Girlfriend issues...

LegacyUser

Hi all,
With my girlfriend 5 years but looking for advice. Not sure what to do now. I'm 34, shes 32.

The vast majority of the time, she is a wonderful gf, funny, smart and 100% loyal. being with a girl like her is great 99% of the time.

But then there is the other side her. The girl that can be incredibly rude to people. The girl that has no problem showing anger in front of my family, friends and total strangers. The girl that will give dirty looks to 6 scumbags because one bumped into her.The girl that ****s me out of it for not parking in the spot she wanted to...a parking spot in front of a fire exit. The girl that her mother, father, brother, her boss, myself and (secretly my family) says she needs councelling, psychotherapy and anger management.

She knows she needs help. She has admitted to me. I broke up with her once before because she got extremely jealous when I first met her best friend. She swore to me she would get help if I took her back. She never did. We kept having fights. About 3 months ago I came on here about the fights, and took advice that "I should look for a compromise and perhaps take some blame just to calm things". Worst advice ever, everything was my fault until I decided enough was enough. After 3 days apart, she told me she had looked for psychologist and will be starting therapy, for herself, not for us. I'm perfectly happy with that. She needs to sort things out for herself.

2 months on, nothing happening. In fairness, she is broke right now, but I get the feeling that the counselling is back on the backburner again. I cant help but think that if I was the one needing counselling, I'd beg borrow or steal to get the money because it's critical to our relationship surviving.

Now today, we have another fight. For no reason, she kept saying things to annoy me in front of my brother while I'm driving. Little things, like the song I like is girly. Silly things but lots of them. I asked her to stop about 3 times. She did. Then, out of the blue, she says to me, your arms are small (pointing to my biceps). I got so annoyed by this, I asked her what did she mean, and she said it was a compliment??? I started getting annoyed now and you could hear it im my voice. Dropped the bro off home and as wer were close to home she asked if I was alright, I told her no that I was pissed off because she kept at me and at me. I told her, in no uncertain terms that it was f*cking annoying and that those comments hurt., She said, and I quote " Thats your problem". After a brief exchange of names, I told her get out of the car.

Her line now is that she never heard me saying I was hurt, and that either she misheard the part that her comments hurt, or that I misheard her about being my problem because she "would never say that".

On days like today I question whether the 99% of incredible, caring, thoughful and loyal is worth days like these. I used to feel great relief in the fact that I trust her not to cheat on me 100%, but I am now thinking that I'd rather have someone do that, because it's like a single sledgehammer blow instead of all these ****ing days where she loses the plot with no warning.

Just needed to vent that.

LegacyUser

Just looking at this from face value, I am not convinced there's anything actually wrong with your girlfriend or that she even requires therapy. Relationships are tough - and it would seem to me that if she is all those good things 99% of the time you are doing pretty well! I'm a woman, and in a relationship, and I know that sometimes (and I may be alone here but it often has to do with my cycle) I act like a crazy person. I sometimes say things I don't mean, and I have even been known to give the evil eye to people who are annoying me. I admit that, on occasion I might say things which in hindsight might be hurtful to my partner or might provoke an argument. I'm not perfect, and most importantly neither is my boyfriend! I know that erratic and unpredictable behavior is unacceptable if it causes long-lasting resentment and effects your whole relationship, or if it is physically violent or abusive but 1% of the time? Can you say in all seriousness that you are not just as difficult sometimes too? Men and women also express things in different ways. If she's getting very angry very often then she needs space, maybe some yoga or a walk in the country.
Families often harp on about someone needing therapy but in this instance I'm not convinced its necessary.

nicechick!

pleasestop wrote: »

Hi all,
With my girlfriend 5 years but looking for advice. Not sure what to do now. I'm 34, shes 32.

The vast majority of the time, she is a wonderful gf, funny, smart and 100% loyal. being with a girl like her is great 99% of the time.

But then there is the other side her. The girl that can be incredibly rude to people. The girl that has no problem showing anger in front of my family, friends and total strangers. The girl that will give dirty looks to 6 scumbags because one bumped into her.The girl that ****s me out of it for not parking in the spot she wanted to...a parking spot in front of a fire exit. The girl that her mother, father, brother, her boss, myself and (secretly my family) says she needs councelling, psychotherapy and anger management.

She knows she needs help. She has admitted to me. I broke up with her once before because she got extremely jealous when I first met her best friend. She swore to me she would get help if I took her back. She never did. We kept having fights. About 3 months ago I came on here about the fights, and took advice that "I should look for a compromise and perhaps take some blame just to calm things". Worst advice ever, everything was my fault until I decided enough was enough. After 3 days apart, she told me she had looked for psychologist and will be starting therapy, for herself, not for us. I'm perfectly happy with that. She needs to sort things out for herself.

2 months on, nothing happening. In fairness, she is broke right now, but I get the feeling that the counselling is back on the backburner again. I cant help but think that if I was the one needing counselling, I'd beg borrow or steal to get the money because it's critical to our relationship surviving.

Now today, we have another fight. For no reason, she kept saying things to annoy me in front of my brother while I'm driving. Little things, like the song I like is girly. Silly things but lots of them. I asked her to stop about 3 times. She did. Then, out of the blue, she says to me, your arms are small (pointing to my biceps). I got so annoyed by this, I asked her what did she mean, and she said it was a compliment??? I started getting annoyed now and you could hear it im my voice. Dropped the bro off home and as wer were close to home she asked if I was alright, I told her no that I was pissed off because she kept at me and at me. I told her, in no uncertain terms that it was f*cking annoying and that those comments hurt., She said, and I quote " Thats your problem". After a brief exchange of names, I told her get out of the car.

Her line now is that she never heard me saying I was hurt, and that either she misheard the part that her comments hurt, or that I misheard her about being my problem because she "would never say that".

On days like today I question whether the 99% of incredible, caring, thoughful and loyal is worth days like these. I used to feel great relief in the fact that I trust her not to cheat on me 100%, but I am now thinking that I'd rather have someone do that, because it's like a single sledgehammer blow instead of all these ****ing days where she loses the plot with no warning.

Just needed to vent that.

She needs help she obviously got a kick out of annoying you in front of your brother and ohh god for me the humiliation of having a family member watch morto!! If someone could humiliate me so publicly more then once I'm sorry they wouldn't be in my life (and your family have noticed!)

You have being together five years if she was going to get help she would have done so prior she does admit to needing some professional help yet she does nothing about it does she really have any loyalty to you or your relationship? Being broke doesn't cut it why?? its been five years your obviously had the conversation more then once its a very small amount of money when it could potentially help her deal with her anger issues

If she's worth it fight for her demand she sort herself out or leave daunting/overwhelming yes but what happens the next time or the time after

Neyite

Op,
An ex of mine was wonderful 99% of the time, but that 1% he had a horrible temper, used to take it out on randoms, on me, on his family and some friends. Like you, when the dust settled, he would promise to get help to save our relationship but never did. Sound familiar?

In my case, It escalated to physical instead of verbal abuse, and I was the one that ended up getting counselling in a womens refuge. I read up on the psychology of men (and women) like that, as I struggled to understand why he treated me so badly. Its about power and control. My moment of clarity was when my counsellor was asking why he hit me, and I blamed him having a bad day at work or his boss annoyed him and she simply said "so why didnt he hit his boss then?" I realised that he did have enough control not to risk his job, or his health by picking on someone who could fire him or fight back.

This is just one link I found below to controlling (aka abusive) women, but an extensive google will throw up much more for you. Domestic abuse is usually seen as being against women but men have abusive women in their lives as can same sex relationships. Gender does not come into it. the only difference is that women generally use more verbal than physical attacks than a man might. It can be more subtle where you are actually second guessing yourself afterwards.

No one has the right to be abusive in relationship. If you are concerned about whether you are in an abusive relationship, ask these questions, considered to be warning signs of a problem.

• Was there violence in her family of origin?
• Does she have mood swings, where one moment she's feel loving and affectionate, and the next moment angry and threatening?
• Has she humiliated you in front of others?
• Does she anger easily when drinking or on drugs?
• During conflict does she often threaten or ignore you, destroy personal property or sentimental items, slam doors, or leave?
• Has she threaten to hurt you or the children?
• Has she ever used physical violence (scream at, slap, punch, hit, kick, grab, shove, shake, choke, bite or otherwise abuse) you, the children or any past partners?
• Has she used or threaten to use a weapon against you?
• Is she a very jealous person?
• Does she regularly accuse you of being unfaithful?
• Does she "track" all of your time?
• Does she try to control how you think, dress, who you see, how you spend your time, how you spend your money?
• Does she try to discourage you from seeing your family or friends?
• Does she get angry or resentful when you are successful in a job or hobby?
• Does she prevent you from working or attending school?
• Does her conversation ever escalate into threats of separation or divorce?
• Does she ever threaten to hurt you, herself, or others, if you talk about leaving her?
• Does she criticize you for little things?
• Does she do or say things that are designed to make you feel "incompetent", "crazy" or "stupid"?
• Does she blame alcohol, drugs, stress, the children, others, especially you, or other life events for her behavior?
• Does she feel guilty after aggressive behavior and strive for your forgiveness?
• Does she think that she could never live without you, yet other times wants you out?
• Does she force you to have sex against your will?
• Does she use sex or other favors as a way to "make up" after conflict?
• Does she control all finances and force you to account in detail for what you spend?
• Are you sometimes afraid of her?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, you are in a potentially abusive relationship

the other link I found more closely resembles the articles I read at the time - dunno what kind of website, but the text is quite comprehensive:
http://www.heart-2-heart.ca/men/page17.htm

Good luck OP. Hope you get some clarity on it.

who what when

Drop her like a hot snot.

fghijkl

I'm going to be blunt here OP:

Your girlfriend has serious issues, she's insecure, she gets off on creating drama, she gets off on causing arguments, she gets off on having the ability to belittle you in front of others, she has no respect for other people, she has very little respect if any for you.

She is an emotional manipulator.

The relationship for her will never ever be what it is to you.
You sound like the kind of guy who wants a mature loving relationship.
Your girlfriend on the other hand sees it as a means of validation, as a way of getting attention, being able to wrap everyone around her little finger, manipulate people by causing arguments.

She loves being able to abuse you emotionally, being able to treat you like dirt, treat others you care about like dirt in front of you because she knows 'you love her' enough that no matter how angry you get, how much she hurts her, you'll never ever (really) leave her. She can do whatever she wants, treat people however she wants and you'll always be there.

Do you see the power she has? she can do anything she wants and you'll be waiting with open arms to take her back. That's what she gets off on, that's why she behaves like she does.

After 3 days apart, she told me she had looked for psychologist and will be starting therapy, for herself, not for us. I'm perfectly happy with that. She needs to sort things out for herself.

2 months on, nothing happening. In fairness, she is broke right now, but I get the feeling that the counselling is back on the backburner again. I cant help but think that if I was the one needing counselling, I'd beg borrow or steal to get the money because it's critical to our relationship surviving.

Come on Op wake up. If she really wanted to change her behaviour, if she really believed she needed help, then she'd be doing her best to get that help.

She had/has no intention of of ever seeing a counceller. She doesn't really believe she needs one. And why would she? Her behaviour towards others works!! she's managed to keep you for 5 years!
It's just another form of manipulation, your carrot on a stick. A promise of something which will happen which keeps you under her thumb, hoping and waiting for her to seek help, the carrot you will never ever reach, the thing that will never happen.

There are 2 ways you can choose to look at it in the end OP.
The first is to think to yourself if i don't stick this out, try and keep this relationship alive, try to get help for her (even though she doesn't want it) then it will be a waste of 5 years of my life. 5 years of putting up with hurt and drama and arguments gone, 5 years down the drain. I can't let that happen, i must fix it, i must fix her.

The second is to think I've already wasted 5 years on a woman who will never change and has no respect for me, i'm going to learn from it, draw a line under it, i will not waste one second more of my life on this woman.

It's up to you OP, but do you really want to be 39 and in the same situation?
Be aware OP if you do decide to dump her, she'll try every trick in the book to win you back, every form of emotional blackmail she can think of, i can almost guarentee you that. Do not fall for. She will never change.

On days like today I question whether the 99% of incredible, caring, thoughful and loyal is worth days like these

No it's not. There are millions of caring/thoughtful/loyal women out there OP, who value the same things as you. You won't treat you like s**t. Who aren't manipulators, who don't have 'anger issues'. But you're never going to find these right women while you're with the wrong one.

Taltos

You have wasted the last five years on someone who is never going to be there for you like you need.
Don't waste another minute.

She is not going to change, she will in fact get progressively worse.

Lon Dubh

OP, I agree with the other posters that think she is being manipulative and abusive. It is not normal to be putting someone down that you are supposed to care about. At the very least she is extremely silly and emotionally immature, but I think there is a good chance it goes a lot further than that.

Her comments could be part of her way of trying to control you and make you feel bad about yourself, so that you won't have the confidence to walk away or stand up to her. Most abusers are not obviously abusive all the time. Sometimes being "nice" is part of the manipulation - to confuse you and keep you hooked.

Abusive people often just have little outbursts some of the time, enough to make you fear the outbursts, and change you behaviour all/most of the time in order to appease them. They have multiple ways of gaining control so do not need to be aggressive all of the time. Do you feel you are walking on eggshells around her?

She is obviously insincere in her claim to want to get help and to change. And as fghijkl has pointed out, why should she change since her behaviour works for her?

I think her behaviour is likely to get worse over time, and if I were you I would get out now. It can get harder and harder to leave an abusive relationship the more it goes on, as abusive people are very good at destroying people's self-esteem and ability to make good decisions for themselves (and abusers have many other tactics such as isolating the person from friends and family). I knew a man who left an abusive (female) partner after a long time, and she was still controlling him in many ways even though they had seperated (she had messed with his head so much that I think he could not see some of her behaviour for what it was).

One little thing, if she is more silly and immature rather than more fundamentally abusive counsellng may help - if she ever gets around to it, but I think she will need a shock like a break-up to motivate her to do it. But if she is more abuser than ignorant it is worth being aware that abusers sometimes use counselling to validate their abusive behaviour, and to learn better and more subtle ways of abusing. If the counsellor is good they will spot this but if not they could also get sucked into the web. I'd thought I would mention this in case she pulls the "I've changed" card when she has not.

Lon Dubh

pleasestop wrote: »

Her line now is that she never heard me saying I was hurt, and that either she misheard the part that her comments hurt, or that I misheard her about being my problem because she "would never say that".

I think that is a very telling comment. She is not hearing you, or respecting your right not to be bullied. She is also trying to turn this on you with the "maybe you heard wrong" nonsense. Apparently abusers often re-write history to make themselves look better, and try to make out that the victim is just remembering something wrong or mishearing them.

Kevin Duffy

I don't understand why you would say she's great 99% of the time, but have a whole history of incidents going back over years. You mean a lot of the time she is not actively being nasty 'cos things are going her way, but really she's a ticking time-bomb.
It's to your credit that you've tried so hard and you're patient and loyal, but really she's not a nice person and you should probably let her go, in my opinion.

Distorted

pleasestop wrote: »

The girl that will give dirty looks to 6 scumbags because one bumped into her.

Her and the rest of the world though?

What you describe isn't really conclusive of someone having an anger management problem and needing counselling.

If neither of you like each other very much, why not just end it? Find someone who doesn't annoy and irritate you.

tbh if I was being told to go for counselling, and I was sure that there was nothing wrong with me, I might be tempted to be a tad faceitous at times. Does she just have a slightly different sense of humour?

fghijkl

Distorted wrote: »

Her and the rest of the world though?

What you describe isn't really conclusive of someone having an anger management problem and needing counselling.

tbh if I was being told to go for counselling, and I was sure that there was nothing wrong with me, I might be tempted to be a tad faceitous at times. Does she just have a slightly different sense of humour?

In fairness it's not just the OP who see's her behaviour as being extreme

The girl that her mother, father, brother, her boss, myself and (secretly my family) says she needs councelling, psychotherapy and anger management.

If her own family, the OP, the OP's family and her boss (!!) are all in agreement that she has anger issues to the point that she requires counselling, i doubt very much that her actions are the result of having an off the wall sense of humor tbh or occasionally being faceitous. Or it being all "in the OPs head" as it were...

Also the OP says that when he challenged her behaviour

She said, and I quote " Thats your problem"

and bare faced lied the next day about ever making the comment. That's pretty telling tbh. It may not be conclusive of an anger problem but "normal" people don't just lie and pretend they never behaved in the way they did.

Tandey

pleasestop wrote: »

Now today, we have another fight. For no reason, she kept saying things to annoy me in front of my brother while I'm driving. Little things, like the song I like is girly. Silly things but lots of them. I asked her to stop about 3 times. She did. Then, out of the blue, she says to me, your arms are small (pointing to my biceps). I got so annoyed by this, I asked her what did she mean, and she said it was a compliment??? I started getting annoyed now and you could hear it im my voice. Dropped the bro off home and as wer were close to home she asked if I was alright, I told her no that I was pissed off because she kept at me and at me. I told her, in no uncertain terms that it was f*cking annoying and that those comments hurt., She said, and I quote " Thats your problem". After a brief exchange of names, I told her get out of the car.

Her line now is that she never heard me saying I was hurt, and that either she misheard the part that her comments hurt, or that I misheard her about being my problem because she "would never say that".

On days like today I question whether the 99% of incredible, caring, thoughful and loyal is worth days like these. I used to feel great relief in the fact that I trust her not to cheat on me 100%, but I am now thinking that I'd rather have someone do that, because it's like a single sledgehammer blow instead of all these ****ing days where she loses the plot with no warning.

Just needed to vent that.

I dont believe she's incredible 99% of the time, fair play for sticking it out for 5 years but I really think you should finish it with her for good.

I was with a girl like this before but she wouldn't insult me in front of anyone but she had serious anger/mood swings could be fine one minute but the next minute she would snap for no reason basically treating me like dirt and her whole family could see this. I was with her for 10months must have broke up with her 3 or 4 times in that time hoping she would change when i got back with her, she would be nice for a while but just go back to her same old ways jealous, manipulative and watching my every move I often warned her to get counseling but she never did, lots of arguments, so i got rid of her and it might be emotionally hard to let go at first because you've invested so much time in her but its worth it in the long run.

There are lots of women out there who will treat you the way you should be treated;)

ManOfMystery

OP,

I had an ex who was very similar to this. We got on great a lot of the time - could chat for hours, similar interests, never an awkward silence or boredom between us. And in general, outside of our relationship people found her to be very upbeat, witty, fun, etc.

But I slowly found out that she had another side, and one which I didn't like at all. The same girl could look down her nose at people, and had no problem being needlessly rude to waiting staff, shop assistants, etc. She would take random mood swings and take all her anger out of me, usually totally unjustified too. She would come out with totally bizarre (and untrue) comments about me chatting up girls in work, totally out of the blue and with no provocation or input from me. When she found out I once dated an asian girl for a very short time, she went on about it for the duration of our relationship - because she didn't like Chinese people and couldn't understand how I didn't share her view. It was ridiculous.

I remember going to the bar one Friday night with a few friends for a couple of quiet beers and a chat; I came home at 1:30am - sober - to find she had locked me out because she thought I'd be back at 1am and I hadn't shown up. If I'd been out till 5 or 6 and was pissed, I could understand it ... but 1:30?

I was away one weekend and the same girl took the opportunity to trawl through my MSN messenger logs on my PC, then completely lose her temper for well over a week because I'd been chatting to a female friend and as she put it, was 'flirting'. Her mother even had a go at me after my ex had given her a twisted version of events. For what it's worth, there was no flirting, no dirty chat, nothing like that. I think the worst thing that had been said was something about the friend liking my new car .......... understandable, given that my female friend was a car nut. Of course my gf took that as meaning my friend wanted to sleep with me. Total bull.

Needless to say, I eventually reached the end of my patience, told her to get out of my life and this is why she is now an EX, despite her protestations. I'm now with someone who is much more easygoing and I'm a happier person just from being round her.

Anyway, your g/f sounds similar to this. The 99% of good times do not make up for the 1% of bad times, because in reality, you find yourself on edge pretty much ALL the time, just waiting for the next incident to occur. And when you're on edge a lot of the time in any relationship, it sucks all the fun out of it and leaves you mentally exhausted from the whole thing.

From what I can see, your gf has been given chances already and has squandered them by not getting off her arse to go and see a counsellor. It's maybe time for some hard action to be taken.