A
male
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:My girlfriend is often needy and controlling and I am not sure what to do about it. We often fight over small things due to this and I want to have a healthier relationship with her. Please help me. I will give the following background:We have been dating for 3 years and living together for 1. I know she has always been like this since we started dating, but it didnt really bother me until a couple months after we were living together. I love her and she is an amazing girlfriend in many other ways; she is unselfish, is always there for me in times of need, loves to spoil me by suprising me with home cooked meals, often likes to take me out on dates, plan suprises for me, etc. However, I often feel her attempts at control and neediness are borderline abusive and unhealthy for our relationship. For example, we are both students and I often stay up late to study at night. She doesn't like to stay up late and will go to bed earlier, but if I am not in bed at the exact time I said I would be, she usually wakes up, calls me from the bedroom, and yells at me to come into bed and gets mad if I don't (even though I need the time to stay up and study). Same goes with walking her to school or to get a snack for herself or go on other randomn errands. She always expects me to come along or to meet up to run the errand but if I say I am busy or cannot do it, she gets upset that I could not come (i am referring to her personal errands not ones for the both of us). When it comes to doctors appointments, she needs me to come along with her and if I can't make it or have a conflict she gets upset or reschedules the appointment to a time when I can make it, but still gets upset about it. When I go to run my own errands, or go to school, or the doctor she always insists on coming, even if I tell her I don't need her to come and I can do it on my own. She usually tells me I'm being ridiculous and of course she will come with me, often putting her own plans or commitments aside. She also needs constant assurance of my feelings for her. She is always asking me if I love her most out of everyone (including parents), how much I love her, do I really love her, why do I love her, etc. In fact I am very close with my family and call my parents usually once a day just to say hi to see how things are going or they call me for the same reason ( I live about 4 hours away from my parents and only get to see them once a month max). She seems to think this is weird behavior and often criticizes me for talking to my parents so much. In fact, she said she often feels like I will never put her first in my life over my parents. She asked if there was a flood and my parents and her were in it and drowning who would I save if I could only save her or them. I was really taken aback as I don't even think along these lines as I consider all the loved ones in my life equally important and just was shocked that she would even think this way. I think a lot of the above reasons she feels this way happen to be due to her own family issues. Her mom is bi polar and tends to take her issues out on her for weeks at a time when in a bad spell. Also, her father (divorced from the mother) tends to put her second in his life to his hobbies and girlfriend. Sometimes he cannot be reached by her for days or doesn't answer his phone or goes away on vacation without telling her and can't be reached by phone for a week. He often spoils his girlfriend paying for her to have expensive haircuts, trips to spas, offers to pay part of her rent, but won't pay to get his daughter a parking spot she needs (he lives in a like a 4 million dollar house and has plenty of money). It is clear to everyone this women wants him to take care of her monetarily and I think this really bothers my girlfriend as well. Additionally she doesn't seem to trust me even though I repeatedly tell her I have never cheated on a girlfriend or would cheat on her. I have never given her any reason to feel suspicious or insecure about it at all. Neverhtheless, a few weeks ago I went away with a bunch of my college friends for the weekend to a bachelor party and she freaked out over the phone while I was gone. She told me she was having second thoughts about the relationship, etc, but as soon as I got on the phone and showed I was devastated by her feelings, everything seemed to be okay and she said it was a mistake sorry it will never happen again. Except I had another weekend away with some friends for my friends bday party this weekend and while I was gone she was constantly texting me telling me how she couldn't sleep. She went out one night and told me she met this guy who shared so many goals with her they were like perfect for each other in terms of life goals. It seemed to me in both instances these were attempts at controlling or testing me, but it just made me angry. She claimed she was nervous because her friends boyfriend who was a a great nice guy just like me went to a bachelor party and cheated on her friend with a stripper. I assured her I would never do anything like that, but she still remained unstrusting. There are a lot more examples I can write about but these are just the most recent ones. I feel it often leads to conflict in our relationship as we fight over these issues and others because I often feel untrusted and controlled. However,she is great in so many ways and I love her so much. Is there anything I can do to make things better? React better to these situations as I sometimes get exasperated over these things?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (17 May 2011): Wow. I know exactly what your going through because honestly, I was the exact same way with my ex boyfriend. Obviously your girlfriend is insecure and this is most likely because of her childhood and her upbringing. I dated a guy for 4 years and we were constantly fighting about stupid things...and looking back at the relationship I realize it was because of me. I was jealous, controlling, I always needed to know where he was and who he was with. I had trust issues even though he never did anything to create a feeling of uneasiness for me. I flirted with other guys just to make him jealous-a method of control.
Regardless, the relationship didn't end up working out. Because we had been together for so long we were emotionally attached to one another which is why we tried so hard to make it work, even when we both knew we wouldn't be happy in the long run. Your girlfriend absolutly needs to work on herself and become independent for your relationship to be healthy. For her to do this...you two will have to break up. Your relationship with her will never be healthy if you continue staying together because she will NEVER change. She might claim to change and be less controlling/jealous for a few weeks, but she will always go back to the way she really is. I'm not saying your girlfriend is a bad person in any way. But take a look at your life in 5...10 years from now. If you don't do something about this now, you will live many years being unhappy with her. Imagine having a girlfriend who can trust you, be independent to do her own things, not control you, not check up on you, etc.
When my ex and I broke up 6 months ago, the exact words out of his mouth were..."I feel like we both will be unhappy in the future if we keep this relationship going." Looking back now, he was right even though I didn't want to believe it at the time. We needed to break up so I could learn to not be so dependent on someone. Your girlfriend needs to learn this too!
A
male
reader, Jmtmj  +, writes (17 May 2011):
 Oh dear. As I was reading this I was thinking to myself- "sounds like she's bi-polar", having dated a bi-polar girl for a few years myself. Then I read that her mum has bi-polar...
You do know that bi-polar can be genetically passed down from a parent to their child... somewhere between a 10-20% chance and if both parents have it, that chance increases dramatically.
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