Off & On Relationship: "I’ve been off & on with my gf for years, and I feel stuck… like we aren’t moving forward or backward. What do I do?"
"My girlfriend still texts with her ex a few times a month. It makes me uncomfortable- she knows this- but she continues to do it. If I were in her position I know she would freak out. She says it’s different because I used to date men. Am I being crazy?"
- Question submitted by Anonymous
uhmmmm. I don’t understand why it’s different? I think texting your ex is texting your ex is texting your ex. You know?!?! Who cares what their gender is?! You had a meaningful experience with them and that’s over, so when you talk, it might make your current bingbong (pet name) feel a little weird.
The key here isn’t saying “well if I can’t talk to my exes then you can’t talk to yours.” The key is trusting one another and understanding that we’re going to be friends with people we used to share our lives with and that doesn’t devalue our current relationship(s) in any way. You and capt bingbong have a relationship that has NOTHING to do with the people she used to bingbang. One of my closest friends is an ex. We literally talk every single day. People come into our lives for a reason and sometimes that reason is to be a really fucking great friend. What does it matter if you dated in the past? Maybe hang a few times, just the three of you so you can also start to build a relationship with ex??
I don’t think it’s fair for either of you to make the other one feel like farts for communicating with your exes. I mean, you’re already steps ahead of a lot of people, you’re honest about it. You talk about it. You’re honest about feeling weird. You talk about feeling weird. That’s important and cool. Allow yourself to feel weird, but recognize that bingbong is with you bc she wants to be with you, the same way you are with bingbong bc you wanna be with bingbong. Don’t play the blame game just because it’s easy, this isn’t about comparing who is worse for talking to their ex, it’s about getting to a place where you both feel comfortable with the other person talking to ex-bingbang.
I agree with this advice and am pleased with the usage of bingbong and bingbang. Three thumbs up.
In the current situation, both you and your girlfriend are being tasked with being better to each other – simple as that. Your gf needs to be much more sensitive to your feelings, and understand that it is okay for you to feel a little wobbly in the context of her past relationship with bingbong. That, however, does not mean that she should stop texting with bingbong. That isn’t how you solve this problem. It means she hears you, she talks to you about your feelings, and she does her best to explain why bingbong means so much to her, and how that does not affect her love for you.
You are tasked with trusting your gf. That doesn’t mean you can’t have feelings of jealousy or insecurity, but it does mean that she isn’t forbidden from speaking from someone she cares about. You can feel those things without placing the blame on your gf or bingbong, but rather reflecting on your own heart and choosing to trust your gf.
Whole separate situation: It’s totally effed up that she views your past relationships with men differently than hers, and this is NOT. OKAY. Part of your conversation needs to be on the fact that gender doesn’t determine the trustworthiness of a human, nor does it it determine our capacities for forming meaningful relationships after being romantic. Draw a line in the sand on that one… because anything else is unfair and totally unacceptable.
There you have it, folks.
In the words of someone somewhere in my Italian ancestry: Badabing, Badaboom.
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"I did something terrible and snooped on a Facebook chat my girlfriend was having with an ex. I know it was wrong, but I saw her tell him that she’s been considering breaking up with me but hasn’t because I’m ‘too nice.’ It’s a shock b/c she’s always loving up on me and we recently made plans to move in together! I feel like I need to talk to her about it but don’t know how to start. Any suggestions?"
- Question submitted by Anonymous
YEESH. Part a. YEESH. It’s like, you snooped. You snoopz you looze… that didn’t work as well as I thought, but my point is your boobear is going to be upset because snooping AUTOMATICALLY implies mistrust.
If you trusted your boobear whole-heartedly, you wouldn’t have felt compelled to look at her Facebook chats at all. It wouldn’t have even occurred to you. This prob is two-fold, (1) something is amiss in your relationship, which is what made you wonder (2) your own insecurities got the best of you and now you feel validated.
AND I feel like (1) can totally feed into (2), which I think that’s might be what’s really going on. I say this because you said “she’s always loving up on me” you didn’t say “we are so in love” or “I am so heartbroken” or “we’ve never had any issues” …You don’t even seem that bummed out about it, tbh. WHICH IS TOTALLY FINE. I think you just need to own up to the fact that things have been feeling off, which is why you were feeling weak / insecure, which is probably why you thought to peep her chats in the first place, which is how you saw what she was saying, which leads to why you are uncomfortable and the two of you need to have a convo.
We all make mistakes, especially when we are feeling insecure or off about something. You snooping will be a hurdle, for sure, but the core of the issue is you and your boo not feeling 100% about your status and that talk needs to happen before you move in together and you just randomly yell “I SAW YOUR FACEBOOKS” while she’s spilling cap’n crunch on her crotch. #capncrunchcrotch
Oh yea, please do us all a favor (but mostly yourself), and do not move in with this humanboo until you speak with her about what is up, and do so honestly and whilst being as cool-headed as you can BECAUSE:
While this is certainly a huge yeesh… who the hell knows what kind of conversation she was having with that ex or what her motivations were?! Maybe he’s hurting a bunch and she didn’t know what to say and so she was like YEA WHO EVEN IS HAPPY NOT ME IM NOT HAPPY SO LOOK EVERYTHING IS FINE. That isn’t highly likely, but the thing is you simply cannot know because you discovered this while on a snoop and like Dannielle always says #yousnoopz #youlooze
So: sit your humanboo down and say, “I did something bad and now things are really messy, here is what went down. I was feeling shaky and I fucked up big time and I snooped on your chat and that may be reason enough for you to be furious with me and signal that things aren’t great between us BUT ALSO in my snoop I saw that you were considering breaking up with me so maybe we should talk about all of this.” Then bury your face in the nearest pillow and scream. Then sit up, and talk to her.
People’s feelings are complicated (Avril Lavigne wrote a song about this in 2002), and you cannot get anywhere by snooping (unless you’re my mom in 1994 who found out I let Dan VanWagenen touch my boob while watching the movie ‘Baby’s Day Out’). You must now speak, about your snoopz and about her feels — and the next time you want to snoop, just, well, just watch Baby’s Day Out or something.
Good luck.
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"I had a real thing going on with this one girl, but things have gotten weird and that’s over. I’m having a really hard time not getting sad every once and a while, especially since we are still friends and I see her a lot. How do I fix this?"
- Question submitted by Anonymous
I think you should let yourself be sad AND I think you should take a break from this girl. I went through a really tough break up a few years ago wherein SRIRACHA (her name bc hot sauce bc burn, get it?) asked me multiple times to NOT attend an event with a bunch of our mutual friends. I was bummed out, I was SO bummed out, I felt v estranged from a bunch of people I had previously had pretty good relationships with, BUT I got it. I totally understood. I hated it, but I understood. You can’t be expected to just be totally okay right after a split, you know? Time passed, and now we are super close. Time and space, y’all.
I’m not suggesting you ask your ex to not attend friend events, maybe that doesn’t make you comfortable. BUT you can back off a little. No one knows your feels the way you know your feels. AND SOMETIMES YOU PROBABLY DON’T EVEN KNOW YOUR FEELS, YOU KNOW!?
Skip a few friend events, stop following their facebook feed, mute them on twitter, etc. You don’t have to cut this human out of your life, but taking that space will help you take the time you need to move on. Let yourself be sad, don’t feel dumb for wanting space, be honest about what you need. We’ve all been there and if she isn’t understanding it’s just kind of selfish, you have to do what is best for you.
I think that hits the break-up nail right on the head, y’all.
A lot of times we think we shouldn’t be sad, and we make excuses to ourselves to get what we want in the moment even though we KNOW what is ultimately best for us. Brains are tricky little assholes.
So, first things first (#imtherealest): You have to be honest with yourself. When you know that this girl is going to be at a place, you have to check in with that honesty and say, “Yes, I want to go. Yes, I wish I could go. But, I am going to skip it, because I know this is temporary and seeing her will only make me feel worse.”
It SOUNDS simple as pie (why is pie simple?), but we all know that it requires about the same amount of effort as climbing Mount Really-High. I couldn’t think of a good high mountain that started with Mount and I really wanted to say Mount. Is Mount Hood big? Do you all know what Mount Ranier is? Anyway, you get my point. OH MOUNT HELEN — MOUNT HELEN IS HIGH RIGHT?
A huge part of this is mustering up that strength each time you feel like you might slip, and an even huger part is time. I know, I know. No one wants to hear that… but that’s why we have really sad music and tissues and best friends.
<3
ps: i looked up those mountains and it’s called mount st helen and im sorry. i apparently need a lesson on land masses. or whatever.
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"How do I come out as gay to my ex, without invalidating our 2.5 year relationship? We are still friends and I want him to hear it from me, not somebody else."
- Question submitted by Anonymous
This is such an interesting THING. I think so many of us have these feelings, but they don’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s like, I dated a girl for 2 years and that relationship ended, then I happened to fall in love with someone else, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love GF #1, you know? My falling in love with another human at another time in a different way, does not invalidate the fact that I totally loved her. WHAT’S MORE, neither of those relationships invalidate the boy that I dated for a year in college. My feels for him were 100% real.
Having feelings for people is having feelings for people is having feelings for people. You know? Tit for tat, quid pro quo, eye for an eye, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.
That being said, I understand your fears. You know FOR SURE that your feelings were real, but what will he think? Regardless of what he immediately thinks, I know you can communicate to him the truth of your feels. Especially if you are friends. He trusts you, you know one another, if you are open and honest AND willing to talk about it, he will have a much easier time.
Agree on all counts. Especially quid pro quo.
I think you do this in two steps. Step one, you explain that he means a lot to you, and that your relationship together meant (and means) so much to you as well. You explain that as you’ve grown over the past however-long-its-been since you parted ways, you’ve discovered new parts of yourself. You explain, in whatever words make sense to you, what those new parts are, and (if you want to) how you identify now, because of those new discoveries.
Step two, you tell him that you know he might have questions — maybe now, maybe in a few weeks — and that you are always happy to talk to him about those questions. If he has some right then, talk about it, be as open as possible, understand some of his more wobbly-feelings if they surface, and try to be patient with his process. If he says, ‘cool, no big deal, I’M FINE,’ maybe he is… BUT, I would still reiterate one more time that your identity today does not invalidate your identity in the past, or your feelings from the past.
That is all you can do. Remain open to questions and be honest and sincere. He will work through any of his own confusions (if he has any) either with you or on his own — and if you are as close as it seems you may be, you will likely get to a brand new place together in your relationship because of that honesty and sincerity.
