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Relationship opinions

  • 31-12-2008 3:57am
    #1
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭


    Hey all,

    I'm a member here but would like to stay anonymous for this. I'm with my girlfriend 4 years now. Like other couples we have our problems etc. but things worked out. To cut a long story short, I'm not sure if my heart is in it anymore. Over the Christmas my mates and brother, who are all single, have been out clubbing and having a great time and I admit that it has made me look at things.

    I am 22 and I think I may be missing out on things. It began a year ago I used to go out with mates etc and it was ok but it has become more and more difficult. I am 'not allowed' to go to clubs anymore and it has gotten to the point where I am pretending to be at home when I'm actually out!! It seems like I am losing my identity and that I can't be me anymore it has to be us. I was out christmas eve with mates and I'm still hearing about it, and that was just a few pints in the pub!

    I love her very much and she has been through great personal trauma when we were together about 6 months and I think this may be part of it. In every other way she is perfect and I don't want to break up with her but I am really beginning to feel suffocated. I have spoken to her about it but I am getting nowhere. Am I being unreasonable or something? I'm just worried that I might be missing out on being young!


Comments

  • #2
    Jimmy Bottlehead
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,121 ✭✭✭✭Jimmy Bottlehead


    Been there. You need to seriously consider breaking up and being single for a bit. Find yourself, as it were. If its that special, you two will get back together when you're ready. Otherwise you'll always wonder what could have been, what else is out there and so on. Probably lead to cheating down the road. You sound like a good chap so that would probably eat you up too.

    Get out and live life. There's millions of girls out there - not just one.


  • #3
    metrovelvet
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭metrovelvet


    You're bored.

    When you are with someone, you want to be single.

    When you are single, you want to be with someone.

    Welcome to human nature. It's not pretty.


  • #4
    tommyboy2222
    Closed Accounts Posts: 914 ✭✭✭tommyboy2222


    The grass is always greener !


  • #5
    SheRa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,628 ✭✭✭SheRa


    Unregistered wrote: »
    Hey all,

    I'm a member here but would like to stay anonymous for this. I'm with my girlfriend 4 years now. Like other couples we have our problems etc. but things worked out. To cut a long story short, I'm not sure if my heart is in it anymore. Over the Christmas my mates and brother, who are all single, have been out clubbing and having a great time and I admit that it has made me look at things.

    I am 22 and I think I may be missing out on things. It began a year ago I used to go out with mates etc and it was ok but it has become more and more difficult. I am 'not allowed' to go to clubs anymore and it has gotten to the point where I am pretending to be at home when I'm actually out!! It seems like I am losing my identity and that I can't be me anymore it has to be us. I was out christmas eve with mates and I'm still hearing about it, and that was just a few pints in the pub!

    I love her very much and she has been through great personal trauma when we were together about 6 months and I think this may be part of it. In every other way she is perfect and I don't want to break up with her but I am really beginning to feel suffocated. I have spoken to her about it but I am getting nowhere. Am I being unreasonable or something? I'm just worried that I might be missing out on being young!

    I dont think that this is just a grass is always greener thing or that you want to be with someone else or break up with your girlf, it sounds to me like you you just want to a bit of freedom to see your mates and that your girlf is very insecure about this.

    Its very important in a relationship to have time away from that person and also to go out with your own mates. Im with my boyf 8 months and said to him from the start how important it is that he still go out with his mates and me with mine. I really think that you need to sit down with your girlf and explain that its not that you want to be with someone else or out hooking up in clubs but just want to spend time with your friends without being made feel bad about it.


  • #6
    COH
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,252 ✭✭✭COH


    Sometimes the grass IS greener


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  • #7
    Trinity
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,662 ✭✭✭Trinity


    22 is very young to not be "allowed" to go anywhere. You've never really had a life tbh, sure if you are with her since 18 you would have only been allowed into clubs by then.

    I'm not saying you are missing out on much, however you are missing out on life experience. I was wild in my 20's but settled now in my 30's. However i feel if hadnt been wild, i'd probably be losing my mind at this stage being tied down, but as it is i've been there done that.

    This will soon turn into resentment, you are already lying in order to live a little and getting **** for 2 weeks for going out for a pint.

    Is this what you want for your future? Because if shes like this now i doubt it will get any better.

    You have plenty of time to settle down but you will never get your 20's back once they are gone. If you were happy i would be saying the opposite, but nobody needs this ****e at any age let alone yours, why settle?

    Ultimatum is a horrible word, but you will have to make changes in your relationship if you want it to last, and she needs to be told how unhappy you are.


  • #8
    Dizzyblonde
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 12,110 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dizzyblonde


    You're 22, you've been in a relationsip since you were 18. You need to either make room in your relationship for nights out with friends (for both of you) or you need to be single for a while. You're both way too young to be tied down in this way.


  • #9
    fearandloathing
    Closed Accounts Posts: 62 ✭✭fearandloathing


    one of my best mates was going through something very similar about a year ago. the girl was controlling his life, not letting him come out with the lads, being ridiculously overbearing. he had been with her about 3 years and found it very hard to end the relationship so he spent at least the last year of the relationship miserable untill eventually he just couldnt take it any more and broke up with her. imho its never worth losing valuable years of your young life to a girl who you have come to resent. its a tough decision to take but you need to break up and experience all the other options and freedoms you have as a man in his early 20's.


  • #10
    Azureus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,130 ✭✭✭Azureus


    you're losing your own identity being in a relationship like that! going out for xmas eve pints and getting crap two weeks later? ridiculous. youve done nothing wrong and its only normal to want to see your friends away from her. she has to seperate that from the idea that you dont want to spend time with her.

    there has to be a balance in a relationship and not being 'allowed' go clubbing is a bit extreme. id feel a little nervous if my bf was going out clubbing every weekend with the lads, but i let him do what he wants and that way there is mutual respect. if i DO suggest i wouldnt like him to do something he listens then, because he knows i am not unreasonable.

    there has to be give and take and she needs to understand that. maybe ease her into the idea that ou both need to do your own things gently? say you go out with the lads for drinks on the same night that she goes out with her friends, and maybe the whole lot of you meet up later on in the night?
    hope this helps!


  • #11
    iguana
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,916 ✭✭✭✭iguana


    Unregistered wrote: »
    In every other way she is perfect and I don't want to break up with her but I am really beginning to feel suffocated. I have spoken to her about it but I am getting nowhere. Am I being unreasonable or something? I'm just worried that I might be missing out on being young!

    If you have tried talking to her but it hasn't achieved anything perhaps you might consider counseling. It would let her know that you are both serious about needing things to change but that you also respect the fact that she has genuine issues that you aren't ignoring. Perhaps having a third person involved who is trained in helping couples would make her able to see that she is asking too much from you. And perhaps it would also lead to her taking counseling separately to deal with what she has gone through.

    It might seem a bit extreme, but if talking hasn't worked and you really want a change without ending the relationship than it really could make a big difference.


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  • #12
    seahorse
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,164 ✭✭✭seahorse


    It is simply off-the-wall to be "not allowed" to go where you please at any age. I hate to use the term 'insecure' on this forum because it is bandied about often when it doesn't apply at all as far as I can see, but it is absolutely fitting here; OP your partner is hugely insecure and you are pandering to her insecurities in a way that is sure to end your relationship if you continue to accommodate it.

    Obviously she shouldn't be treating you like this, but nor should you be accepting it. If you seriously do love this girl and want your relationship to continue in the long term you need to take responsibility for your part in that and stop pandering to her ridiculous and inappropriate demands. It takes two people to have a relationship and you've got a hand in how yours turns out too you know.

    My partner and I go when and where we please and that includes foreign holidays if we choose to. There is no stifling going on here and I regard that as an important part of the reason why we're content to stay in this relationship after 6+ years.


  • #13
    LegacyUser
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 166,026 ✭✭✭✭LegacyUser


    Thanks for all of the replies, everyone has basically said what I have been thinking. I do think that insecurity is the problem with us and that if we could sort that out then things could get back on track. Every problem we have stems from seeing each other and going out. She constantly compares our relationship to her sister's but they are 30 and she can't see that it's a whole different scenario. She thinks that clubs are for teenagers and single people. To be honest I would rather sit in a pub but when my mates are all clubbing, I'm not going out at 9.30 to come home at 12! I just want to spend time having a life as well as a relationship but the question is can I happily have both?

    I don't want to go clubbing every weekend or anything like that I enjoy spending time with her but we live together during the week and then we go home at the weekends. She lives a short drive from where I live and I like the weekends to myself, even if I am just sitting in watching TV. It's breathing space I need. Also, she doesn't think very highly of my friends, she thinks they are wasters (and none of them are they are all doing well for themselves) so she won't even come out with me and them and the odd time that she does she just sits there with a face on her. Some of my mates have actually stopped asking me out at this stage because I never go out anymore.

    I really think the whole living together thing is all that's keeping us together. It's not just as simple as breaking up, we have invested a lot of time and effort into making a life for ourselves and I think something like that is worth working on. I know that we could be happy with a little compromise.

    I have a lot of issues I guess!! Ultimatum is not what I am going to use, but maybe when she realises that I am on the verge of leaving it might open her eyes. I know that there are people out there who would love to have a relationship where their girlfriend wants to spend all the time with them, but I need a certain amount of space.


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