I Hurt Her, I'm Stuck On What To Do

[Wisdoom]

Any advice on what to do with my relationship. We are in college, we go to two different colleges and hour apart but we see each-other around 4 days a week. It's been 6 months. Before we started "officially" I hooked up with a different girl and that hurt her, but she realized that we were not official. We went through the honeymoon phase in the relationship and at about 3 months she found old pictures on my phone with a past girl, which i forgot to delete. I didn't think it was a big deal, but it hurt her deeply. Anything involving past girls who mean nothing to me hurt her. I replied to a girl from my past on twitter and it deeply hurt her to the point that she thinks I emotionally cheated on her. She had depression in the past, and she tells me that I make it harder for her. We both love each other and what the relationship to work, and we keep trying to think of ways that will help. But she always gets more worried about things, I feel like no matter what I do there is always something that comes up and worries her. She says I make her depression worse. I'm trying to hard to not worry her, and show her that she's the only one I care about, that I chose her over everyone else. But it feels like she only hears the negative of anything I say. Everything I do worries her. I've become needy and feel like she will leave me because of her worries. She thinks that I will do something stupid. I've owned up to everything I've done to hurt her, knowing it was unintentional but it still hurt her. She hasn't seemed to heal and things seem to be getting worse. I can reiterate anything that might come off as confusing in the text. I'm just unsure about what to do. 

[Ayla]

@MattHayez

You have done nothing to hurt her. You are behaving like a normal caring human being that you are. She has a big (most surely childhood) wound that she's trying to make you responsible for, to a point where she only sees wrong in your actions. Everything you are describing points at a very wounded girl that needs a good therapist. If you were my friend, I would tell you: RUN ! 

This has a big potential to transform you into an insecure frightened man, who lost all confidence in himself. This type of energy can drag you down for an entire life if you remain close.

Tell her to go get help with her issues. If and when she is healed, and if you still have feelings for "new" her, you can always begin a sane relationship

[Jay Brown]

@MattHayez Everything is fair in love and war, no harm no foul, 

 

As Ayla said you have done nothing wrong, I was in a relationship like that and our honeymoon phase lasted for a year until i figured she was too young and was getting excited and making decisions i thought which were not good at the time and had to cut things off. 

 

However in this case since you both have no reason to split, I would say you should spend more time with her maybe watch movies and go out for often maybe even tease her that "you bet i was checking that girl's ass" or anything to make feel sorta stupid (sorry) for overthinking so much and you should see for yourself how easily she gets back in the comfort zone you guys were in before she found them stupid photos. 

 

Hope it helps.

[Bart]

Looks like she hurt herself by going through your phone. You can always dig up some unwanted shit ftom the past. And once u found it then it becomes a problem. What is the trust level when your guy or girl needs to check on your devices. My stuff always lies unblocked and if you want to dig in it be my guest. I have nothing to hide but note that you just showed me that you don't trust me. That is always the beginning of the end. And if you accidentally find something from the past, leave it in the past it is your problem then. I won't downplay or lie about it. It is my past and you were not a part of it, if it bothers you sorry but I can't change it so it will make you conviniant.

Just my 5 cents. 

[Dhana Choko]

You have  a trust issue in your relationship and it is partly caused by your previous actions and partly of course by her insecurities. 

[Wisdoom]

9 minutes ago, Dhana Choko said:

You have  a trust issue in your relationship and it is partly caused by your previous actions and partly of course by her insecurities. 

How can we repair this?

[Bart]

Actions speak louder than words.

Show her that you can be trustworthy. 

But the real problem is on her end this spectrum. Did she have a reason  to go through your phone in the first place. If yes you gave her that reason.

If no than she has issues that she must solve herself first.

 

[FindingPeace]

@MattHayez

19 hours ago, MattHayez said:

I didn't think it was a big deal, but it hurt her deeply.

Firstly, you haven't hurt her. She feels hurt. There is a difference.

19 hours ago, MattHayez said:

she found old pictures on my phone with a past girl, which i forgot to delete.

Anything involving past girls who mean nothing to me hurt her.

I replied to a girl from my past on twitter and it deeply hurt her to the point that she thinks I emotionally cheated on her.

She had depression in the past, and she tells me that I make it harder for her.

But she always gets more worried about things,

From what you say it seems that this girl is highly insecure. She has internal issues that are manifesting themselves in your relationships and being projected on to you. None of this is your responsibility, you are not causing it.

It isn't really you that needs to do work here it is her. There are some pretty deep issues here. But she needs to identify the issues herself and want to work on them, for her own benefit and not just for yours or for the relationship.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to alleviate the problem. Because ultimately all you can do is accomodate her issues by trying to avoid provoking them. This is an unhealthy platform to base a relationship. You will find yourself tiptoeing around her for the rest of your life and every time you trip up, and you will (not even knowingly) she will react in the way she does - insecure, fearful, jealous, needy etc

This is already happening:

19 hours ago, MattHayez said:

 she tells me that I make it harder for her.

But she always gets more worried about things,

I feel like no matter what I do there is always something that comes up and worries her.

She says I make her depression worse.

I'm trying to hard to not worry her, and show her that she's the only one I care about,

But it feels like she only hears the negative of anything I say.

Everything I do worries her.

I've become needy and feel like she will leave me because of her worries.

So here you are worrying about your own begaviour and how it will affect her. You are trying not to 'worry' her. Trying to avoid provoking her fears. Having to modify your own behaviour to appease her.

This will only lead to a stressful and dysfunctional relationship. You cannot have a healthy relationship if there is fear present. For you two there is fear on both sides: for her the fear of you leaving or cheating, for you the fear of provoking her fear.. can you see how this will go?

She needs to do inner work if she wants to have a successful relationship with you or anyone else.

But there is another issue here:

19 hours ago, MattHayez said:

I've become needy and feel like she will leave me because of her worries.

So you have an urgent need to have this woman in your life. At whatever cost.

You also have insecurities you need to work on. You fear her leaving you and you being on your own. There is something within you that you are not facing that is driving you pursue an unhealthy relationship.

There is no magic fix for this situation you have found yourself in. Both of you need to do inner work. However you can only do your own inner work - you cannot push her into confronting her own issues. You can encourage her, but in the end it is her choice what she is or isn't willing to work on. It may be worth trying to talk to her and get her to open up about her insecurities. Address the behaviour that you have experienced but in a non-confrontational way. But ultimately she will need to do some deep inner-work. You may have to accept that she won't do what is required and that the relationship will not be healthy enough to warrant maintaining.

The problem with relationships is that people spend too much time transfixed on the other person who is 'causing' the problem. When we should all really be looking at our selves. She is who and what she is and only she can work on that. Don't get distracted by focussing exclusively on her and thinking that she is the answer to the problem 'if only she would do x,y or z'. You have to accept her for the way she is, and that may mean accepting that you can't be together.

Importantly you need to be focussing on yourself. Work on your own issues, your insecurities neediness. Keep working on your own life. Never get caught in the trap of finger pointing at the 'other person' thinking that all the solutions lie there. You can waste years of your life doing that. Many people do.

Other people are not the problems in our lives, we are the one creating the problems for ourselves. This may sound harsh, but in this example, your need to be in this particular relationship (or any right now) is actually the root cause of the problem from your side. You may love her and want to help her, which is fine, but you have to be open to the possibility that you can't always have what you want and it doesn't always work out. You can't force it and 'make' it work.

This situation is not an unusual one. I think many relationships have a variation on this theme. Been there myself.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2016 by FindingPeace

[Wisdoom]

@FindingPeace How can i tell her that we both need to do inner work? I know there is no easy way, but what do you think would be the best way to bring it up without her thinking i'm trying to put everything on her, which i'm not. I know I need to do inner work as well, but i want to bring it to her attention that she can change her mindset and stop letting her thoughts control her. I want her to be happy, even if that means without me down the road. 

[FindingPeace]

19 hours ago, MattHayez said:

How can i tell her that we both need to do inner work?

That's a difficult question to answer. I have faced this dilema  in my own relationship. Nobody likes being told that they 'need to do work' as it is taken as a judgment and a criticism. Afterall, they have no reason to take your word for it. In their eyes you are not an expert on their life.

In my experience, even if people listen to you initially, the work is too hard and scary for them to take on and they will not take it seriously. They will slip back in to old patterns. OR, they will 'try' to adjust their behaviour to suit you, but that is only a role-play. It doesn't get to the heart of the matter and it won't last either.

I don't really have an answer as to how you can help her because I have learned that people can only volunteer to do inner-work if they see  for themselves that they need to. Talking is a good start. Talking about problems that are comming up between you, asking her to open and and opening up back to her. If you can show her that you are open to exposing your inner insecurities then she may trust you enough to do the same. If she suffers from depression then perhaps you can tentatively encourage her to talk to you about that. But you can't 'get' people to talk. And not everyone is comfortable talking about inner issues. It takes a huge amount of trust and understanding before people will open up to you. You need to show that you trust her equally with your own inner issues.

You have to realise there is no quick fix to this. It can take a long time to work on these issues and there is no guarantee of success. Which is why I always recommend you focus on your own inner-work because you can spend a very long time fixating on the other person who may never actually make any progress. You have no control over their healing process. Only yours. Either way, you have to continue with your own progress regardless.

 

[FindingPeace]

I've been thinking about this topic throughout the day and one thing that I want to reitterate is this: from within the relative comfort of a relationship is is far easier for people to tiptoe around and accomodate one another's issues than it is to face up to and work on those issues directly. This is a trap that many people fall in to. I've been there myself. It is worth being mindful of this as it can be very sneaky.

Consider this analogy: a child fears there are monsters under his bed. Before he can sleep he asks his father to check. His father checks and confirms that there are no monsters and the child goes to sleep. This action does nothing to address the child's fear. To do that the child needs to get down there and check under his own bed himself. Which is easier? Getting someone to 'alleviate' the fear for you by taking some action that makes you feel better, or actually taking action yourself to address the issue?

It's very easy to think you are taking action to 'fix' something when in fact all you are doing is 'enabling' the continuation of something, be it a fear or insecurity or whatever. So you have to be very aware of the cause and effect of actions and what is true growth verses fake growth - as Leo's latest video discusses.

Edit to add:

Most relationships are based on this 'alleviation' of insecurity rather than any real 'repair' work. This leads to co-dependency which is effectively a relationship based upon the dependence of this alleviation from one another. It leads to unhealthy and dysfunctional dynamics because it is almost impossible to consitently maintain the 'supply' of comfort that each others sunconsciously needs. Ineveitably this results in tension and strain. It becomes a relationship based on fear and anxiety. 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2016 by FindingPeace

[Will]

@MattHayez She needs to understand she is in charge of her feelings and emotions. Not you or anything that happens outside of her.. The world can basically fall down around her and she can decide to be happy or not...

If she wants to learn how to control her feeling and emotions  you are allowed to teach her but only if she wants and is willing to put in the effort..

Dont let her do it for your relationship she has to do it independent of anything external.. It has to come from   within..

If your not sure how to show her take control of her emotions send here here  to leos videos and support her..

Dont teach her just support , if you dont know how to do it correctly you can come across as being high and mighty and she may resent you or worse look up to you..

she needs to learn we are all equalls and we all have the answers to everything in ourselves. We just need someone to show us where to look at times..