Is my relationship salvageable?
apologies in advance for the very long explanation:
My Gf and I are thinking about breaking up (I M19)(Her F18)
We’ve been in a ldr since March but now things are reaching a breaking point mostly because I’ve been quite argumentative the past few months due to our rough start.
The first few weeks of the relationship were pretty great. Both of us were deeply in love, I told everyone in my family and all my friends about her, but soon after things went down the drain.
She started making me jealous on purpose; I.e, saying she would hook up with my friends, always complimenting and commenting how ‘hot’ other guys were, sending me tiktoks and posts throughout the days of dudes on the internet with her adding how she wishes she could sleep with them, going into great detail about dreams she had where she had sex with other men (one of the dreams was a threesome she had that I still vividly remember almost a year later because of how much it hurt), things like that with the sole intention of getting me jealous on purpose. She told me she thought it was ‘cute’ when my feelings were hurt and when I got jealous. Even so, I was extremely patient. I never insulted her or raised my voice at her and I never went down to her level even though I was desperate to get her to stop. I still was lovey dovey and romantic with her, constantly showing her how much I love her.
But no matter how many times I told her how bad it made me feel and how many times she promised she would stop, she didn’t stop until 7 months later. It took me breaking down into tears begging for her to stop for her to stop. But since then she’s told me a few times she thinks making me jealous wasn’t ‘that big of a deal’. Or she says she was immature back then even though this was less than 6 months ago.
Back then she would also insult me and belittle me in front of my friends and her friends. She would name call me and flip me off, and she would get mad at me for getting upset at her so at the end of the day it was me who would end up apologising. I cared more about keeping the relationship happy than about being right, so I would apologize. (I’m not a pushover anymore which is where I think a lot of our current problems arise).
Soon after I would find out she lied and hid things from me and that was the final straw for me.
After that I became dry and emotionally distant. It took about 7 months of me being absolutely patient with her and basically coddling her to reach this point. I’m not going to downplay what I did, I did become an ***. I was pretty cold to her and gave her the cold shoulder, I still never stooped down to how she treated me, but I was still bad in my own right. I also developed trust issues where multiple times a week I would think she was cheating. I even found out she was still answering an ex months after she agreed she would cut contact with him completely. To her credit she’s the one who told me about this, however, it doesn’t make it any better. At least in my opinion.
I’m not proud of it but I even insulted her one time by calling her immature and I saying she had an ego due to her inability to properly apologize. I regret it and I’ve apologized many times to her. But now we keep having the same back and forth argument.
I keep trying to explain to her that the reason I’m so argumentative as of late is because I tried the loving and patient way for a long time and it just caused her to walk all over me, now almost a year later I’m just fed up with the fact that she doesn’t take accountability for her past and current issues (she has a problem where she ghosts me and leaves whenever an argument comes up) and she doesn’t apologize and take the steps to change/improve. I’ve improved. My trust issues have gotten way better the past two months and I even started therapy about 3 months ago in order to better myself for her. But she doesn’t do the same. She doesn’t make an attempt to improve or even apologize. She said she does but her actions have always contradicted her words. She acts like the things she did to me were years in the past when she barely stopped less than 6 months ago. Getting over emotional abuse and trust issues like that doesn’t take a couple months but she doesn’t grasp that concept. Especially when she refuses to improve. She thinks that her past actions don’t affect our relationship today.
She doesn’t understand when I tell her that the issues I have, like with me having trust issues and being cold/emotionally distant is a result of the many months of emotional abuse she treated me with the beginning of the relationship.
For example: I trusted her completely at the beginning. I was never a jealous type of person. Only when she broke my trust and gave me every reason to doubt her loyalty is when I developed these issues.
Another example: I was extremely lovey dovey, even though I’ve never been before but I did it because I wanted to make her feel special, yet being emotionally vulnerable with her just caused her to walk all over me and take advantage of how forgiving I was.
I’m not going to say she hasn’t improved at all. She stopped getting me jealous on purpose and she doesn’t insult me anymore, but she is very emotionally neglectful. She shows little to no love or care and she barely puts in effort to making us work. At this point it’s surprising that she even answers my texts. She even has told me (rough quotations) ‘how can I show you love when I’m tired and I have problems with my family?’
She justifies her actions by saying it’s due to my cold behavior and my argumentative attitude as well as my trust issues that made her lose the ‘spark’ in our relationship. She said she tried showing me love for a while but I was too dry, too argumentative, and too emotionally distant (keep in mind I was in that cold state of mind due to how she treated me in the first place as this was after she emotionally abused me) and because of that she gave up trying to show me love and trying to talk to me.
I’ve tried for quite a long time to explain to her that the reason why I became emotionally distant, argumentative, and gained trust issues is because of her treatment towards me but she just doesn’t get it and instead chooses to ghost me for days whenever we argue about this. Even now I still think I am being incredibly patient. Anyone in these conditions would’ve left this relationship a long time ago, but I genuinely love her a lot and want to fix things with her.
I even told her I’m willing to forgive everything she’s ever done if she would just take accountability, sincerely apologize, and take the steps to change and improve.
All I’m asking at this point is the bare minimum: for her to show love and care, to put effort into our relationship, not to ghost me, and to apologize and improve her toxic behaviours.
Instead she’s still refusing to do so in favor of her trying to justify her current behaviors by saying it’s a result of my mean attitude.
Idk maybe I’m the one messing up here :/
If I am please tell me. I prefer the cold hard truth
I’m at my breaking point and idk what to do
Please take a moment to pause and reflect if this person is going to be good for you in life. She sounds narcissistic and people like this can't be changed by pointing out their flaws. You can't fix her. People have to want to change, progress, become better people
Yeah it just sucks because despite everything I seriously do love and care about her with all my heart. Our relationship hasn’t been 100% bad. Our personalities are a complete match for each other, we can talk 24/7 for months and we still wouldn’t be bored. (Our longest phone call was over 9 days :P). But of course that was during the first few months of the relationship. It hasn’t been all bad, it’s just the negatives definitely outweigh the positives.
I just hope she decides to change because I’m not going to last another 2 days in this relationship if she continues being like this.
@xng3l
Cold hard truth is she is blaming her behavior on reaction to your response..... how does that make sense whenever someone uses circular arguments that it is not their fault ..... walk away
You are both very young and i understand you have explored different approaches to try to make this work but when you did the romance type and she did not respond and when she is called out on her behavior she tries to throw it back on you.....not letting that argument go and revisiting it is not productive... She is very IMMATURE and you were not wrong in expressing that.
young love IMO is often false and ends quickly a term used in a different context is Limerence ... you feel a big surge of attraction and what feels like love but in the time frame you described it fades as detail and real instances of disagreement start popping up
Consider it a test run that did not work so you know better what you are looking for in the future not someone you end up apologizing to for their behavior.
I definitely agree with you on young love. It’s extremely fickle and more often than not is a semblance of one owns wants and needs rather than genuine love and connection.
However I do feel like I do in fact love her because despite everything she’s done and said, I still deeply care about her. I still love her and I honestly still want to fix things with her even if the logical thing to do is to leave her. It’s just I’m not going to sacrifice my emotional and mental well-being and happiness being with someone who shows they really couldn’t care less about me.
It just really really sucks that my first official relationship was one where I was emotionally abused and it basically destroyed my conception of love and drained me of ever putting in all my efforts and being emotionally vulnerable in a relationship ever again.
i really do want to walk away but I want to give her one more chance. It might just be love clouding my judgment but I firmly believe that she could change if she tried. ***, if I lasted this long I can handle one more week😼
@xng3l
you could look at it that your first love experience was an eye opener and taught you things you do not want ... that happens too... some learn this lesson way into the future when they have given time and energy trying to keep a relationship on life support
i think it is just more popular to daydream about meeting your soulmate at a young age and it was great....
I think you eyes are wide open about the situation and you know you will still care for her even if you part ways ...... hope your one more chance does not become regret down the road when the same issues pop up.
You’re right man.
Guess I really gotta think carefully about this :/
No, you're not messing up at all. The only thing you could have done better is to have been more assertive by setting boundaries with her sooner. But you know that now and have greatly improved in this area -- which is admirable. You should be proud of yourself because it takes a lot of courage to do that.
I agree that she sounds like a narcissist because narcissists refuse to take responsibility for the ways in which they hurt others. This is because they lack self-awareness and empathy. Wanting someone to change sadly doesn't change things. You cannot save people from themselves. To try to do so, leaves you vulnerable to a codependent dynamic such as this one.
She is too immature to be in a healthy, functional, non-abusive relationship. Stonewalling is not a way to resolve conflict. It's one of the four things that cause a relationship to end. She would be this way with anyone. It's not you at all. Her trying to say her being cold towards you is your fault because you were hurt by her callous actions, is a form of gaslighting. It makes you feel like you're going crazy. But because you are a good person, you will carefully evaluate yourself and ask yourself if there is truth to what she said. And if you don't know yourself well and lack confidence, you might just start to believe it and turn on yourself. She will never question herself because she doesn't have the capacity to do so. Is it possible for her to change? Yes, it is just very unlikely for this type of person to change -- especially after they've shown repeated signs of zero remorse for the ways in which they hurt others.
I know you care for her, but you deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. A lot of people's first few relationships aren't the best. Most people don't start off with a fairy-tale ending. The lessons often come first before we meet the right person. The last thing you want is to stay with someone like this, have children with them in the future and they start treating your children in the same, abusive way. So it's good that you're realizing all this stuff now.
Life can be rough, but it's through rough experiences that we grow and learn. You've already grown so much through this one relationship. It's something to be proud of. Ending things we have an attachment to is always hard, but you are strong enough to get through anything.
Thank you. I needed to hear that. I thought by admitting to myself that she was an abusive and terrible girlfriend that I was being hurtful to her because that’s what she made me believe. She still holds that singular instant where I called her immature over my head every time I attempt to explain how malevolent she’s been towards me. She holds that one time of me insulting her maturity on par with the emotional and mental abuse she’s inflicted onto me for nearly a year.
You’re absolutely right. This isn’t a person I want my children being around, let alone raised by. I haven’t even thought about that.
She’s been stonewalling me for the past couple days, once again, but when she comes back I’m ending things with her. Thank you :)
You're welcome. ❤️ I have no doubt you'll meet someone as lovely as you are in the future.
It's also worth mentioning that the truth sometimes hurts. I'm sure the truth does hurt her. That doesn't make it wrong for you to express it. It's hard to confront the ways in which we've hurt others. Narcissists find this too painful to confront. They can't handle it, so they create a delusional, false image of themselves in an attempt to avoid the pain. It's tragic when you think about it. But their pain is their own responsibility and not yours.
Yeah that makes sense. Thank you once again :)