My girlfriend and I have built a pretty solid relationship over the span of the past year. We’ve technically only been together for three months, but we’ve been “exclusive” for about 7-8 months. So, I’m going to be a freshman at Samford University in Alabama this fall. She’s only a senior in high school. Her high school is an hour and 30 minutes away from my college. We are beginning to have major issues. She claims that her way of dealing with issues that she doesn’t want to deal with is by ignoring me. Samford has a 70-30 girl to boy ratio…she is not too happy about that. Now, I would never even think about cheating on her, but she was in a previous relationship that really destroyed her trust. She doesn’t trust me. She constantly asks who I’m with and what I’m doing and I haven’t even gotten to college yet. I need advice on that and one more thing. She is most likely not going to attend the same college as me. She wants to go to Auburn, which is 2 hours and 30 minutes from Samford… so basically we’d have to do a long distance relationship unless I transferred to Auburn. But my parents would never let me do that. I want her to come to Samford because I really do love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with this girl, but then again I can’t tell her my preference because that would be very selfish. Basically, I just need opinions on those two topics before I head off to college. First one is how to deal with my girlfriends lack of trust and second one is how to deal with a long distance relationship if she chooses another college. Thanks for the help !!
Ok, you will not like what I’m about to say but I’m going to be blunt.
You are too young to know that you want to spend the rest of your life with anyone. Believe it or not, you don’t even really know yourself yet and have a lot of growing yet to do. All normal stuff.
The problem here is not that your girlfriend is going to be at a different school but that your girlfriend is already jealous just by the fact that you are going to a school with a higher guy/girl ratio. This screams that she is very insecure, immature and has a lot of growing up and learning about herself. All normal for her age. Its kind of hard to be secure in yourself when you haven’t done much yet. True confidence and security comes from maturity and accomplishments. You’re both too young to have too much of that under your belts. This is why serious relationships (to the point of not wanting to be apart and thinking marriage) aren’t a good idea at such a young age.
Young love is amazing, intoxicating and can feel more important than anything else. But its not. The most important thing is that you are about to have the opportunity to have a quality education. Embrace that, enjoy that and give it your all. Give your relationship what you can, try to keep it fun, and keep it light. Let her know you aren’t interested in drama and that you want to make the most of the time you do have by being happy together. Maybe the two of you can make an agreement that you will respect one another enough so that if either of you wants to move on and date others, you will have the decency to break up first. If that isn’t enough to reassure her trust issue, I’m not sure anything will be.
All of this is just my humble opinion. Good luck.
I agree totally with @empireapple. I would quit feeding into your girlfriend’s jealousy by telling her where you are and who you’re with because she’s being very disrespectful of you. If you were my son, I’d ask him to seriously think about why he wanted to date someone who couldn’t treat him well. There’s no excuse for it. My advice, honestly, is that she’s not ready for a relationship and you deserve better.
Go to school and have fun. That means joining clubs and going out with friends. Your parents will be paying for you to have those opportunities, so take advantage of them.
@Empireapple @austinmshauri Thank you, that’s very helpful. Now listen to this… she literally told me that she deals with conflict by ignoring me, which I flat out told her is really immature. She said “idc when ur out and around other girls im gonna ignore or go crazy on you.” She’s just not being reasonable with any of this college transition stuff. I do want to stay with her or at least try my best to make it work, but it won’t work if she’s not even willing to try, right?
She has given you the gift of honesty. Believe her. You know before you leave for college that she is going to behave badly and you will most likely be miserable trying to satisfy her.
You can not change her. You can only change yourself.
You only get to decide how you will act and react to this transition.
Believe her when she says she’ll “go crazy on you” And she will–fair warning.
It’s a form of control. It makes you feel responsible for HER actions. Her added “bonus” is that it makes you miserable with undeserved guilt. You are not responsible for what happened to her in the past nor do you need to “prove” yourself to her.
In a healthy relationship both partners show respect to one another and have a deep level of trust (developed over time). I hope that for you.
I do know how great young love feels as Empireapple says and it’s hard to let go. But you are starting a new chapter in your life and I would encourage you to go off to college and start it free of all constraints and remain open to new experiences.
You have to decide whether or not you’re willing to live with her abuse. I hope that you’re not. The only actions you only have control over are yours. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t want to date her anymore. You don’t need any justification if you want to break up. “I don’t want to” is explanation enough.
Have you told your parents how she treats you? I’d pass her comment on to them. I don’t know what she means by “go crazy on you,” but I’d alert them to it. If you were my son, I’d recommend that you break up with her and be prepared to block her from social media. The way she’s behaving isn’t normal.
I think that you have a lot of good advice above.
If your girlfriend wants her relationship with you to last she is going to need to trust you. I obviously don’t know either of you but from what you have said this sounds unlikely.
As the risk of being very blunt, this sounds like a unhealthy relationship. Unhealthy relationships at a distance have essentially no chance at all to last. The main question is probably how much and how long you and your girlfriend will suffer before one or both of you decide to give up on the relationship.
Why is this relationship with someone who doesn’t trust you and who hurts you on purpose so important to you that you would want to spend the rest of your life dealing with this lack of trust and vindictiveness?
You really owe it to yourself to be in a healthy relationship. This isn’t it. Get a copy of a book called The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Loving-Erich-Fromm/dp/0061129739
It’s a really quick read but life changing. Basically it’s a paradox, but you can’t really be in a healthy relationship until you are comfortable being alone.
- Read the book, 2) dump the girl gently so that you can get comfortable being alone, 3) go to the college with the 70-30 ratio.
It’s good to be you.
I am an 18 yr old girl with trust issues, but I recognize that and am working on it because I don’t want to hurt myself and others around me (including but not limited to my bf.). You need to tell her that she needs to work on her issues or just go your separate ways because you are hurting yourself by staying and, believe it or not, you are not helping her either. If she is not willing to admit that she has problems that she has to work on, then she has a lot of growing to do before she can be in a healthy relationship, and she needs to do that growing alone.
Thanks again everybody for the great advice. At this point, I’m going to give her some space and see how it plays out. My first resort isn’t to break up with her, but if I have to, I will. I’ll give it some time, if her trust issues don’t resolve themselves or get better, then I’ll cut it off to help both of us begin to heal. And with the long distance thing, she’s definitely going to Auburn (over 2 hours from my college) … I just highly doubt that will work with two college kids with busy schedules. I bet it’s hard to even maintain a healthy relationship while attending the same college, much less two different ones.