Young, stupid, in love...and jealous!

[Drainpipe]

Hi everybody,

 

I was surfing the web looking for some help to my jealousy problems when I came across LoveShack, and reading a few of the posts...I feel there are some great people here who might be able to lend a hand. I think that ultimately this is just a jealousy problem that I've let become a little too controlling, but I'll lay the whole story out so that you might get a better idea of whats going on.

 

I'm nearly 19 (hence the young), and have been with my girlfriend for just over a year now. Originally, she was going out with one of my best friends, but things didn't work out and a weird set of circumstances led to us getting together. He was fine with it, she and him still talk, I'm still really good friends with him, it didn't really affect anyone in a negative way.

 

When we got together, we were just off 18 each, (The legal age for drinking/clubbing where we live) and as it happens, she is a month older than me, and where we live it's near traditional that on your 18th birthday you go and hit up some clubs, just because you can. I didn't really say anything either way, but she didn't. She hired an apartment near the coast and a heap of friends, including me, went there and we all had a great weekend. It's never been brought up, but I'm pretty sure the reason she didn't go out is because I wouldn't have been able to.

 

So we both turned 18 and we went out a few times. We're not really big party people so it didn't (and still doesn't) happen often. However, a few months after our birthdays she wanted to go out with one of her friends. I told her that I wasn't really comfortable with it, at the time I blamed it on the fact I was worried for her safety. She told me it didn't really bother her that she didn't go, and for a few times after that she told people she just didn't have the money to go out, when I knew she did it because she knew I wasn't comfortable.

 

Another few months past and she got invited out a few times by some of her school friends. She asked me if she could go, and not wanting to say no again, I told her I had an anxiety disorder, and that I would suffer from panic attacks if she went out and I wasn't feeling comfortable. I could tell she was disappointed but being the amazing girl that she was, she didn't go. Then she was invited to a ball by one of her male school friends who needed a date to go with.

(NOTE: I must impress here that I do NOT have a jealousy of other guys with her. She has a fair few guy friends, some I know, some I don't. I get the exact same jealousy/anxiety feeling regardless of whether she is with a guy or a girl. I don't think the fact that it was a guy had anything to do with it.)

Realising that this guy needed her to go or he'd be going dateless, I pretended it didn't bother me and told her to go. The plan was they went to this ball til about 9:30, then went clubbing afterwards. I felt fine til about 10, then I started to get a tight chest, a sickly feeling in my stomach, and headaches. In my delirium, I made up a story about how I had been vomiting blood from my anxiety. When I told her, she caught a taxi home, and I spent the rest of the night with her (she wanted to make sure I was ok), I felt better that she was home, but I felt horrible that I had to lie.

 

Up until New Years Eve, she hadn't REALLY gone out. She had always come home early, or didn't go, because she knew I was uncomfortable. I am ashamed to say that I made up a few other stories in order to keep her from going out and making me feel sick again.

 

Now here comes the tricky part.

 

From the 25th of November until the 5th of February I am on an overseas trip with my family (I'm writing this from just outside of Rome, and we live in Brisbane, Australia). I knew it was going to be hard, but things went downhill very quickly. I do not travel away from home well. I get homesick, I miss things that I'm attached to more than most, including her. the 5th December was our one year anniversary, and it killed us both that I wasn't there for it. I knew before I left that she was planning to go out for a big night on New Years Eve, as people do. As it happened, where I was spending NYE was somewhere that it's not really a big deal, and the time difference meant that I would be awake (about 3pm) when it was midnight and she was out partying, without even the prospect that I would be doing anything really interesting that night.

She knew that it was killing me that I was missing out on a big New Years, and that I wouldn't be able to kiss her at midnight, and most of all she knew how upset I was that she was going out, and even though she always tried to compensate for my feelings, she told me kindly that she had been planning this for a long time, and she would really really want to do it (basically a nice way of saying no matter what you say, I'm still going).

I tried to deal with it, but I failed.

On the morning of the 31st (her nighttime, about 6pm) I sent her a message saying I had been sick all night and went on in some detail about how if she went out it might trigger further panic attacks in me at which point I could come to some serious harm. Of course it was all made up. She called my mother, because she was concerned for my health, then her dad called my mother, for the same reason, and they were both told that I was fine, and she knew nothing of what they were speaking.

I called her to give her an update on my 'situation', and she told me that she knew I had made it up, and that she was going out, and that I would be lucky if I spoke to her at all in the next week. I got a message from the friend she was out with that said she wasn't breaking up with me, but she needed time. Being as hopelessly tactless as most guys are, I spammed her phone with messages, most of them me being a crying mess.

She sent me a message two days later telling me to call her. I spoke to her and she gave me an earful. I apologised and told her that I just freaked out, panicked and stupidly lost control of the situation. She told me that she was so angry she considered hooking up with another guy just to spite me, but said she couldn't bring herself to do it. She could have if she wanted to. She is smoking hot, gets into the all the VIP lines in clubs, and guys swarm all over her.

 

A few days have passed and I'm speaking to her again pretty well regularly, however she told me that against what her parents have suggested, she decided to give me a second chance because in the whole year we'd been together, I had never done anything wrong by her.

(NOTE: I'm not a habitual liar or anything, in fact I hardly ever lie. It's only when I felt that I was losing control of a situation that I needed to make up a story in order to try and get that situation back in my control.)

But she went on to tell me that if I ever lied to her again, then she would end it for real, no questions asked. I went back over the past year and told her all the stories I had made up, and she told me she appreciated it.

When we talk now, it's as it was before. She still says she loves me, and that she wants to spend forever with me

 

That brings you pretty much up to speed, now here's what I face in the next few weeks.

 

Before I left, we said that when I got back, we would book a week away somewhere, seeing as there was 10 weeks over the christmas period that we had been apart. She hasn't yet booked it, and told me that she would have to see some change in me before she did. I get home in about a month, and she has told me that if she can go out twice with friends and I behave myself, she will book our holiday. I told her that I would do it for her, and have promised myself that I will try never to lie again. I realise it's easier said than done, but I've told myself I'll put in a really serious effort. So in theory, I'll be fine. But theory is a treacherous thing that often comes back and bites you at the most inconvenient of times, as it did on NYE. For now I'm fine, but when I know she is out it becomes harder to cope. I told her that when I know she's out, I'll pull my sim card out of my phone. She told me that that was cheating, and that I needed to have my phone on me and control myself. I NEED to get through this, because I need our trip away. We both want it incredibly, and I've planned some pretty special stuff for her (romantic dinner for two at beachfront restaurant, rose petals in the bath and on the bed etc).

 

Now that I've told her that I made up stories, she knows that I feel crappy when she's out, but she also knows its probably nothing out of the ordinary, and that I don't get abnormally sick.

 

This whole event has been a slap in the face, wake up call, whatever you want to call it. I love her so incredibly much, and would do anything for her, but this one part of me is hurting us, and if I'm not careful, could be the end of it. Her parents are such great people, and after this I have a lot of work ahead of me to get them to think anything of me again. My girlfriend is probably a little too forgiving, and she told me that the fact she loves me so much is probably her downfall, and why she didn't get rid of me in the first place.

 

Apart from this aspect of my personality, all of our families and friends have told us that our relationship is very mature. Both our parents call us husband and wife, because they say they can see us being that one day. Normally that would freak an 18 year old guy out for sure, but for me it makes me so happy. We have a perfect relationship in every other way.

When I get back to Australia we have a family friend who is a psychologist who I'm going to go see and hopefully get some help from, but I need some advice about how to go about coping while she's out the few times that I'm still away.

From the 10th of January until I go home I'm in the USA, where the time difference works even less in my favour, but I guess these are the trials of love. If I'm out somewhere interesting while she's out, I guess I could be easily distracted, but I'm not sure when she'll be out, and neither does she, so it will be sort of a spur of the moment bit of knowledge for me.

 

I realise my story is long, complicated, and to some may seem a little childish or lame, and so if you read the whole thing and get to this point, I thank you incredibly for your patience.

 

If any of you have any tips/exercises/procedures I can employ in order to help me cope now and into the future, please let me know, it would be greatly, greatly appreciated.

 

Also, please try to keep criticism constructive, not negative. I'm in a bit of a depressed state as it is now, I don't need it getting any worse...thanks

 

Thank you very much for reading, and I hope to get some really useful information from you knowledgeable people. As the days go by (and if I have internet) I will try to keep this updated if anything new happens.

 

Thanks again!

[Trimmer]

I don't have a lot to suggest, but have you seen a counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist/doctor about this? It seems like a disorder that is causing you major problems in a particular area of your life, but it may be something you can get control of with some serious help, but I doubt that the level of help you need to really solve it is going to be found on an internet board.

 

And dude - vomiting blood? You sure picked a good one. Not to make fun, but I laughed when I read that. It's a good thing your GF isn't experienced with medical stuff, because if that were really happening, someone who knew what they were doing would probably call emergency services to show up and get you to a hospital, right away...