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*orsaken1
writes: manic depressiveHi, Im a 25 year old guy and have been with my 20 year old girlfriend for 2 years. 6 months after we moved in together I found out she was talking to a lot of guys online. I started to get a little jealous so I ask her about these guys. She got very angry and said I was a jealous asshole and it was all in my head. Finally after 4 months of this from her I started checking her message history and from this I found out she was allowing her "guy friends" to talk dirty to her and ask her for sexual acts. She never gave into these requests, but didn’t act like she was bothered by them. I confronted her about this and we fought and she told me she did it because she is overweight and it’s some kind of attention that makes her feel good even though it’s negative. She assured me she loved me and things like this would never happen again. Recently 1 year after that happened we moved and she has her first job at a grocery store. I’ve noticed she is spending a lot of time talking to a guy at work, and stopping over there often for various reasons. She says she has to go pick stuff up, and when I offer to go along she gets angry that I want to go. This has happened a few times and I let her go alone only to follow and see her talking with this guy each time. Recently I notice she is talking to him on messengers, and I started to read the history to find out she is telling him all kinds of lies about me, and talking about our sex lives and her past sexual experiences. She acts like nothing is wrong to me while she is talking this trash to him. She lies to me constantly, and seems to be starting the messenger thing again with guys. One moment she can be nice, the next she can be hateful and vengeful over next to nothing. She says she loves me and wants us to get along and be happy. I love her so what can I do? I notice she displays many of the traits talked about in this post: http://www.dearcupid.org/question/sometimes-shes-nice-sometimes-a-bitch.html. Could this be a related issue? Does she actually love me and if It is related to her having a mental issue could I help her with it? Is she just stringing me along since I pay for everything, cook, clean, and love her with all of my heart?
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female
reader, missbunbury  +, writes (8 November 2005):
 From the timespans mentioned in your question, I can tell that you two moved in together pretty quickly, am I right? Also, your girlfriend is quite a bit younger than you, and when she moved in, she'd never had a job before.
It sounds to me as if the whole relationship has become overwhelming for her. You say that you love her with all your heart, which is a good thing, but I think your behaviour may be a little suffocating for this young girl. You moved her in without her having any means to support herself, which has probably made her feel indebted to you, especially considering that she is overweight and insecure (as evidenced by her willingness to let men send her sexual messages even when she doesn't want to act on them.)
Now she's living with you, you're displaying several controlling behaviours. I'll start with the fact that you're reading her private conversations - that's not really OK and I don't see why you ever started doing this; did you not trust her from the start?
The second controlling behaviour you describe is the idea that you "let her" go to the store alone. She's a grown woman who doesn't need to be given permission to do some shopping. Saying you "let her" go tells me that you think of her as a possession, and you need to change this attitude.
The third thing I want to flag up, and the most worrying, is the fact that you admit you've been following her without her knowledge. This is bordering on stalking, and you need to stop doing it right away. You cannot ever have a proper loving relationship with someone you don't trust.
The first time you intruded on her privacy, you discovered that her insecurity had led her to put up with men sending her dirty messages, but the key thing here is that she wasn't doing anything with those guys. She explained to you her reasons and her insecurities, and gave you an opportunity to help her and trust her, but instead you have just demonstrated again and again that in fact you don't trust her at all, and I'm afraid this is is your mental issue not hers. It's no wonder she complains about you to her friend - you're following her to the store and reading her private conversations, and have been doing so for most of your relationship.
I think this job is a really positive thing for your girlfriend to be doing - it'll make her feel more independent to know she has her own money and it's a chance for her to make friends, but you're making this difficult for her, and in doing so you will end up driving her away. To help her deal with her insecurities, she needs to know that someone thinks she's great, and you're not telling her this with your behaviour.
If you really want this to work, you're going to have to accept that she's not the helpless eighteen year old who moved in with you, and she's not a mental case - she is a maturing young lady who's trying to deal with her own minor issues and is unhappy because she isn't getting the support she needs.
I know this answer isn't what you were hoping for; you wanted this to be her problem so that you wouldn't have to fix it yourself, but I'm afraid you have just as much work to do as she does on this one. Start by sitting down with her and telling her all the ways you've been behaving badly, and ask her to forgive you. Tell her that from now on you will trust and support her, and that you'd like to spend more time doing things together rather than sitting while she spends time on the computer. Suggest that the two of you get a joint hobby - maybe cooking together so that she can contribute to that area of your lives too. Enjoy your relationship, and you'll find that you no longer feeel the need to check up on her.
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (8 November 2005): She's stringing you along, she doesnt really love you. Dump Her.
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