Am I Right to be Worried?

[krabuzh]

Done with reading all of your post and other's comment here..
Sorry for being blunt, but I think that your gf also like the care of her guy friend gives to her.
Even though she said that they are just friend and that she doesn't have any interest in him, but in my opinion she also at least has to appreciate what you have told her. That you don't like they being together and spent time together for studying or whatever they do. I know you said that your gf is not great for being forward, but still.. if she listened to you and she really mean it (not just say it to make you calm down) she should try to at least put a distant with the guy. Not being able for being forward with other people doesn't mean you always have to accept anything. If a person really mean with what they say they will do it and find a way for it no matter what. Not just an excuse..

At your first post you said that the guy think that your gf "caught his eyes" right? Then how come your gf told you later then the guy just think of her as a friend? I have no idea for that, especially to spend time to studying till dawn. It's just didn't make sense to me. *shrugs* Sorry.. But I just say what I think..

anyway.. it's also good to know that she will be back to her parents house and might have spent her time with you too by visiting you. Hopefully both of you can have quality time and then fix your relationship from it.
Wish you the best and all the good luck!

[Kizuna]

Maybe you could give some advice that I can pass on to her about telling him to stop since you've been in a similar position? That would really help, because I know she isn't really good with being forward with people.

Thanks again for the replies! I'm going to FaceTime call her soon so we can actually talk about this stuff and see each other at the same time.

I agree with krabuzh and everyone else on here. It seems like part of the problem is how she likes the attention her friend is giving her, which may be the reason why she doesn't want to keep distance.
I understand about how for some people, it's hard to be forward with others. I'm also that type of person, since I dislike conflict and want to keep the friends I have without having to cause tension. But even a shy girl like me, I know and understand the fact that some people just don't get it until you lay down the line and say "cut it out". Like what the other comments here are saying, she needs to first recognize that it's crossing the line.
I hope things will get better with your girlfriend.

[Seamonster93]

Hey man, listen I know this is hard to swallow but you have to realize that if she doesn't show you the attention you want then she just doesn't seem interested in the relationship anymore. She seems like a very needy girl (Attention wise) that won't work if you guys have a distance. She will find a way to get what she wants one way or another. She seems like the type of person that abuses long distance relationships to live that "second life". You deserve better than this man. I wish I could be there to make things better for you but to be quite frankly, you will have to move on. Before you do tell her that you want to move on talk to her about how YOU feel about it all. Let HER know that you are hurting inside emotionally and physically. There is no need to think about suicide or hurting yourself. There are many people out there, there must be another chance. Keep strong my canadian friend.

[Alemap]

It's possible he's interested, and she isn't. Do keep that in mind. But no, you are not wrong to be concerned; I would also be worried, in a similar situation.
I do agree that she should be honouring your feelings, since this obviously is causing you great insecurity, and working with you to find a compromise that will enable you to feel more "safe".

However, I also think that logging on to someone else's Facebook (or email, or looking through their SMS or call logs in their phone) is the equivalent of opening their mail; that is, a very large and worrisome violation of her privacy. You were scared, and I understand that, but your legitimate options were to either believe what she said, or to accept that you no longer trusted her, and end the relationship - logging on to her Facebook and reading her messages was not one of them. That is where insecurities begin to cross the line into controlling behaviour, and it should be a major red flag for both of you that you felt the need to do this, and also that you felt entitled to do it.
Frankly, if I suspected my boyfriend had been on my Facebook or email, I would change my password, too. And also seriously reevaluate if that was someone I wanted to be with.
I'm not attacking you, just making the points I feel are very relevant, and only a few other posters have raised.

So, my advice is this; tell her what you've done, so she can change her passwords - it's going to suck, and she may be very angry, but not only do you have to face the music but also appreciate that she has a right to know so that she can protect herself from it happening again, and furthermore, that until she changes her passwords, it will be way too easy and tempting for you, in a moment of weakness and insecurity, to do it again. Then decide together whether you feel you can work this out - it's awesome that you have already begun a constructive dialogue about her inappropriate friendship with this rival of yours, but you also need to discuss your trust issues and disrespect of her privacy (because this mess is very much two-sided, from where I'm sitting) - and if so, work out how you're going to do it, and start putting that plan into action.

[Dillman]

Thank you all for sending in so many great replies. I'm getting a lot of good advice, some of it I can pass on to her as well.

First let me say we had the chance to talk a long time last night over FaceTime, and it actually went really well. It was strange, as soon as I called her we ended up having a great conversation about something else entirely unrelated. It felt so normal and it's something we've been lacking a lot of lately. After that I brought up what we had been texting about, and the issues we've been facing. She actually listened to me about my feelings, and I could tell she actually cared. I told her that there were 3 main issues I was having. The first and most important is that the friend does not just want friendship, it's clear he is interested in more than that, and he's trying to weasel his way in slowly. I told her that if she wants to hang out with him as a friend, she needs to put her foot down and simply tell him to stop behaving like this. The second issue is that she is spending way too much time with him, and the hours are just too strange for me to feel comfortable. Lastly, her hanging out with him has caused our communication to sort of fall apart. She won't text me when she's with him, and it's cutting into our talking time, time when she said we could talk.

Regarding his behavior, I managed to find out a little more of the details of what's been going on. I found out that it was actually Monday night where he put his arm around her, and it has happened before. I asked if there was anything else at all that I wouldn't be happy with if I saw it happening in front of me and she said that was all. She really didn't want to tell me the details, and when I finally convinced her to talk about him putting his arm around her, she started to cry and I could tell she felt really bad. I wasn't yelling and I was staying quite calm through this as well, I tried to not be a angry. She said it sort of just happened, he did it when he was showing her something I guess they were studying, and she just let him. After that she explained that she did move away and eventually told him to stop, but I find it odd she didn't mention that sooner. Through all this as well, she still maintains he is only interested in being her friend.

When I brought up the issue of hours and specifically being out so late with him, that's when she did get defensive. She explained how she has to cram study sessions in and sometimes she sacrifices sleep when there's an exam the next day. I know she is in a really difficult course, so there is some truth to this. I explained how she shouldn't be out with him in particular so late, and she somewhat agreed. Studying alone late at night with him after I've gone to sleep is what makes me uncomfortable, and I think she understood that. I suggested she could find an actual tutor or study over MSN or Facebook chat when it gets later at night, and we both agreed she needs to manage her time better.

The last issue, she completely understands and is very apologetic for. She has been neglecting our time and has had very poor communication lately. We both need to really work at this, and I think we are headed in the right direction. She came up with a bunch of ideas last night of things we can do together like set dates to watch movies or play games online, as well as simply talking over webcam more often again.

Our conversation last night really felt refreshing. It felt like we were both actually excited to be in a relationship with each other again, and that we can fix things if we just put some more effort in. I asked her to take a break from the friend for a while, and to not make plans with him and limit their texting or chatting. I don't normally want to tell her what to do, and I've been avoiding it, but this is very important to me. She seemed unhappy to hear this, but she agreed. I think it's important to not take a step back right now by having her see him and cause my feelings to be damaged again. Eventually, if she can really tell him to stop his behavior and fix her behavior when she's with him, I won't have a problem with her seeing him and having him as a friend. We've also been talking normally today, having fun conversations, and we even talked on FaceTime a decent amount of time tonight.

Regarding Facebook, as I see a few comments on that, I have already told her everything I have done on there. She knew I read her messages to him the day we fought over it, and that's when she changed her password. I don't have access to her Facebook anymore, and I agree I don't want it because it's too tempting. It's such a horrible feeling to find out second hand like that when things aren't what they seem. It made me physically ill to read their conversation, like someone had punched me in the stomach. In the future I'd rather just look for an indication that something is wrong through her behavior alone. I have already said I wouldn't change her password via email as well, I know how wrong this is, and how badly it could damage our progress. It's a completely different issue to actually break into her account than to simply log in with a password she trusted me with.

It's a matter of rebuilding things from here, and I know the drive to do it is there. I think provided there are no more issues with him and things actually change, we can get back to the way things were.

[Alemap]

Regarding Facebook, as I see a few comments on that, I have already told her everything I have done on there. She knew I read her messages to him the day we fought over it, and that's when she changed her password. I don't have access to her Facebook anymore, and I agree I don't want it because it's too tempting. It's such a horrible feeling to find out second hand like that when things aren't what they seem. It made me physically ill to read their conversation, like someone had punched me in the stomach. In the future I'd rather just look for an indication that something is wrong through her behavior alone. I have already said I wouldn't change her password via email as well, I know how wrong this is, and how badly it could damage our progress. It's a completely different issue to actually break into her account than to simply log in with a password she trusted me with.

It's a matter of rebuilding things from here, and I know the drive to do it is there. I think provided there are no more issues with him and things actually change, we can get back to the way things were.

I'm glad to hear you two were able to talk about this, and that the temptation has been taken away. It really is true that it's not worth it to read people's private messages, looking for something incriminating; if you're successful, you're not going to like what you find, and if you come up empty-handed, you're just going to feel ashamed.
Good luck with your rebuilding.

[Dillman]

Thank you, I'm really glad I took the advice I got on here about not contacting him and not hacking into her Facebook. I think things could have gotten much worse from that.

Unfortunately things haven't been as good after we made up the other night. She had been very busy with another exam and getting ready for the trip up north so she could visit her parents. She's on the train now until tomorrow morning. While she's been texting me...I still have negative feelings. She had been slow replying to my texts, and last night she asked me to log on to Facebook so we could chat while she was at her roommate's parent's house before catching her train today. All I could picture was her chatting with the other guy while we talked on Facebook, and it made me very bitter. I really tried to hide it but I couldn't shake the negative feeling. We still managed to have a decent conversation even though she didn't really talk much and took a long time to reply since she was with her roommate's family.

The feeling I had last night carried into today though, but wasn't as bad, until this afternoon when it got worse. She was on her train, which doesn't have wifi, so I'm using a texting app on my iphone to text to her cellphone since international texts cost money. My texting app stopped working out of nowhere and we were out of communication save for a few pay texts I sent to let her know it broke and it would cost money to send regular text messages. So I finished up my work day and got home, found that there is a website I can use to substitute for the app. I started talking to her on there, and found where our previous conversation ended off. She had been on the train for almost 5 hours and we could only talk for 2 of those, so I figured she would have sent me a few texts for me to read when I got the app working again. Instead there was nothing, and all I could think about was that she was texting the other guy when she couldn't talk to me. Such an irrational trigger for that feeling, but I couldn't help feeling bitter again. We ended up texting via that method and then calling over Skype. She was very nice and talkative but I still felt bitter, and eventually I let it show although I didn't mean to. She was talking and I just skipped over what she had said and just started a new conversation, which she noticed and got upset about. I tried to apologize and get back to talking but she just said she didn't feel well and got off the phone, which made me feel even worse.

When we were texting again...I just came clean. I told her I still was bitter and distracted and I felt like she was always texting the other guy, which I even asked her to take a break from since our fight or at least cut down. I knew it was irrational, and I just wanted her support to make me feel better. I just wanted her to tell me she wasn't talking to him, that it's okay and she understands, and that she wants to make me feel better. She told me my reasons didn't make sense and that she hadn't spoken to him today. I also asked her if she could promise she wasn't texting him and she just replied with "I don't need to promise you that". She hasn't replied to my texts since then.

I just feel so stressed out, hopeless and depressed right now. I feel like we just took another step back and I'll never be able to get over my feelings. I just feel like there's too much history now, and everything bad is coming out. I want to shake this feeling but she just won't even help me. I don't know what to do anymore....I feel like i'm crazy and obsessed but I can't help thinking about her talking to him.

I just needed to write that out...it feels better to just get all my thoughts out and try and forget about it, and maybe enjoy my Friday night after a long week at work.

Thanks

[Sharon Q]

She needs to be supportive, when My SO and I had the same type of snag he called himself crazy I responded by saying " you're not crazy, I understand. "

She seems to not care about your worries.

[DarkStarrx]

Yea, it almost seems like she enjoys the idea of having a LDR boyfriend, but that she isn't really committed. If she was committed she would see how much you're hurting and at least make an effort.

[Haley53]

While I feel she needs to be supportive, patient, and understanding, I also feel that it's important for the OP to work on getting a hold of those irrational thoughts. You are not in control of her life. You are not in control of who she hangs out with. You have no authority to decide when she talks to someone, how often, or for how long. And in my opinion, it is completely in the wrong of you to ask her to make such promises because they put her in a bind. Even if she wasn't talking to him and hadn't planned on it, she's right; she shouldn't have to make those promises to you. And I assure you, if you don't get a handle on your thoughts, irrational as you recognise them to be, you are going to end up pushing her farther and farther away.

This is what I meant by it not being easy to recover from, because you don't get to play victim while she patches things up. You both have to work at it, because even if your behaviour is triggered by something she's doing, your responses triggered by something she did, she's also entitled to being pushed away by continuous hassling/perseveration on this lad. You made the decision to work through it with her, and that means working through it, not relying on her to baby you through the situation. It means learning how to cope with your irrational feelings so that she does not have to. And I hate to be so blunt, but this is why I think these situations are so hard, because the partner who was/feels cheated on often ends up thinking they're entitled to this, this, or that when really they're entitled to no more than they were in the original relationship. Her doing what she did gives you no more right to question her actions and ask her to cut someone out or limit her time with someone now than you had in the beginning of your relationship. When you start worrying that she's talking to him, then you either need to learn what helps you cope with those feelings or you need to take a break and stop talking to her so you can chill and deal. This relationship will fall apart if you let your paranoia consume you. You have to put in just as much work as she is, maybe more, because if this relationship is ever going to work, you both need to be willing to start back at square one and work your way up again. That's just the way it goes.