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Ok so I've posted plenty of times in this thread but never looking for advice, but there seems to be somewhat of an influx of sensible people so I'm going to give it a try:
I've been dating this girl for about 1 or 2 months now. As with many relationships it started off with "discovering" eachother (what is this person about, likes/dislikes, etc.). Recently, we've come to the point where you start dropping the games acts and attitudes and actually just start enjoying spending time together.
Yesterday however it became quite clear to me that she has very much been tainted by her previous relationships. Out of the blue she told me that she in some way felt weird about the relationship, because I don't treat her the way she is used to by her previous boyfriends. She described it as them "taking the lead" more.
Now before you fall of your seat spamming "take control" or whatnot, that's pretty much what I've been doing to begin with. Taking the iniative to set up dates, deciding where to go, and also taking the lead in the sack.
So Naturally I am curious and start asking her a bit more about her previous relationships (a subject I generally try to avoid because I don't really feel the need to hear about that). Now I don't know exactly about the quantity (I'd guess somewhere between 2 and 5), and apparently they were all 5 to 10 years older and most, if not all, ended up cheating on her or deceiving her somehow.
So now I'm here with a girl that expects me to treat her more like her exes, although they are the reason she has trouble trusting me in the first place.. Fuck logic right?
Now my question to you guys is: I honestly like this girl, and I'm willing to change my behavior, but there are limits to how far I am willing and able to change.
And secondly: I try to treat her right and honest to god I'm loyal to her, but for some reason she thinks I'm a pussy magnet on steroids looking to fuck everything with a heartbeat. So she is kind of expecting me to cheat and I'm trying to prove her wrong but it's kind of hard to prove a negative..
Do you guys think I should be more sensitive to her wishes and feelings or tell her to suck it up and tell her to stop putting her shit from the past on me?
Spoilered is some additional info about both of us, as to give you a better idea of who we are:
+ Show Spoiler +Her:
22
Born and raised chinese
Currently working a job that could be considered dead end (it's just meant to get her some money)
AFAIK not a one night stand kind of girl, had a few boyfriends before me as described
Has daddy issues because her father was a drunk that treated her right but couldn't take care of the family in the end
Kind of shy, probably after having a rough childhood with her father leaving and some bullying
Me:
25
Born and raised dutch
Working a job that I take very serious and holds a lot of potential for promotion and a bright future in general
Haven't let a girl get close for years after my first two relationships where complete trainwrecks
I think I can be considered a very social person, always have a lot of friends etc. No childhood traumas except for some self inflicted shit due to extreme stupidity
Bring it on TL, I'm curious to see what your opinions are.
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I hope by changing you mean that you show off the attractive sides of yourself and "pseudo changing" yourself and keeping that up doesn't sound healthy, if she enjoys spending time with you and you can seduce her with that side of yourself it should be fine, you only just need to not be unfaithful and that should solve the "trust issue", you can only prove that prejudice of hers wrong by not living up to it 
Because of her background, she is very unlikely NOT to be security seeking (probally also why she had that many boyfriends after everything gone wrong)
Also the "taking the lead" comment was something was something I interpreted as "GO!" - take the initiative etc
Hope you can use my thoughts lol, idk if it is useful
+ Show Spoiler [Unnecessary thoughts] +I think you're aware but given that (from how you described it) she hasn't had a relationship which ended without someone cheating on her and fucking the relationship up in the end along with her childhood it kinda makes me wondering if she was completely true to her BF's as well, this is pure speculation and I have no idea but
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Do you guys think I should be more sensitive to her wishes and feelings or tell her to suck it up and tell her to stop putting her shit from the past on me?
I think both approaches don't get the results you're looking for. "Being more sensitive" in that context starts with apologizing for having dinner alone with a female friend, goes over having discussions about why you looked at that cute girl in the mall and ends with threads about "my girlfriend thinks I'm cheating on her when I watch porn while she isn't in the country for half a year halp plz".
"Telling her to suck it up" means antagonizing something that actually does pose a big problem for her personally. It also doesn't sound like a great option.
Do you have any idea where the "you aren't taking the lead" comes from? As in is the confused because she interprets "taking the lead" as something you don't do because you simply don't like it (e.g. bossing her around, being openly jealous, stuff like that)?
I try to treat her right and honest to god I'm loyal to her, but for some reason she thinks I'm a pussy magnet on steroids looking to fuck everything with a heartbeat. So she is kind of expecting me to cheat and I'm trying to prove her wrong but it's kind of hard to prove a negative..
You're already recognizing the dilemma correctly, but it's only a dilemma because you look at what she says, not at what's behind it. As long as it's about "is this guy possibly going to cheat on me in the future?" you can't win. She WILL find indicators for you trying to bang other women and she WILL find indicators for you finding other women attractive.
The way I dealt successfully with this type of situation in the past is pushing behind the bullshit of "Why are you looking at her like that? -> Do you find her attractive? -> You don't love me because you find her more attractive than me!" and try to establish two things:
1) Yes you do find other women attractive. Yes you could have sex with a lot of different women but you specifically chose her. Bam. Out of all those women you enjoy looking at - because you are a man and men simply like looking at women - you chose her. She's the one you want to spend time with, she's the one you want to fall asleep with. Now, you probably can't guarantee that this will last forever, but right now, right here, and most likely for a couple of months down the road you're loyal to her and want to spend time with her without worrying about what if's.
2) When she says "Why did you look at that girl like that?" (feel free to give examples she actually uses) she means "Would you leave me for her if we had similar personalities just because she's better looking than me?" - looking at someone doesn't ruin your relationship. It doesn't break anyones trust. It's not about those things. It's about her being able to imagine that - depending on her self-esteem and past experiences - a LOT of women are better partners for you than her. She's afraid of losing you and handles it in the only way she learned so far, by trying to exercise control over your actions.
Whatever you do, the worst thing possible is to fall into the trap of defending yourself against the frame she sets, accepting the underlying assumption of it in the process. Since this sounds like hogwash, here's an example:
She: "Why did you look at that woman like that?"
Him: "Hm? Oh, erh, what do you mean?"
She: "I saw you look at her legs, do you find her attractive?"
Him: "Well, yeah, she's sexy.."
She: "Wow, you guys are all the same going crazy when you see a short skirt."
Him: "What? No, I didn't mean it like that."
She: "Well you just said you find her attractive, why aren't you going out with her instead of me?"
Him: "Erhm. Because I love you?"
She: "Then why are you looking at other women like that?"
If our fictional character would change any of his lines to "Are you fucking drunk?" the whole mess would most likely be avoided. Her initial assumption in this conversation is that, you looking at another woman implies that she is possibly a better mate than her and therefor a reason to leave her. It is physically impossible for you to prove the negative of this statement to her so spending any time trying to defend your position is wasted.
Embrace it instead. Take the frame back. You looking at other women implies that... you like women. The fact that you are chosing to fall asleep with your girlfriend instead of those women is the best possible compliment you have to offer to her. It's good that you look at other women (and could have sex with them) because otherwise you would be with your gf because you don't have any other option. This way you're with her because you think she's awesome. "Now shutup about this crap and kiss me already."
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Thanks for the input guys. I should clarify her "paranoia" a bit more. It isn't in a way where she gets jealous in the "why the fuck are you looking at her" way, but rather that already a few times now she said something along the lines of: "I really hope that you are taking this serious and not sleeping with other girls". Heck, she even explicitly told me she has no problem with me hanging out with other girls.
As for the taking the lead comment: I don't think anyone would consider me a passive guy or a pushover. I have no problem taking the lead whatsoever and in plenty of situation I end up doing so.
However, there is one thing I can imagine could be a reason for her feeling like this: I am very used to strong women. Both my mother and my sister are extremely strong and indepedent women, same goes for the majority of my female friends. Heck, I can't even think of one person I feel close to that is the type of person that likes to be "led". I guess this could've caused me to give girls I date a lot of "freedom", which maybe is more then what she is used to? I dunno, it's my only gues..
Also, about the infedelity part, I really don't know. My gut tells me she doesn't/didn't but pretty hard to find out the truth about her past when we both have different social circles and live in a big city.
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Northern Ireland25331 Posts
I actually struggle with a similar lady, although her issues are slightly different. She's not so much worried about potential infidelity, indeed one of our shared jokes is my borderline incompetence in most situations where I'd be around women  It's more a general lack of self-confidence in certain spheres, with a healthy dose of paranoia on the side that she sometimes struggles with. We're very open and I could probably write a good psych profile on certain of her exes.
The issue is that you can't really fight feelings that are, to me anyway, illogical, with logic. As somebody who is blunt and whose partner's pet name is 'The Robot', I quickly learned that my skillset was somewhat lacking in dealing with neuroses that I cannot understand, despite my reasonably functional empathy circuits.
Anyway, part of her issues stem from a series of assholes stretching way back. One who was somewhat physically abusive, but another who ground down her self esteem over an extended period to make himself feel better about himself. The latter I pinpointed as especially damaging, but equally intriguing to me is that in this case, and in other anecdotal instances of similar occurrences, that kind of man actually really seeps into the psyche.
My approach was to try and ape some of that approach, but obviously not to psychologically abuse her! I found that pussyfooting around things, indulging her, or talking things through in bed were rather ineffective. Simply putting your foot down, demanding rather than debating etc etc rather counter-intuitively (in my case anyway) seems to mitigate some of the damage that the same behaviour in the past has done to her self-image.
Case in point, she's very, very neurotic about food, being overweight etc, and constantly seeks validation on that. I genuinely don't care, and stated so in increasingly irritated tones, but alas to no avail. At one stage I got so sick of her continually bleating on about her body image that I went into our cupboard and either obscured or cut out all the nutritional information on the food there. She was rather amused by this demonstration of my irritation, after which I told her to get dressed and took her out for some good wholesome food.
I am rather loathe to type this, as I can see that the cold textual format doesn't really paint me in a particularly favourable life, as you folks don't get to see much of the intangible things that go on in our household.
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On May 10 2013 06:52 Mikau wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 06 2013 23:17 Mikau wrote:Right, long story incoming. There's this girl I'm interested in (not really sure if I like like her yet, but I want to find out enough that I'm contemplating doing something about it, which is a big deal for me ) and the way she talks to me in text says she might be interested as well (though she could just be friendly, I can never tell). There are however, some... complications. I used to share some classes with her back in high school. We never really talked or did anything together back then, I simply knew of her existence. Through friends I later met her sister, and had a huge crush on her for a while. That's years ago now, and I can honestly say it's no longer a big deal anymore to me. Considering that family is rather open, I assume the girl I like (call her J) knows about this, though I can't know for sure. I talked to the sister about it and she said she wouldn't mind me potentially dating J (and to reiterate, we're the same age). We never really talked much, untill recently. J moved to a new city and I asked her to join me and some friends when we were going out in that city. She said yes, and even though we didn't end up going, we texted back and forth a bit afterwards. She later on invited me to come to her bday party, which I went to (but nothing really happened because I'm a huge coward among people I don't really know). She was friendly to me in text leading up to said party. Telling me how much she was looking forward to me being there, offering a place to sleep even though I live only 15 miles away, ending most of het sentences with exclamation marks (I'm told that this often means people are interested, much like ending sentences with full stops often means anger/irritation), etc. She could very well just be acting really friendly, as I said I'm bad at telling. Normally (as seen on this page and the one before that), the advice would be to assume she's into you and just go for it, and normally I'd agree, but I'm not sure if the situation here is a bit awkward, with me having had a crush on her sister. I wonder if me going for it would make things awkward whenever I'm at their house (as said, her sister is a friend of mine) or with mutual friends. I can also see why me having a crush on her sister a few years ago and now potentially being interested in the "little sister" could be seen as rather weird or creepy by some. What do you guys think? So, I asked her today. She said yes, though I didn't specifically mention the word 'date' so I still don't know for sure she's interested. Though she's no idiot, so I'm sure she knew what I meant. But at least I got a fun evening with her to look forward to.
I'm amazed at how sometimes people can be so blind to the little things  ("Telling me how much she was looking forward to me being there, offering a place to sleep even though I live only 15 miles away" <-- seriously man, do you think she talks like that to everyone? )
Yes, girls are often confusing and hard to read, but dedicating you her time, with obvious excitement, is virtually a certain sign that she's interested in you. Now problem is some people take it too far assuming more than interest and whatnot and getting too hyped about it, setting themselves up for a crash when the girl realizes they're not what she's been looking for.
Anyway, interest is good. If you're interested in her too, by all means, spend time together and see where it leads. Most important thing is NOT to build up any expectations and not to think of it as being THE relationship. Just enjoy getting to know her and be open to see where it leads.
And when I say that, I mean also stop forcing the word 'date' or trying to put any labels on your relationship. Things like that are completely unnecessary and just add pressure.
You are two people wanting to know more about each other. That's it.
If both of you like what you find, you'll proceed to next stages naturally. Just drop the expectations and let things flow.
And good luck man
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On May 10 2013 17:14 quetzy wrote:I'm amazed at how sometimes people can be so blind to the little things ( "Telling me how much she was looking forward to me being there, offering a place to sleep even though I live only 15 miles away" <-- seriously man, do you think she talks like that to everyone? )
Well, why not? When I invite people over for a party I usually tell them it'd be fun to have them be there, especially people I don't see on a more regular basis. I also offer places to sleep to pretty much everybody who isn't from the town I live in. In that vein I can easily see how it could be just a friendly gesture.
On May 10 2013 17:14 quetzy wrote:Yes, girls are often confusing and hard to read, but dedicating you her time, with obvious excitement, is virtually a certain sign that she's interested in you. Now problem is some people take it too far assuming more than interest and whatnot and getting too hyped about it, setting themselves up for a crash when the girl realizes they're not what she's been looking for. Anyway, interest is good. If you're interested in her too, by all means, spend time together and see where it leads. Most important thing is NOT to build up any expectations and not to think of it as being THE relationship. Just enjoy getting to know her and be open to see where it leads. And when I say that, I mean also stop forcing the word 'date' or trying to put any labels on your relationship. Things like that are completely unnecessary and just add pressure. You are two people wanting to know more about each other. That's it. If both of you like what you find, you'll proceed to next stages naturally. Just drop the expectations and let things flow. And good luck man
This I fully agree with. I even annoy myself in my habit of trying to overthink and overlabel everything. I think I know where this comes from however:
I'm bad at the dating thing. I don't feel comfortable and when I don't feel comfortable I have a habit of shutting down. In order to 'progress naturally' (in the case of a mutual wish to do so), somebody has to sort of take charge and do stuff (touching, kissing, that sort of thing). Usually that somebody is the man, no? I don't mind taking charge when I'm comfortable, in fact when we do stuff with friends I'm usually one of the people 'in charge'. When I'm uncomfortable however, I sort of shut down in that regard, as I said. I'm good with words usually, but I'm bad at showing affection physically. The labels help me define what's going on and where we are so to say.
Not an excuse obviously, because you're completely right in that I should just take this for what it is (having fun with somebody you're interested in) and just see how it goes. Just saying I understand why I tried to label it.
Thanks for the good advice at least. You managed to pretty much describe my entire reaction to this entire situation from just 2 lines I wrote.on an internet forum.
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You don't have to specifically use the word date btw. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in NL use the word date when asking someone out so it should be pretty obvious when you're going together.
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Well there are comparable words (afspraakje, yuck) but I agree they're not used much outside of high school lol.
It's more of a problem with my own insecurities I guess, even after she said yes.
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What do you do when you're with a handful of girls who are all interested in you?
Make an excuse to get out of the way and later find some alone time with all of them?
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
On May 10 2013 21:19 kaykaykay wrote:
What do you do when you're with a handful of girls who are all interested in you?
Make an excuse to get out of the way and later find some alone time with all of them?
Invite them all for a massive orgy with you as the star attraction.
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@ B.I.G.
Imo, she's damaged goods (based strictly on what you've wrote). Also, girls at that age (in my experience) are especially fucked up mentally when it comes to relationships. They don't know what they want, and they have twisted expectations. It sounds like that is her problem.
You can't help her. You can't "fix" her. Believe me, I've tried. The problems she has are her own, and she has to deal with them. You can try to ride it out, and hope she comes to the conclusion on her own that she needs to change the way she views relationships (and probably herself). You can be there to support her in that, if you are lucky enough that she tries (she probably won't). But you can't do it yourself. Even if you want to. It is entirely up to her.
So basically you're rolling the dice and hoping she can find a way to deal with her f'd up past. Also, that 3 year age gap, while not a huge deal, is a little sketch at that age, as it seems you two are at different phases of your life.
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On May 10 2013 22:47 HardlyNever wrote:
@ B.I.G.
Imo, she's damaged goods (based strictly on what you've wrote). Also, girls at that age (in my experience) are especially fucked up mentally when it comes to relationships. They don't know what they want, and they have twisted expectations. It sounds like that is her problem.
You can't help her. You can't "fix" her. Believe me, I've tried. The problems she has are her own, and she has to deal with them. You can try to ride it out, and hope she comes to the conclusion on her own that she needs to change the way she views relationships (and probably herself). You can be there to support her in that, if you are lucky enough that she tries (she probably won't). But you can't do it yourself. Even if you want to. It is entirely up to her.
So basically you're rolling the dice and hoping she can find a way to deal with her f'd up past. Also, that 3 year age gap, while not a huge deal, is a little sketch at that age, as it seems you two are at different phases of your life.
I won't go as far as saying girls at that age are fucked up mentally regarding relationships, but almost everything else was spot on. Honestly, if she wants to believe you're a pussy magnet, she will continue to do so until she grows up. Or until you cut off your penis. (lol I know I know!)
It isn't to say "damaged goods" aren't worth a second look, but she needs to grow up at her own pace. Some people are late bloomers. Whether or not you want to wait around for that to happen, is entirely up to you.
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On May 10 2013 17:11 Wombat_NI wrote:
Case in point, she's very, very neurotic about food, being overweight etc, and constantly seeks validation on that. I genuinely don't care, and stated so in increasingly irritated tones, but alas to no avail. At one stage I got so sick of her continually bleating on about her body image that I went into our cupboard and either obscured or cut out all the nutritional information on the food there. She was rather amused by this demonstration of my irritation, after which I told her to get dressed and took her out for some good wholesome food.
Try to get out of the situation and look at it in a bigger picture. In a nutshell we humans want two things: We want to accumulate positive feelings and we want to avoid negative feelings.
If it comes to a neurosis about e.g. weight and you assure her that you think she's great and just fine for you you reinforce her neurosis by giving it positive feedback. Don't hop into that. Change the framining depending on how tough you perceive her in that situation at the time. If she asks "Honey, do you think I'm fat?" (duh) answering among the lines of "Didn't you notice, I'm exclusively into chubby girls!" (unless you really are >_>) does a great job. Any statement that conveys you don't take the claim of "I'm fat/ugly/stupid" etc. etc. not seriously because you think it's bullshit does well.
On May 10 2013 22:47 HardlyNever wrote:
@ B.I.G.
Imo, she's damaged goods (based strictly on what you've wrote). Also, girls at that age (in my experience) are especially fucked up mentally when it comes to relationships. They don't know what they want, and they have twisted expectations. It sounds like that is her problem.
You can't help her. You can't "fix" her. Believe me, I've tried. The problems she has are her own, and she has to deal with them. You can try to ride it out, and hope she comes to the conclusion on her own that she needs to change the way she views relationships (and probably herself). You can be there to support her in that, if you are lucky enough that she tries (she probably won't). But you can't do it yourself. Even if you want to. It is entirely up to her.
So basically you're rolling the dice and hoping she can find a way to deal with her f'd up past. Also, that 3 year age gap, while not a huge deal, is a little sketch at that age, as it seems you two are at different phases of your life.
You're way out of line imho. This isn't about being the pyschologist for your partner. You're - hopefully - not dealing with a multiple rape victim that needs counseling. You're talking about completely normal human beings with their past experiences, fears and insecurities. We all are damaged and some empathy combined with some knowledge about how we tick (see above) goes a long way to make us better people.
You can't help her, that's correct. But you can show her new experiences, you can show her other ways to avoid negative emotions and you can show her new ways to get positive emotions. In a nutshell, this is how we change our behavior: We experience new things that seem to generate "better" emotional results compared to the experience we got in the past. If we can then convince ourselves that this certain new thing would have generated better results in the past and probably will generate better results in the future, we roll with it and our behaviour changes.
We don't learn writing or talking because that's what humans do, we learn it because get insanely positive feedback from our surroundings for it. Every single behaviour we show has a positive reasoning behind it, as twisted as that reason may be. As an example if you're lazy, you're not lazy because you as a person are lazy. Labelling yourself as a "lazy person" instead of a "a person who is lazy" is the worst you can do if you want to change that behaviour. For some reason, procrastinating simply feels better than the alternative. If you find a way to make procrastinating feel horrible or make the alternative feel awesome your "lazyness" will disappear in that situation.
PS: Random sidenote because it includes a couple of super tight responses by Mani: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=411969 - blog relevant to our topic.
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On May 10 2013 17:11 Wombat_NI wrote:I actually struggle with a similar lady, although her issues are slightly different. She's not so much worried about potential infidelity, indeed one of our shared jokes is my borderline incompetence in most situations where I'd be around women It's more a general lack of self-confidence in certain spheres, with a healthy dose of paranoia on the side that she sometimes struggles with. We're very open and I could probably write a good psych profile on certain of her exes. The issue is that you can't really fight feelings that are, to me anyway, illogical, with logic. As somebody who is blunt and whose partner's pet name is 'The Robot', I quickly learned that my skillset was somewhat lacking in dealing with neuroses that I cannot understand, despite my reasonably functional empathy circuits. Anyway, part of her issues stem from a series of assholes stretching way back. One who was somewhat physically abusive, but another who ground down her self esteem over an extended period to make himself feel better about himself. The latter I pinpointed as especially damaging, but equally intriguing to me is that in this case, and in other anecdotal instances of similar occurrences, that kind of man actually really seeps into the psyche. My approach was to try and ape some of that approach, but obviously not to psychologically abuse her! I found that pussyfooting around things, indulging her, or talking things through in bed were rather ineffective. Simply putting your foot down, demanding rather than debating etc etc rather counter-intuitively (in my case anyway) seems to mitigate some of the damage that the same behaviour in the past has done to her self-image. Case in point, she's very, very neurotic about food, being overweight etc, and constantly seeks validation on that. I genuinely don't care, and stated so in increasingly irritated tones, but alas to no avail. At one stage I got so sick of her continually bleating on about her body image that I went into our cupboard and either obscured or cut out all the nutritional information on the food there. She was rather amused by this demonstration of my irritation, after which I told her to get dressed and took her out for some good wholesome food. I am rather loathe to type this, as I can see that the cold textual format doesn't really paint me in a particularly favourable life, as you folks don't get to see much of the intangible things that go on in our household.
Are you talking about your current partner? If this is the case, perhaps I should apologise for some of the more crass jokes I made earlier.
On a side note, I had to deal with a girl like that in school, though as a part of a circle of friends. Drove me crazy, I felt sorry for her and wanted to strangle her out of sheer frustration all at once. We have a rather similar personality where stuff like this is concerned by the sounds of it, I just cannot wrap my head around people not responding to logic.
Taught me patience, if nothing else.
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On May 10 2013 23:56 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2013 17:11 Wombat_NI wrote:
Case in point, she's very, very neurotic about food, being overweight etc, and constantly seeks validation on that. I genuinely don't care, and stated so in increasingly irritated tones, but alas to no avail. At one stage I got so sick of her continually bleating on about her body image that I went into our cupboard and either obscured or cut out all the nutritional information on the food there. She was rather amused by this demonstration of my irritation, after which I told her to get dressed and took her out for some good wholesome food. Try to get out of the situation and look at it in a bigger picture. In a nutshell we humans want two things: We want to accumulate positive feelings and we want to avoid negative feelings.If it comes to a neurosis about e.g. weight and you assure her that you think she's great and just fine for you you reinforce her neurosis by giving it positive feedback. Don't hop into that. Change the framining depending on how tough you perceive her in that situation at the time. If she asks "Honey, do you think I'm fat?" (duh) answering among the lines of "Didn't you notice, I'm exclusively into chubby girls!" (unless you really are >_>) does a great job. Any statement that conveys you don't take the claim of "I'm fat/ugly/stupid" etc. etc. not seriously because you think it's bullshit does well. Show nested quote +On May 10 2013 22:47 HardlyNever wrote:
@ B.I.G.
Imo, she's damaged goods (based strictly on what you've wrote). Also, girls at that age (in my experience) are especially fucked up mentally when it comes to relationships. They don't know what they want, and they have twisted expectations. It sounds like that is her problem.
You can't help her. You can't "fix" her. Believe me, I've tried. The problems she has are her own, and she has to deal with them. You can try to ride it out, and hope she comes to the conclusion on her own that she needs to change the way she views relationships (and probably herself). You can be there to support her in that, if you are lucky enough that she tries (she probably won't). But you can't do it yourself. Even if you want to. It is entirely up to her.
So basically you're rolling the dice and hoping she can find a way to deal with her f'd up past. Also, that 3 year age gap, while not a huge deal, is a little sketch at that age, as it seems you two are at different phases of your life. You're way out of line imho. This isn't about being the pyschologist for your partner. You're - hopefully - not dealing with a multiple rape victim that needs counseling. You're talking about completely normal human beings with their past experiences, fears and insecurities. We all are damaged and some empathy combined with some knowledge about how we tick (see above) goes a long way to make us better people. You can't help her, that's correct. But you can show her new experiences, you can show her other ways to avoid negative emotions and you can show her new ways to get positive emotions. In a nutshell, this is how we change our behavior: We experience new things that seem to generate "better" emotional results compared to the experience we got in the past. If we can then convince ourselves that this certain new thing would have generated better results in the past and probably will generate better results in the future, we roll with it and our behaviour changes. We don't learn writing or talking because that's what humans do, we learn it because get insanely positive feedback from our surroundings for it. Every single behaviour we show has a positive reasoning behind it, as twisted as that reason may be. As an example if you're lazy, you're not lazy because you as a person are lazy. Labelling yourself as a "lazy person" instead of a "a person who is lazy" is the worst you can do if you want to change that behaviour. For some reason, procrastinating simply feels better than the alternative. If you find a way to make procrastinating feel horrible or make the alternative feel awesome your "lazyness" will disappear in that situation. PS: Random sidenote because it includes a couple of super tight responses by Mani: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=411969 - blog relevant to our topic. .
It's funny that you mention a multiple rape victim that needs counselling, because I had a gf around that age that was exactly that. She didn't get counselling, though.
Even still, in my experience people carry that sort of early stuff around with them forever (or at least a long time). My last gf hated the idea of marriage b/c her parents went through a messy divorce, and she was convinced all marriage would end badly ("mommy and daddy issues" as she put it herself). Despite my "best efforts" to show her a stable relationship and marriages that do last, it never changed her view on it (permanently, she waffled several times over 3+ years).
Just giving my advice based on my experience. When people have core issues like that, you can't really do anything about it, you just have to hope they "fix" it themselves.
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My last gf hated the idea of marriage, despite my "best efforts" to show her a stable relationship and marriages that do last, it never changed her view.
Not despite. Because. That's exactly what I just tried to explain.
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On May 10 2013 22:00 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2013 21:19 kaykaykay wrote:
What do you do when you're with a handful of girls who are all interested in you?
Make an excuse to get out of the way and later find some alone time with all of them? Invite them all for a massive orgy with you as the star attraction.
bwahahahaha great comment.
Btw kaykaykay is one luck mofo.
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On May 11 2013 00:26 r.Evo wrote:Show nested quote +My last gf hated the idea of marriage, despite my "best efforts" to show her a stable relationship and marriages that do last, it never changed her view. Not despite. Because. That's exactly what I just tried to explain.
That makes absolutely no sense. She had this idea before I ever met her, and trying to show her the reverse reinforces that same idea?
You're either trolling or this is some PUA crap.
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On May 11 2013 00:51 HardlyNever wrote:Show nested quote +On May 11 2013 00:26 r.Evo wrote:My last gf hated the idea of marriage, despite my "best efforts" to show her a stable relationship and marriages that do last, it never changed her view. Not despite. Because. That's exactly what I just tried to explain. That makes absolutely no sense. She had this idea before I ever met her, and trying to show her the reverse reinforces that same idea? You're either trolling or this is some PUA crap.
People choose to stick to certain beliefs or behaviours because they do positive things for them. If for some reason she, on an emotional level, believes that marriage is a horrible thing and you offer her logical solutions against her belief you reinforce that belief because suddenly it has to defend itself.
It is impossible to combat something that's emotionally motivated with a logical argument.
The method that's probably most effective in such a situation is a stronger emotional argument that's completely illogical because it hits at both places at the same time. She is against marriage and you assume it has an emotional background? Agree with her and tell her that you think marriage is indeed something retarded because it makes people more likely to cheat, married couples are worse off financially and that the only reason to marry is because the involved parties are insecure about whether they can build a future together or not.
But, hey, that's just trolling or PUA crap anyway.
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EPT
