around.