Not sure what to do to fix this! PLEASE help me! Travelling and other issues.

Edit: This is an extremely long post in my opinion but anyone that has a spare 10 minutes and can help me out please do so as I feel like my life is slowly falling apart. Thank you in advance.

Hi,

this is going to be kind of a long post as I have a lot to cram into it. I am extremely confused and depressed and am not sure what I should do. I am new to relationship forums and am a bit nervous about posting here but I feel like it is my last resort. I will start with a bit of background about myself and my girlfriend and then move onto the situation I am in now.

note: I will refer to my girlfriend as girlfriend, she or her in this post but I am not being disrespectful I just do not want to mention names.

Information about myself and her

I am currently 18 years old and working full time in London. She is also 18 years old and has just left college and gone travelling in Sri Lanka for 3 weeks. (I know this isn't that long but it feels like it). She is also starting a full time job in September after she returns. We both have stable and comfortable home lives with our parents and live just around the corner from each other.

Background and History of our relationship

Me and my girlfriend have been together for the best part of 3 years now with a break up in between (I will get onto this later in the post), and I love her more than anyone in the world. At first things were amazing and I was very content and happy both in my relationship and life in general. Around 5-6 months into our relationship, when we were 16, she went on holiday with her family and another family that was close with hers, who has a boy the same age as us. To me at the time this was no big deal as I trusted her fully and even if I didn't I was only young and therefore had other things to occupy my mind so I wasn't really worried about it at all. Whilst she was away I was absolutely fine, we would text whenever she had internet and that was enough for me. She would tell me about her day and I would just be happy to hear from her. The problems began to occur when she got back from this holiday. This is where all of the problems really began in our relationship.

After she got back I was away myself with my family on holiday in the countryside in England (where we are from). I would walk for a mile and a half every day and sit on a fence until my phone died just so that I could get signal to text her. I knew she would never do anything like this for me but I loved her and just wanted to text her and talk to her so it was worth it for me. When my phone died I would walk back to the house, charge my phone, and walk back. Obviously this was only whilst we was sitting around in the house and if my family were out on a day trip I would also go, as there was signal anywhere except the house. The problem with this situation was that when I was texting her I was getting very bad replies from here constantly and this began to make me worry. I tried to play it cool and not let it bother me but I could tell that something wasn't right. When I asked her what she was doing she would make up any old excuse just to make things easier for herself. I let it slide for about a week or so until it was in the second week of my holiday and I was getting maybe one reply an hour and for the rest of it I was sitting on a fence watching the grass blow in the wind.. I began to feel very unappreciated and as though I was losing her. During my boredom of watching the grass I decided to start investigating. I had recently given up social media as she would always moan at me for using it too much and also I knew it was a big relationship killer (it was a pretty serious addiction), but I decided to take it upon myself to reinstall all of the social media apps I once use to use. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the worst of all Snapchat. So I checked her social media (From my account obviously) Twitter and Facebook and nothing seemed a miss (I'm not talking she can't re-tweet other boys or like their statuses on Facebook as I know that's normal). I then checked her Instagram and Snapchat. On her instagram she had liked nearly all the photos of the boy she was on holiday with and him to her. Her snapchat also had him in her "Best friends" list. For those of you who don't know what that is it is the person who you Snapchat the most. Snapchat is an application in which a person sends a photo to another person with a timer of 1-10 seconds on it and after it has been seen for said time limit, it deletes... forever. Therefore I obviously began to panic and question her as to what was going on. She said they was just talking as friends and I did believe her, however, the fact that the app deletes any photos that are sent slowly made me begin to doubt what they were talking about. She also said that she was texting him constantly and this is where I realised why I was sitting on the fence alone with no replies, because she was texting or snapchatting the boy she had gone on holiday with CONSTANTLY and not replying to my messages. This really began to get me down and depressed and this is where our relationship problems began.

I spoke with her as I am a firm believe in talking solving issues and I asked her simply to not ignore me to text him and to please stop snapchatting him as it deletes the photos, just use a normal messaging application. She agreed but the situation continued and escalated. The photos he was sending her and also the messages were starting to become more concerning and this is when I really started to panic. At the time my girlfriend used to say that it is no different to constantly texting another girl as he is just a friend and that was fine. But I could tell that he definitely wanted more than a friendship out of this and she just couldn't see it. I went through a few extremely frustrating weeks until I eventually told her enough is enough and she either needs to stop snapchatting him and seriously cut down on the texting or I do not think it is going to work out. I told her that if he is the person she wants to be with that is absolutely fine. Although I would be devastated, I truly want what is best for her and what makes her happy. She promised to stop and did for maybe a week or so until we was slowly back into the same situation. She wasn't aware that I knew she was still talking to him so I asked her just as a test. She denied it all and said that she didn't want to talk to him anyway as I'm the only boy she needs in her life. Knowing this was a lie it obviously f*cked me up and I spiralled into a state of depression and confusion and we was then constantly arguing over this stupid boy.

So things eventually sorted themselves out (kind of) and she did stop texting him and things went back to normal. At this point I was always a bit cautious and un-trusting as the situation I had juts experienced shattered my heart into a million pieces and it was the worst pain and time I've ever experienced. A few weeks after this people began to tell me that she was letting people touch her up in her drama classes and when I questioned her it was okay because "He does it to everyone". This annoyed me and by this point I was extremely angry. I went a found the kid and told him that if he ever touches her again I'll make sure he has no bones capable of touching anyone ever again. This was the first violent outburst involving my relationship that I encountered (I get it from my dad). Although I would never ever be aggressive or violent towards my girlfriend, and my dad definitely the same, when it comes to other boys that is how things are settled. I prefer the threat route than actual violence as fights are really not my kind of thing. After this happened, she took his side and we argued about it for weeks until it eventually died down.

Then, even after all of this, a friend of hers tells me that for weeks a boy from another school has been coming up to her and cuddling her on the way to school. When I questioned her, again "it was nothing", but it was to me. I found out who the kid was (through friends in that school), and learning from my mistakes with the previous kid, decided to calmly message him asking him to stop. His reply was along the lines of "duck out bruv meet me tesco I'll shoot u up!". Realising I was clearly dealing with a complete an utter idiot, I decided the best thing to do was to go and talk to him face to face with no violence. My friends from his school had said not to do so as his brother was apparently a drug dealer (which is apparently a badass to 16 year olds) but I decided as long as I do nothing wrong then everything will be fine. I was completely wrong, the kid actually ended up bringing 120 people from his school and luckily I had 4-5 friends with me just in case of this exact situation. The kid himself never actually turned up but the older kids along with his brother and his friends turned up and ended up having a huge fight with 5 helpless 16 year old kids. We ended up fine and the kid never spoke to my girlfriend or me again which is exactly what I wanted. I realised that I had yet again ended up in a violent situation when I am not a violent person due to my girlfriend. She turned this all on me and for months, yes you guessed it, we argued and she took his side over mine and told me that I was completely in the wrong and should have left it.

There were a large amount of small issues between this that I don't have time to explain as there were so many. The next big issue however, was probably when she went to a festival. By this point it was literally over her wearing next to nothing clothing in a festival. Now this is not a big deal but my huge amount of insecurity and trust issues kicked in. We didn't really argue about this but it did definitely affect me yet again.

Although there were many issues, the next one was our break up. We had been arguing every day for months and in the end of November, right before I went for my first proper job interview, she showed up at my house and ended it. I was devastated, distraught and suicidal. I begged for her to come back over the next few weeks as I really couldn't live without her. When Christmas hit I was extremely depressed as all I wanted to do was see her and give her presents. I did text her Merry Christmas and she replied. We then had a short conversation as she had recently had two deaths in her family that I wanted to try and comfort her about. After this we began to text slowly and around February time I finally plucked up the courage to ask her to go to the pub for a drink. Although we was only 17 I had been getting in throughout the whole of January as I had been going every day with a friend. Before we began texting however, on New Years I had got with some random girl right infront of her and feel bad as I feel I used this girl to get over my ex. It didn't work and I slowly began drinking every day and moving onto hard drugs. I would go out on a saturday night around 6pm and end up home around 7-8 the next morning after a huge drug binge in a club trying to pull random girls. Although I did manage to get the attention of a few, when it got to the stage of them asking me to goto hotels with them, I always declined as i knew where my heart still was and still really wanted to get back with my ex. I did cut myself during this time until I eventually cut too deep once and ended up in a state of panic. I remember sitting in the shower with a t-shirt around my wrist trying to stop the bleeding. It eventually did and from that point on I promised myself I would never do it again. And I haven't as I have a deep scar to remind me of those dark times.

Anyway time went on and we eventually started going out places and she eventually asked me to be her boyfriend again. Things were the best they had been in a long time for me. I gave up drugs, gave up drinking for a few months but not smoking as I have been doing that for 4 years and it's the only thing that keeps me sane. They were fine until I was in my current situation (see below).

Current Situation

A few weeks after me and my girlfriend got back together she decided that she was going to book a travelling trip to Sri Lanka to volunteer to teach English. I was sceptical about this as I knew she had always wanted to do this and didn't think I'd cope well. However, as it was a fresh start, I decided I would let her do it and I would try to support her. During our time apart she had spoken to the boy she previously spoke to and a boy from our old school who I knew had always liked her. I let that slide even though it annoyed me as I did exactly the same. About a month before she was going to fly abroad, I decided to delve deeper into the past, which was very ing stupid. Long story short, she ended up admitting that she had feelings for him at one point and this put me back into a very very dark place. I was extremely upset and crying all the time as she had not only had feelings for another boy (I could deal with this as it was the past), but she had lied to me for 2 years! I had asked her this question before and she always denied it but I can always tell when I don't get the full truth. Whenever she has to tell me something she doesn't want to, she will miss the worse bits out first time around and then eventually after a few days of asking her, she will come out with the full trust. How can I ever trust what she says?

After that we had a party that I didn't want to goto as one of the girls I was speaking to whilst we was apart was there. She insisted we went and so I did. My girlfriend ended up getting into an argument with some girls because they kept trying to call me over and telling me how attractive I was. This obviously annoyed her so she began to get rude to them (which is ironic as when I used to do that she used to turn badly against me). However, I was about to leave with her when about 6-7 gypsy boys came out and then from there me and 2 friends ended up in a pretty serious fight with these boys and eventually managed to fight our way out of the party. I told her this would be a bad idea from the start because I knew what the girls and boys there were like (they're not our friend group but a distant friend of a friend).

Then there was the same situation with another party but with the boy she was speaking to from our old school when we wasn't together. I said I didn't want to go because he would definitely come up to her and that would seriously annoy me. By this point in life I now get extremely angry and insecure and the answer is violence. Needless to say, the kid did come over to her, whilst I was right next to her, and whispered something in her ear then walked off. I asked my girlfriend what he said and she said "He asked if I was alright". Then when we got outside I asked her again for the truth. She said he actually said "Are you alright, can we go and talk somewhere". This p*ssed me off big time. The fact that he came over I could deal with. The fact she lied to me AGAIN, I couldn't. When he walked past I tried to find a solution with violence but thankfully it was broken up by other people there. I had violent situations but I'm so insecure and paranoid that I feel it is the only answer. Anyway, we both let that slide as her trip was in a weeks time. She went last Friday and it is now Tuesday. She said the boys would be in different houses and that there was only about 2 going. Infact they are in the same house (not same rooms) and there are 6 of them. Now this causes me to be insecure as she lied again. Not only this, but they have arrange a pool party tonight. This is with all of the houses, of which there is about 15 boys. She has also said that one of them is attractive and therefore I am now f*cking paranoid, worrying, ill, not eating and posting here. I haven't eaten days and cannot stop throwing up and crying. I do trust that she won't cheat on me but I don't trust the other boys. I also know she doesn't know how to handle those situations and doesn't realise when a boy is coming onto her.

I really need some advise on what to do and if you have read this far I appreciate it so much.

Anyone who helps I will do whatever I can to advise you with anything in return.

Best Regards,

Harry

I am looking for advice on what I should do and what you would do in my situation

Edit: This is an extremely long post in my opinion but anyone that has a spare 10 minutes

No kidding. 10 minutes? How fast do you think people read?

I read as far as this ...

I am currently 18 years old and working full time in London. She is also 18 years old and has just left college and gone travelling in Sri Lanka for 3 weeks.

It would take me 3 weeks just to write a post like yours.

(I know this isn't that long but it feels like it).

Perfect opportunity for you to learn the difference between feelings and reality. You are correct, it's not long. It feels like it because you're in love, invested, besotted, whatever word you like.

I did skim through the rest. I read you're in love, I read about other boys in her life, I read about FB, Twitter, other internet stuff.

Sounds to me like she is being a normal 18 year old girl in a world where she is bombarded with attention from men on a hundred different websites, and in real life.

You're not because you're not a girl. Get used to it, that's the world we live in now brother. If you can't cope with her being away from you for 3 weeks then she will leave you sooner or later anyway. If that was an inaccurate prediction then she wouldn't be able to bear being away from you for 3 weeks in the first place.

I really need some advise on what to do and if you have read this far I appreciate it so much.

Do about what? Her trip? Her lies? Her innocence when it comes to boys paying attention to her (I doubt very much she's as naive as you think she is)? The fights? The drugs?

1. Leave her alone to enjoy her trip.

2. Dump her if she lies so much and it bothers you so much. People don't change their character that much by having a couple of pleasant conversations, they change because they are reincarnated after a life-changing event.

3. Maybe she really is innocent but so what? You're not her father. Be her boyfriend or walk away if she encourages attention from other boys.

4. Avoid situations where people are likely to fight, unless that's something you want to get involved with.

5. I don't have any involvement with drugs (except legal ones) so I don't think I can suggest anything useful to you, beyond a pithy don't do drugs recommendation.

Sorry, I'm sure you want you and her to be one of those rare couples that meets at age 15 and on your 75th wedding anniversary you get asked how you made it work for so long. But from what you say about her and about you, I don't think that's a realistic scenario. At least just press pause for 3 weeks, leave her alone to enjoy her trip, and do your best to focus on doing other things which are productive for you. If you pine after her for 3 weeks you'll make it worse, whatever "it" is, especially if you send her all your pinings. If you leave her alone, you'll have a different, and hopefully clearer, perspective. One thing is for sure, coming from the UK, after 3 weeks in Sri Lanka she will have a different perspective on a lot of things.

I think you and this girl have a very toxic relationship and there's no suggestion or hint it will ever improve. If I was you I'd get some counselling to find out why I put up with this situation and what I can do to get away from her for good. Your reaction with drinking, drugs and cutting is something that needs to be resolved so you dont do that again as it's not a healthy way to deal with any problem. I think she's going to keep doing what she's doing because she likes it, there's a pay off for her in attention from other guys. You are selling yourself short by trying to have a relationship with her, you need to cut your losses and move on and find a more stable girl.

Thank you so much for you reply, it has helped me to look at it from another perspective. I really really appreciate it

I agree however, counselling is very expensive and I don't have that kind of money to waste on talking to somebody. I agree with you that I am selling myself short and need to have a think. Thank you so much for your reply

I think you and this girl have a very toxic relationship and there's no suggestion or hint it will ever improve. If I was you I'd get some counselling to find out why I put up with this situation and what I can do to get away from her for good. Your reaction with drinking, drugs and cutting is something that needs to be resolved so you dont do that again as it's not a healthy way to deal with any problem. I think she's going to keep doing what she's doing because she likes it, there's a pay off for her in attention from other guys. You are selling yourself short by trying to have a relationship with her, you need to cut your losses and move on and find a more stable girl.

I agree however, counselling is very expensive and I don't have that kind of money to waste on talking to somebody. I agree with you that I am selling myself short and need to have a think. Thank you so much for your reply

Oops, double post. Ignore or delete.

Oops, double post. Ignore or delete.

Wasn't sure how to delete so have reported it instead