This is all strong solid advice. Let her go, and ease up. Go hang out with friends, finish school, and put your life and future together. You’re both young, and just entering the ‘adult world’ as it were. Who knows what the future holds.
Please, if anything else: Don’t let your feelings turn into a jealous rage, and say or do something stupid you may regret the rest of your life.
double, sorry
It’s also pretty typical SDMB advice to insist that a relationship can work out when most people advise that it is over. But the fact is that way more relationships simply run their course (notice I did not say “fail”) and it is particularly challenging for two people to meet at age 17 and for that to go on forever.
I think it is a totally legitimate request for one partner to say to another, “I’m not comfortable with your relationship with [this one person].” It isn’t like the OP is asking for his GF to stay away from all men because it makes him jealous – that would be unreasonable. If someone cannot accept that a particular relationship is making their partner uncomfortable, then that someone is being a real jerk… and the issue is not jealousy.
You’ve been dating 7 years and aren’t at least engaged? Time to shit or get off the pot! Many people in relationships will want to be engaged, or something financially binding such as buying a house together, well before 7 years. Or they consider the relationship something comfortable to be in until something better comes along.
There’s a possibility that this new ‘friend’ is a way to make you jealous and pop the big question. Or she is bored with the status quo and looking for an out.
However you may have painted yourself into a corner. Now might be the worse time to propose as you could just be doing it from jealousy and not because you want to marry her. Or she sees such a proposal as just your way to control her or just a reaction to her actions.
Still if you don’t propose, you may lose her. Or maybe she will say no for whatever reason. Better to find out now than have more years badly invested in this relationship.
It is my experienced opinion, that you no longer have an actual girlfriend.
What you have is a pre-ex girlfriend. Do not attempt to marry this woman, she is in between her past and her future.
Your conversations may begin to take the form of something like: I just need a little room. Maybe we should take a short break. It’s not you, it’s me.
Shortly followed by: I love both of you. We can always be friends. Followed by you getting your heart broken.
Don’t get your ass thrown in jail while all of this happens. You are young, you essentially grew up together, and someone is moving on.
It’s a tough pill to swallow, but that is what is coming.
Proposing marriage to save a failing relationship is a terrible idea. I mean why not tell the OP to knock her up while you’re at it.
If it comes to that, just share your GF with the other guy. He sounds like he could use it more than you, so be generous. Humans aren’t really meant to be monogamous anyways so it would do well for you to get used to having a 3rd person or more around when you’re not yet married.
If you aren’t comfortable with your girlfriend being in love with another guy, you should just go ahead and break up.
I do agree that the SDMB tends to be a little quick on the “it’s all over” trigger, but, if all is reported in the OP is true, this relationship does seem to be in dire straits. I mean, video chatting every night for 2-4 hours? The OP would have to be blissfully naive to not be suspicious and jealous. I hate jealousy and my last GF before my wife was almost pathologically jealous (at least from my vantage point), but if I were video chatting with some girl every day for a couple of hours, yeah, she’d have a point.
My girlfriend does not care that I have a female friend who I text several times a day. Nor should she. I’ve known that friend for over 25 years. But if I was video chatting for 2-4 hours a night? Damn, that’s more than I get to talk to my girlfriend and we live together. It’s over Johnny.
Go back and re-read Chilliwack’s post. I am recommending option 2.
I would also recommend Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass. Good stuff for life regardless of how this relationship plays out.
Also survivinginfidelity.com is a great website with a message board and resources written by people in similar situations. They give great advice. I would suggest copying your post there.
Best wishes.
Do not think for a second that any young man would skype 2-4 hours every night with a girl unless he is actively pursuing her for physical intimacy. They may as well be having moonlight dinners and stolling through the fair - but this is a lot cheaper for him. It sounds like he is already well on his way to building a very intimate mental relationship with your girlfriend.
You can either wait around until your girlfriend decides who she likes better, or help her out by putting pressure on her to choose you over him (guaranteed to backfire). Better yet, start planning your exit.
You have no right to make demands on who she sees. But you do have every right to walk away from a relationship with a person who doesn’t respect your feelings or even your pride Feeling jealous when a GF chats with another man for 5 minutes is misplaced jealousy. Feeling jealous when your GF Skypes her new friend for hours on end? Perfectly reasonable. A healthy dose of anger wouldn’t be inappropriate, either. I mean, she’s not testing boundaries here; she’s done gone over the wall and is galloping towards freedom.
Sorry to say but I agree that your relationship with this woman has run its course. You can either wait for her to break up with you, or you can do it yourself.
I agree as the the first paragraph you quoted of mine shows. However proposing could bring things to a head quicker so that the OP can move on instead of wasting more months or years before the ax falls.
Of maybe she will accept the proposal and all will be fine - once she stops dealing with the other dude…
Last time I was spending that much time in video chat…I was planning on marrying her…just sayin.
Time to cut and run mate, she is getting ready to move on. Might be unconscious but.
Dtmfa!
First of all, welcome to the SDMB!
Second, I’m sorry, but I have to concur that your relationship with her seems to be drawing to a close. Please don’t feel guilty about your so-called “jealousy.” Occasionally, it’s warranted.
Good luck and let us know what happens.
When I was in my early 20s I would never spend hours with a woman whom I was not romantically interested in. Too much to do and too many buds to hang out with.
I was engaged at 24 and dis-engaged at 25. We continued to date until a couple months after she declared that she wished to occasionally ‘hang out’ with a male acquaintance. Looking back, she had already emotionally left the relationship before she expressed her desire to hang out with another male. Had she still valued our relationship I don’t feel like she would have pursued this new friendship.
Good luck, amigo.
The latter has already happened so you can stop worrying about it happening.
2-4 hours a night a skype with another guy and she thinks you should be chill with it?
7 years is long in the tooth for a young relationship. The truth is that while I’m sure she regards you affectionately I kind of doubt you are her soulmate at this point. This other guy is pretty obviously the object of her attention and focus. You are not in any position to dictate who she focuses her affection and interest on. You have no power in this regard.
You are a comfortable and familiar rock and she will stay with you until you insist she stop contact and then she will leave or endeavor to do it privately. You are not going to stop it. You need to understand that as a hard concrete fact. Her heart is with someone else now.
You need to make plans to separate unless you are content to be emotionally cuckolded. You have been together a very long time as a young boyfriend - girlfriend and while I’m sure she still “loves” you she is over the relationship. No woman is spending 2-4 hours a night chatting with a guy she in not absolutely enthralled with.