Should I stay or should I go?

[janey]

I'm living with a woman who I thought was the person that I would spend the rest of my life with. We spent all of our time together, and people seemed to know us aas the 'perfect couple' (bit of a joke now!). We've been living together for about 9 months in a one bedroom flat, which is making things very difficult now.

 

Obviously you can tell by my name that it is a gay relationship (hope that that doesnt stiffle anyone!), but in order to give advice you're going to have to know the whole story!

 

Basically... the whole time that we've been together, my girlfriend has been really possesive. She has accused my best friend (and others) of being bisexual, and later in an argument accused us of having an affair (this caused her relationship with her boyfriend troubles as it is new -- and he could not understand why my g/friend had said it!). There is no way that my friend is bisexual - it's rediculous!!

 

Anyway, the day before our anniversary, we spent some time together with HER best friend...who proceeded to talk about having had various sexual experiences with women..but never mentioned about anything with my girlfriend. She is engaged to a man, but always accuses him of having affairs, and generally made him out to seem really bad in my eyes ( I shouldn't have judged but I fell for it!).

 

I asked my girlfriend on many occasions if anything had happened with her and her best friend.....she denied this perfusly to my face on many occasions. The same evening, it came up again. She replied 'we kissed' a couple of minutes passed....'well actually we touched eachother' (obviously in a sexual way)...then finally after I had asked her if this was definatly all, she came out with 'we slept together, but it was before we were together'.

 

I could not beleive that she had lied so many times, and caused so much trouble with my best friend. I went away for the week to my sisters but before I was even on the train she was around her best friends house. There she stayed for the majority of the time (hopefully not the night).

 

I could not beleive that she would spend all of her time there when my trust had been completely shattered. She says that she is her best friend, and it was only a one night thing. I personally don't understand this, as she asked me to lose contact with all of my ex's. She also says that she doesnt have many friend where we live, and her best friend is the only one she can confide in. Personally I see this as a bit of a kick in the teeth.

 

The best friend told her fiance' (who is also my girlfriends boss, and very good friend) that it happened before they were together. I in fact happened when they were together.

 

I really just don't know what to do. My best friend is sick of being called bisexual, and having repocussions in her relationship, and I'm unsure whether what my girlfriend is saying is true. Most people think that she hasn't cheated on me, but I don't know for certain.

 

Other factors are...I walked in on her in bed with another woman (this was before we moved in together, but I trusted her on it...), She also spent the night round her ex's when I was away. This was around the same time...she cheated on her ex with me, and said she felt she needed to sort things out. She said nothing happened...

 

 

At the moment we are still living together, but going round in circles. I don't think she really understands the severity of what she has done. She thinks that I'm possesive, and am trying to control who she see's. Im just unhappy when she sees her best friend, as the whole issue is still a bit raw. She said that she won't bring her to the flat, or go round there when there is no-one else in (not that I'd know). But the issue issue still comes up again and again, and we end up fighting.

 

I'm so sorry that this is such an essay, but I thought it best to tell everything for better insight. An advice or comments would be helpfull.

[Tony T]

There are only two solutions to this problem. One is to break up with your friend because you simply don't trust what she says...right so based on lies in the past. Or you can live with it and try to make the best of it and believe what she is telling you. Take your pick.

 

Being in real estate management and having rented to dozens of gay and lesbian couples over the years, I can tell you that every one of them was drama filled...and there was never a friendly ending. All of them, without exception, were filled with distrust, jealousy and guilt manipulation.

 

While I'm on the subject, I can also say from my personal experiences and observations as a landlord that breakups of gay and lesbian couples are often violent and result in moderate to severe damage to living quarters. (Just dropping that in here FYI, nothing personal.)

 

Based ONLY on my first hand observations, I would say that you are going to have to get used to the drama because you have a very long life ahead of you and you are in your chosen lifestyle. There will probably NEVER be a time in any relationship you have where you will fully trust your mate.

 

The nature of gay and lesbian relationships is such that the population of potential mates is limited so when people find someone with whom they have feelings, they become extremely protective of it and deeply fearful that it will be interfered with. They understand how difficult it was to find.

 

There is really nothing you can do about your current situation as it relates to other people. You can't control what they say or do so just give up on that. The only person you can control is yourself...where you go, who you hang around with, who you listen to, who you allow to affect you, etc. That's where you need to concentrate because the drama will follow you straight to the old people's home.

[midori]

I think your gf is lying. She probably tells herself that they are only white lies, glossing over things that happened in the past that would upset you for no good reason.

 

But that's a bogus line of reasoning. For one thing, why does she assume that you couldn't handle the truth? Projecting her own jealous nature onto you? Perhaps. But also it seems likely that she knows, in her heart of hearts, that her best friend IS a threat to your relationship, even if at the moment things between them are only platonic.

 

I'm a straight female, so maybe I don't understand how sexual vs. platonic relationships with same sex friends work in the gay community, although I'm sure there's no hard and fast rule. With the caveat that this might not be a completely valid comparison, I'll tell you that I had a similar experience with an ex-boyfriend of mine. He had a female friend (former flatmate) who, when I met him, was engaged to someone else, and soonafter married the guy. She wasn't overtly hostile to me, but neither was she very warm. I won't go into all the little nuances that made me wonder if something was between them, but I gradually reached the conclusion that he had something of an unrequited crush on her (unrequited because this woman was determined to marry a wealthy guy -- which she did), and although she apparently didn't return his feelings, she felt possessive of his affection. I asked him if there had ever been anything between them, and he was all denial. I wasn't a jealous, suspicious sort of person (although this ex gave me several reasons to be so, and actually did get me into the miserable position of wondering if I was being played for a fool), but I did find occasion to question him (calmly and without accusation) on this more than once. Always met with derisive denial. But after we'd been together for a while, he admitted that they had once kissed during a night of drinking and drugs -- but both "immediately realized that they didn't feel anything for each other." He hadn't told me because he didn't want me to get the wrong idea -- implying that I was prone to unwarranted jealousy. Uh-huh, right. I couldn't care less at this point what the truth of the matter is, but I'll tell you that I'm quite certain that they shared more than a kiss. I also know that she was not a supporter of our relationship. So he had good reason to hide the true nature of their past from me -- not because of me, but because he probably knew in his heart of hearts that his "friend" was an enemy of our relationship. And because the kiss he finally admitted to was more than just a kiss.

 

Incidentally, this ex was very suspcious of my (few, and purely platonic) male friends. Fortunately they lived in other cities so he didn't make too big a deal of it. But he questioned me closely, and more than once. This ex subsequently proved to be a very messed up guy, unable to conduct himself honestly in relationships. He hid a lot of stuff from me (e.g. the extent of his "recreational" drug use, to which he returned once we broke up. I don't police other's choices, but had I known at the start just how big a role drugs played in his life I would have hesitated to get involved with him, because sooner or later the denied old habits would creep back into his life -- and they did. Who wants to dea with that?).

 

My point is, someone who can be this dishonest with you (and to some extent herself) about something as basic as whether her best friend is really just a friend has a great potential to be lying to you (and herself) about a number of other things. Some people just can't be honest with themselves because they don't want to face the consequences & choices the truth would force upon them. In my experience, such people aren't good partners -- for anything probably, and certainly not for love.

 

Moreover, the fact that she feels she can dictate with whom you may stay in touch, or have as friends, is troubling. Doubly so given her hypocrisy on that front. Controlling and deceitful people are usually not good bets for either the short run or the long run.

[quankanne]

I dunno, Janey, this just doesn't sound good.

 

In college, I was madly in love with a guy who was madly in love with sleeping around with other women. I stayed in the relationship because I thought it could work out between us, that he loved ME .... imagine my surprise when he admitted that in addition to his various lovers, he had a married girlfriend that he suspected was cheating on him! I think it was his conscience bothering him about his slutty ways, but instead of cleaning up his lifestyle, he pointed his finger at the woman he "loved," I think so he wouldn't have to admit that he was the one with the serious problem.

 

It sounds like your girlfriend has the same problem -- she's making your friend into the bad guy, I guess "transfering" all the negative things she's done to someone completely innocent. I wish I could tell you why, but I'm still wondering about that guy from college ...

 

I guess it all boils down to this: is being with this woman worth losing your best friend over? is wondering whether she's being honest with you worth the heartache it's bound to cause? is this the person you want to try to make your place in society with? It's probably very hard to be lesbian in a society that condemns homosexuality; is this the kind of person you want at your side as you make your place in life? if you answer 'no' to any one of these questions, I think there's a good chance that you don't need to be with her.

[janey]

Thanks for your replies everyone. They have been really helpfull and given me some insightfull outside opinions.

 

I went to do the right thing by leaving, but my girlfriend ran after me and begged me to come home. She said that our relationship was worth fighting for....so I went back.

 

Things have been slightly better. She has been really making an effort - taking me out for dinner etc, but all that I can think about is the fact that she lied, and is still seing her best friend...and what she had to hide. I'm also wondering how long this new image is going to last.

 

It's really wrong, but I looked on her phone and saw various messages from her best friend/ex lover....nothing too incriminating, but when I looked, my heart sank. I hate the fact that she discusses our relationship with her.

 

I feel like I'm becoming really paranoid (wondering if she has been unfaithfull - they told the best friends' boy friend that it was BEFORE they were together - it wasn't...how do I know that that's not what they are saying to me...to cover it up?!), yet something is keeping me from leaving.

 

What, I don't know as in my head I think that leaving is the best thing, yet I don't seem to be able to materialise it.... has anyone experienced this before?

[midori]

I think that sometimes people are inclined and encouraged to ignore their instincts about a relationship: because of the unrest that would follow if they did listen to their instinct, because of the uncertainty, because their instincts are not in line with what other people want.

 

It sounds like your instincts are sending you a pretty clear message: you don't trust your girlfriend. Given that, the likelihood that you'll be happy if you remain with her seems small.

 

So you have to decide: are you a reasonable person? Are you someone who is prone to paranoia and imagining problems where there are none? No? So why are you allowing yourself to be talked out of following your instinct? Because you haven't got the courage to deal with the consequences? Because you don't have enough faith in yourself and your perception of reality to say to your gf, "I don't trust you, despite what you say, and I'm going to go with my own feelings in this."

 

You don't have to justify your decision to anyone but yourself. You don't trust your gf, you're unhappy with her. I'm so far removed from the situation that I can't begin to know whether your suspicions are realistic or not, but it certainly doesn't sound good from what you've shared here.

 

If your gf is untrustworthy, you certainly can't rely on her to tell you the truth now. It might seem like a bizarre contradiction, that she would jeopardize your relationship as she has, and then turn around and insist that the two of you fight for it -- but that's not your mystery to solve. That is 100% her problem. All you can do is listen to what your instincts are telling you, and pay attention to your own feelings. You yourself say the thing you want to do is leave. If you sweep aside the protective rationalizations -- yours and hers -- you'll be able to do what you need to.

 

Good luck.

[Tony T]

Again, midori has written a classic...has touched on the very core of so many people's problems in relationships...not listening to that little voice inside....not honoring that gut feeling.

 

So many times we know a relationship isn't right, that our partner is not treating us properly or being straight with us...but we prefer to hang around either hoping things will change...or, worse yet, just ignoring our feelings and even the hard data that we have. We do this, as midori says, because of the unrest it would cause us. We want to avoid the pain.

 

In the study of psychology, this sort of behavior on the part of humans is called cognitive dissonance. Former Stanford University social psychologist Leon Festinger called cognitive dissonance the distressing mental state in which people feel they "find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold." In other words, you know your lady is dishonest or disloyal but you behave otherwise...creating a distress in itself.

 

I like the way midori put it much better. In her post above, she wrote: "I think that sometimes people are inclined and encouraged to ignore their instincts about a relationship: because of the unrest that would follow if they did listen to their instinct, because of the uncertainty, because their instincts are not in line with what other people want." That's classic dissonance. In psychology, it's an unconscious defense mechanism...in this case being one to keep us from feeling nasty pain.

 

If you want to know more about cognitive dissonance, put the words in a good search engine like http://www.google.com and read away.

 

As insane as it sounds, so many of us want this one person to love so much we are willing to put up with stuff that is sure to doom the relationship eventually. Often, we hope that one day magically the person will change and start being good, honest, fair, quit using us, quit flirting, quit nagging or whatever. Those changes rarely come.

 

Homo sapiens are the ONLY animal on the planet capable of deluding itself. Other lower forms of intelligent life don't waste their time on such nonsense. I have grown to embrace the truth and reality and, frankly, it's not very pleasant most of the time. But it's a sorry waste of time for me to walk around thinking people love me when they don't, wanting to feel people are being honest with me when they're not, thinking men of the cloth don't want me for my body when some may.

 

"To thine own self be true." My challenge to you is, in the absense of everything else you may hold dear, to start being honest with yourself...being clean and straight with yourself because, in the end, if you can't depend on your ownself to be loyal and true to number one (yourself) then you can hold no other person to blame when you are hurt or deceived.

[janey]

Hi,

 

Thanks again for your advice Midori and Tony.

 

I've finally taken it on board, and I left on monday night...she went out for drinks with the best friend, and expected me to wait at home for her making dinner....so I left.

 

She's now staying in her best friends' room (double bed...no room on the floor...it could be innocent I suppose?)...not that it really matters anymore.

 

At least now I know that I've done the right thing, and I'm back on the right track...just a bit painfull in the mean time, especially as the town that we live in is extremely small, and her best friend lives directly opposite to where I work.

 

Anyways, thankyou so much for the advice, it was a real help!

 

xx

[midori]

I'm sure it's difficult for you on several levels at the moment. But you know that you did the right thing, and the longer you stay strong and resolved about it, the easier it will become. Good luck!

 

-midori

[pamelamccoy]

In my litany of failed relationships (not really that many, but all my past relationships are "past" because they failed to be permanent), I observed that every jealous guy I ever dated or married, was screwing around on me. That is why they are jealous - because they assume you are just like them. Also, they want to throw any suspicion off of themselves, by throwing it on you. Get out!! I know a number of gay couples who do not have all of the drama that you are experiencing. Find someone with whom you are emotionally compatible.