- [Narrator] This video will contain multiple stories,
I will leave a link in the description
if you would like to read the comments on these stories.
Also, most of the videos on my channel
will have closed caption,
so, if you prefer, you can follow along that way.
Please feel free to leave a comment.
As always, thank you for listening and watching.
- [Narrator] As the title implies, I am 28.
I have been dating this girl,
she is 34, about a year and a half.
She had left an eight-year relationship
around one year before we met.
And we started dating soon after,
two months after meeting maybe.
I left a troubled relationship around one year before too,
and everything was sunshine and rainbows for the most part.
We talked when we started dating
about our previous relationships,
and we both said they were closed in the past.
Then, around five months after we started dating,
I noticed when I dropped her off at home,
that she received a text notification
from a guy with the same name as her ex.
I talk calmly to her about it
to try to understand what was going on.
Why was she talking to him
when she said the past was in the past
and said she broke all contact with him
when we started dating?
She claimed that sometimes he felt depressed and called,
texted her, and that she felt some responsibility
for him feeling like that and talked to him.
She said she didn't tell me she was talking to him
because it was something she felt is harmless,
and I could get the wrong idea.
I called bullcrap and told her I understood
if she wanted to get back with him.
And I would get out of the way.
She said it was nothing like that.
I said, however, that she needed to sort it out
and that I'd felt hurt she was talking to her ex
behind my back.
I gave her some time to work it out.
And after a week,
she said she told her ex she was seeing someone
and that it was a closed topic.
Fine, I thanked her for her honesty,
and she thanked me for my sincerity.
All was well.
Fast-forward to this week,
while hanging with her,
she receives a call from her ex while she was in the shower.
This completely caught me off guard
as she gave no further sign of being in contact with him.
I walked to her and showed her the phone.
"Any idea why your ex is calling you?
I had no idea you guys kept in touch."
She had the look of a deer in the headlights,
though no idea for the fear
that I'd found something out
or that I'd make a scene out of it.
We talked about it and she said,
she feels she left the relationship unresolved
and wanted to get some closure
and hopefully remain friends with her ex.
"As I have a couple of friends who dated for a long time
and now are great friends.
And only that, I tried to give her a chance."
She said that what led to their breakup
was something that was never going to change,
and so they would never work.
However, she made no effort to hide
that sometimes she feels confused about us.
I love this girl to death and I always knew
she could never fully open up to me emotionally
because she was still scarred
from her previous relationship,
but we both felt we were making great progress
in our relationship.
I asked her multiple times
if she wanted some time away from me or to break up.
And she always said she either didn't know
or had no answer at the time.
She has also confessed she is scared to lose me
if we give some time apart.
She enjoys spending time with me and how I treat her,
that she's never met a guy like me.
Trying really hard to write this in a way
that doesn't make me sound like an arrogant prick.
And says she sometimes feels
we could have a happy future together,
other times she's doubting everything.
She's prone to anxiety and had a troubled childhood,
so emotional loads have a different weight with her
and I've done my utmost to be supportive,
but I feel like I'm reaching my limit.
I've never raised my voice with her,
always tried to be understanding and be her rock.
But this has been eating me up inside.
I asked her if her ex knew we were dating,
and she said she didn't tell him
because she wanted to try to become friends with him.
And if he knew she was dating, he would stop talking to her.
This makes absolutely no sense.
Sometimes she looks at me
like she's wondering what the hell she's doing with me,
other times, she looks like a lovestruck girl.
I have no idea what's going on inside her mind.
I think her past weighs on her
and that she has some unresolved emotions for the guy.
But this can't go on.
I found that her favorite contacts on her phone
were two family members, me and the ex.
I'm just lost.
I love her, but I can't keep doing this.
I don't know if this is salvageable
or if the ghost of her ex
will always be in the relationship.
I'd like nothing more than to be happy with this girl,
but I'm just not at the time.
We already broke up three times,
but always get back together the next day
due to her calling me to meet her.
So, I saw my ex girlfriend
of a two-year long distance relationship this weekend.
We've been broken up for a month,
and initially, I wanted to talk about
how she could help give me some insight
on where I could improve.
We did talk a little about that,
but the conversation drifted to closure.
Like, what were the issues that lead to the breakup?
We did have some laughs
even though it was a serious conversation.
Not much got answered.
Anyways, after the meetup,
I dropped her home
and sent her a text apologizing for getting carried away.
Yes, I thanked her for taking the time to meet me.
Anyways, she said things like,
overall, the relationship was great.
And she teared up.
We hug twice before she left.
But unfortunately, the spark died
and we grew apart have growing to do.
I don't know what she meant exactly or how.
And she's also happier single.
To be honest, I've never clicked with someone
like I have with her.
She was perfect because she was also my best friend,
which I think hurt the most.
We have only been in two relationships
and she may want to experience the single life
and also other people.
She sent a text saying,
"Yes, you were a great listener to me.
Yes, I found you reasonable.
Generally, yes, you always did apologize.
And yes, I do think you made an effort
to understand and meet my needs.
Well, firstly, your appearance attracted me to you,
I liked how you looked,
and I just saw how you were
and you seemed like a good vibe
spewing fun and positive energy.
I thought you were really cool, I still do.
You don't have to continue apologizing for anything,
there's nothing to be sorry for.
I don't want you to feel bad or apologetic
and there's nothing to thank me for either.
Thank you for being so nice to me
and trying to be understanding throughout this whole thing.
Still reassuring me that the door is always open,
I really appreciate that.
I appreciate you too, always.
Stop apologizing and beating yourself up.
There's no rush to change yourself.
Just take it easy and take care of yourself for yourself."
It seemed like she lost physical attraction to me
because when we would fight, I would get emotional
and it would affect my whole day.
And I agreed that it is a problem
I am seeing a psychiatrist for.
Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.
I'm trying my best to be the best version of myself,
getting mental help, hitting the gym,
and not to lashing out on people who irritate me.
So, this happened about six months ago,
and I can't stop thinking about it
wondering if I overreacted.
My girlfriend and I have been dating for about two years.
She left for the university while I stayed in our hometown
to go to community college.
We were going strong and doing whatever we could
to make a long-distance relationship work.
She was hanging out with this guy, Nathan,
for a couple of weeks.
I didn't like the guy.
He would talk trash about me and joke to her
about how he was going to steal her from me.
But I didn't say anything
because she was having a hard time making friends,
and I didn't want to make it even more difficult for her.
So, one morning, I wake up to a text reading, Nathan,
and I had a nightcap.
LOL, I read the text, lifted on read,
and got dressed for work. I was so upset.
I didn't check my phone
until about five o'clock in the afternoon.
Of course, by then, there was 100 apology texts.
For context, her roommates were gone for the weekend,
and Nathan and my girlfriend slept in the same bed
despite there being two other beds in the room.
They didn't have sex or anything,
just shared a twin-sized bed for the night.
This might not seem like a big deal to most,
and that's why this post probably won't gain popularity,
but it flipped everything in our relationship.
It was disrespectful to me
and felt like I couldn't trust her anymore.
I felt myself drifting away from her.
We broke up about two months later.
She blamed the end of our relationship
on my distancing towards her.
When I told her it was because of that incident,
she told me that I should have gotten over it by then.
I can't stop thinking, "Did I overreact?"
Thanks for reading, TL.
Dr. My Girlfriend slept in a dorm bed
with a dude that was obsessed with her
leading to the end of our relationship.
Edit, so, everyone seems to think my ex
was intimate with that dude.
I guess it is possible, a hard reality to swallow though.
The bombardment of comments seem to have changed my mind.
This feeling sucks, the hell with my life!
This is going to be hard to write out.
I normally don't seek advice online,
but I feel like I really need
some objective opinions right now.
Sorry for the length,
and if there are too many unnecessary details.
I just want people to have the full picture.
Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this
and offer their thoughts.
Background, I've been with my girlfriend, let's call her L;
for a year and a half.
She takes all of the boxes for me.
I feel incredibly content when I'm around her.
She's a very empathetic person and incredibly kind.
She knows I'm having a bad day
before I even registered that I am.
We can have a blast together,
and she's also very intelligent and a deep thinker,
so we also have great conversations.
I never imagined it was possible to be so happy with someone
until I met her.
What happened?
Compared to L, I'm newer to the city we live in.
She has been here for 10 years, I've been here for three.
We were out walking the other night
and got caught up in conversation,
and ended up going down this street
that has a lot of small businesses and restaurants along it.
I saw one that I had heard good things about
and suggested we grab a drink there.
L's face kind of fell,
and she took a few moments to reply,
then said she was a little tired.
I really wanted to try the place out,
so I insisted a little bit
and said we didn't have to stay long.
She hesitated again and then agreed.
We went in and sat down.
A male waiter came over to serve us
and she gave him this very warm smile,
which is pretty in character for her,
so I didn't think much of it.
But then she was acting off.
She seemed on edge and weirdly energized.
I don't know how to explain it.
And oddly enough, I picked up on it from our waiter
whenever he came to our table.
There was this tension between them,
not just mutual attraction,
but I don't know what else to call it.
L was focused on me for the most part.
And I could tell she was trying to act normal,
but sometimes she would seem a little distant
like she was daydreaming.
L is beautiful
and I'm used to seeing other men check her out.
But I caught him looking at her at one point
when I was coming out of the bathroom,
and somehow I just knew they had some kind of connection.
The walk home was awkward as you'd imagine.
I asked her if she was going to tell me
what all of that was about.
And she told me she would when we got home.
She shed a couple of tears,
and I was being a little cold towards her.
I've been cheated on in the past
and I was scared that was where this was headed.
We got home and sat down.
I felt this panic come over me
and I asked her outright if she cheated on me.
Maybe that seems drastic and like an overreaction,
but the vibe I picked up on between them was very intense
and my thoughts were racing.
She immediately told me, no,
and told me how much she loves me
and that she would never do that to me.
Then she told me the whole story.
A couple of years before she met me,
she used to go there often with friends.
She met him, and for the most part,
they only had brief interactions.
But she said she had always felt intensely drawn to him
and didn't understand why,
and she always wondered if he felt anything similar
or if she was just reading too much into things.
She tried to express interest to him one night,
but he disengaged.
And later she found out he had a longterm partner and a kid.
So she had to accept he was unattainable.
She said it was hard to do.
And over the next three years,
she didn't date anyone during that time,
she would make excuses to go there occasionally,
mostly to be around him, see how he was doing.
She said, one night he sat down
and talked with her for a bit when no one else was around,
and she felt more of a connection to him than she ever had.
But still, she wondered if it was all in her head
and if he was simply being professional,
and she was just seeing what she wanted to see.
After that, she didn't go back there for a long time
because it was too painful and she really wanted to move on.
And then she met me, and she said it didn't matter anymore.
I told her that based on the way he was acting
there was probably something on his side as well.
She said she didn't care anymore
because she is in love with me.
She said she never asked to feel so strongly about him
and that she really doesn't understand why she does.
She described the thoughts about him almost as intrusive
and that she does her best not to entertain them
and hasn't made any excuse to go there
and be around him since she met me.
She told me she loves me and is committed to me.
I was still feeling upset and asked her more questions.
I asked her if she knew his social media, she said she did,
but that she hadn't looked at it in nearly a year.
Then I asked her how often she thinks of him.
And she started crying again.
She said she does sometimes if something reminds her of him
or if she goes in that area of the city,
or sometimes when she's just daydreaming.
She said she tries not to and can't help it.
I asked her how she would react
if she found out he is available now, ever became available.
And she assured me it wouldn't matter anymore because of me.
I do struggle a bit with insecurity and jealousy
because I was cheated on in the past,
but I don't want it to negatively affect
my relationship with her.
That said, I couldn't help but compare myself to this guy.
I'm glad she was honest with me,
but it hurts to know she feels so profoundly
about another person,
and that those feelings didn't go away
even over the span of the couple of years
she went without seeing him,
and that whatever he feels for her
didn't seem to fade either.
I want to trust that she is fully invested in me,
but this has made things feel uncertain.
The thought that he has had some kind of hold on her
for this long
even while she has been happy with me, scares me.
It also makes me feel like I'm not enough.
How would you feel in this situation?
What do I do now?
I told her I needed some time to think,
and I haven't seen her in a couple of days now.
She texted me this morning with a long paragraph
saying she feels terrible about all of this,
that she's not planning to ever go there again
and that nobody else could matter now that she's with me.
It was sweet and I miss her, but I really need some advice.
Again, thank you for any replies.
TL, doctor, girlfriend of almost two years
has profound feelings for another man I wasn't aware of.
And I think they might be mutual on his end.
She hasn't gone around him in the time we have been together
but I am hurt that she feels this way
about someone other than me
and don't know what to do about it.