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male
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*lexeikarp
writes: Hi. My X-Girlfriend and I have been going out for nearly three years. I was her first boyfriend and she was my second.Our relationship, as it has started when we were rather young (16) has seen both of us change considerably. Over the years, I have matured very significantly and even unusually so for my age. I have been very independent since the age of around 16. As well as being a college student I also now have a well paid job whereas my X is still in school and she is on a rather different level than me in life. My X is living with her parents and she has a very serious attitude towards school, which is something I never needed to have as I managed to get excellent grades without doing much or any work. In practice, this meant that I always was a gouverning figure in our relationship, organising all that needed to be organised and taking care of anything that may have come across to us.Through our relationship, we have gone through many problems that we managed to overcome. For a start, there was my jealousy. Around 18 months ago, under the risk of losing her, I really had to tackle the problem and I gradually erradicated that flaw in my character. Another problem we regulary face is my x's lack of spontaneous behaviour. I loved driving off to romantic places like Paris or Amsterdam with her for the weekend or a holiday, but it was always an extremely labourious business to convince her to come. We sometimes even bargained over how many days can we make our numerous trips shorter so that she could sacrifice the rest to school work. In general, my X's character, gouverned by her shyness and scholar conformity, tended to be devoted of particulary romantic acts, shows of affection and spontaneous behaviour, even though I truly beleive that she sincerely loved me.All in all, I beleive that my X gradually came to a lack of confidence in herself and her ability to establish herself as an individual. My personal opinion is that the necissary change in her life for her character to truly start to mature is her moving out of her parental household and going to college, not even necissarily in the same one as me (Even though if I would be going out with her at that stage, I would love to see her every so often). My X, however, beleives that she needs to be broken up with me to truly stard to grow up as in her opinion, if she does not do so, she'd be going from the safety of her parents to the safety of me. This is, indeed, the reason for which she has broken up with me lately.Regardless of the fact that this is not the first time we brake up, It is very different. I haven't called her in a week, since the separation, because I really don't know how to tackle the situation. In my opinion, two people who lead a happy relationship ought not brake up for something that may or may not happen a year later. Besides, as I have mentioned earlier, I do not beleive that my X's reasoning on the subject is correct.I love my X very very much. Much more than being a lover, she has been my best friend for the past couple of years, in an age where I have gone through a very distinct transition from child to adult. Even though it would be hard to deny that I took care of most administrative things regarding our relationship (especially away on trips, because as we live apart, that is where such behaviour is most noticebeale), I always did it out of a sence of sparing her trouble, not establishing a macho control over her life. Right now I am very confused because a couple that went through with a 3 year old relationship in a time of their lives of feverish change, a couple that love each other and a couple that did not have any serious issues (jealousy, cheating...) should brake up. I beleive that we could have a bright future ahead.I was wondering if anyone could give me good advice on how to behave and how to manage this situation. How to explain to my X what I beleive about her development and how to gently come back to her without proviking a reflex-like reject seen when a broken up person desperately tries to get back.Thank YouAlexey
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best friend, confidence, jealous, my ex, shy Reply to this Question
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male
reader, DreamMaster  +, writes (29 November 2005):
 Hi,I found your question extremely interesting, and I hope you don’t mind if I respond just as lengthily.I think your girlfriend feels a little in awe of you, and your confidence and whole zest for life attitude is making her feel very inadequate, and is in fact probably making her low confidence even worse than it is.She probably sees the only way to avoid her confidence getting worse is to get out of the relationship and find someone who is at her ‘level’ (to use your own words), probably not as demanding, opinionated, etc. I hate to be the one to tell you this but you have probably become a negative influence on her life.Your articulate speech and self-assurance certainly shines in your question, and I can imagine that your girlfriend is made to feel very ordinary beside you. You seem able to ‘eradicate’ any flaws you see in yourself, and have difficulty understanding why other people can’t do the same. You have to understand that not everyone can attack the problems of life with the same drive, focus, and determination that you can. You say you tackled the ‘administrative things’ not to establish a ‘macho control’. Shy people will always make room for confident people to take over, but are you really sure you weren’t exercising control? Or did you just feel that she wouldn’t be able to do anything as well as you did. Is she now feeling so inadequate that she just lets you do everything to avoid you passing judgement on her not doing things as well as you would have?In ‘Your’ opinion, ‘two people who lead a happy relationship’. How happy do you think she really is? She is exhausted! After 3 years of watching you grow into this confident college person with a good job, etc, telling her how brilliant you are for tackling what you believe is your only ever character flaw. It was only a matter of time before she became so downtrodden by your big ego, that the only way to avoid the daily attack on her life is to get away from you.She is not going to say that she wants to break up because she is so lacking in confidence. I can only imagine your response to that would be to patronise her again (something I am sure you do on a more regular basis than you probably realise). She is going to do this in the only way possible that she might restrain some amount of dignity – by saying that she IS good enough to live her life without you – she IS independent – she IS her own person – and she doesn’t need YOU telling her the opposite every day.Your Ex MAY love you but hates what you are doing to her confidence, and you MAY love your girlfriend but I have doubts about how much respect you have for her,I am sure given how confident you are about yourself you will be in shock reading this that someone has actually blamed you, and you probably never even considered the possibility that you might ever be wrong, but do take what I have said on board. I know a little about how shy people think, I have been called that before myself…So maybe you should stop ‘explaining’ to your girlfriend how she has to live the life you want her to live, and start treating her like an equal in the relationship. If you do that I am sure there is hope for the two of you, but if not maybe you should look for some other ‘perfect’ girlfriend that you won’t have to spend so much of your time trying to change.Your welcome.
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