QuestSanity

"The thing that bothers me with him ( and you from the sounds of it) is that you actually believe there is a conspiracy against you if you don't have what I call a "Yapper" running their mouths constantly. Like I am ( or your GF) hiding something or going to ever use the information I have against him. That must be a hell of a way to live. If you ask me that is an Issue that needs addressing." Maybe its more of a difference in how much talk is considered "normal" by people. I doubt your bf considers his level of talk as "Yapping" or "running their mouths constantly". He probably considers what he does as normal and you guys just have a difference of opinion about that. My parner now is a lot more talkative than I am, but I dont consider her a yapper. She just likes to talk to me and she also likes to hear about whats going on with me too. When I tell her stuff about my job, for example, it often cracks her up laughing- and I like making her laugh. And the stories she tells me about her job I also consider hilarious- its like listening to a daily episode of Seinfeld. Even when we are venting to each other, it feels good. I think our relationship would be a lot more stunted if we didn't share things with each other. Talking with each other is part of how we experience our relationship. As for the conspiracy thing, well in my case with my former gf it wasn't so much a conspiracy as more of a reality- because, as I mentioned, the most annoying thing was that the information that I had told her did constantly come up in arguments. Had I told her some personal stuff about a break up I once had? Then I was sure to hear something along the lines of "Well, maybe X was right about you and that's why she dumped you." Had I told her something about my family? Often this would come up later as "Well, you know your family's nuts dont you? Remember what you told me about Y?" Some of that is normal in a relationship- every couple argues- but of course in every argument we had she always presented herself and her past as picture perfect. And because I only had her white washed sparse version of it, I guess I was just supposed to believe she was indeed perfect and or something. She would often say- "Well, I dont like to air my dirty laundry and as far as you know, I dont have any to air!" This was what eventually turned me off the most. Had she just listened and not used the information to judge me, then it wouldn't have been so annoying. But that and the fact that I usually detected this undercurrent of contempt for the way I talked with my friends- as if she considered us childish or stupid for talking the way we talked- eventually drove me away from her. And I judged her as untrusting and uncommunicative in return, so I wasn't innocent either, but in the end it finally just became unworkable. Ive told my current gf tons of the same stuff, but even when we fight, she never brings it up- she usually just focuses on the stuff that happened between us. Even if two people have different comminication styles, if they each respect the others way, then there shouldnt be a problem. But if they dont, then maybe the best thing to do would be to seek out partners who are more similar to you. That's how I addressed the problem- I just found myself another yapper to yap to

Maybe you have hit upon the answer yourself- you guys are just not compatible. For a view from the other side, I had a gf once who never liked to talk and liked to listen to other people talk. This became annoying for two reasons. For one, it was fustrating because I never got a good handle on who she was. What were her dreams, her goals, her likes, her dislikes, her views on various subjects? All blank. If you had asked me who she voted for or what her favorite color was, I couldn't have told you. (No, it wasn't a case of the typical guy thing where she had told me and I forgot- I asked her the color question several times and her answer was "Oh, I dont know- what's your favorite color?"). Yes, I know there are other ways of figuring out who a person is other than listening to them, but I wasn't intuitive enough to figure them out. Unlike your bf, I didn't think her non communicative style was due to abuse from her past, but I did begin to suspect that it was because she didn't trust me or something. Maybe she didn't- I wouldn't know- she never told me. She also said she preferred to listen to other people but she would make similar comments you did- that when she listened to me talk to my friends that most of what we talked about seemed childish, or gossip to her ears, or she would laugh or express incredulity at the reasons I would come up with why I could never get her to talk about herself. The thing I couldn't understand, at first, was if all this stuff was such bs, why did she so seem to like listening to people talk to her? She could have just stopped listening to people reveal their personal stuff to her and gone about her business in complete silence. But instead, she liked listening to me, or her friends blather away to her, revealing to most personal stuff about themselves to her, but we never got the same treatment in return. She would usually claim that she didn't ask people to share their personal stuff with her, but if they did, she didn't feel obligated to reciprocate. That always seemed kinda weird to me and it eventually led to the second reason dealing with a non communicative person is annoying. Whenever we got into arguments many of the things I had told her, (that she liked to listen to) or she had heard me talk about with my friends, were constantly brought up and used to make points because she eventually knew all this personal stuff about me, but I knew so little about her. I eventually began to suspect that her liking to listen to people had nothing to do with being a good listener- it was just a passive aggressive way she used to feel superior to other people, because she could believe that she had more information about them than they had on her- which she could then use to judge them and their actions, but nobody could ever do the same to her- which I came to realize is a very powerful but dysfunctional weapon. Im not saying that is the case with you at all, but when you share a lot of yourself with somebody else, and they dont do the same back to you, then things can get a little lopsided and suspicions begin to abound. I eventually started being more like her and not telling her my personal business, which I hated, (I mean, if you cant gripe about your crappy boss to your gf, who are you going to gripe to?) and the lines of communication became thinner and we just drifted apart. Now, when I look back on it, I think it was more a case of just being different people, with different communication styles. Since then Ive usually been with women who are the opposite. They constantly want to tell me what's going on in their life and what they are thinking and what they are feeling all the time- almost to a fault. But I prefer it that way because when they do share that stuff with me, it makes me think that they trust me and that they want me to know what's going on in their lives. And I can tell them my stuff too, without feeling its an interview or a confession and not a conversation.

I have a similar situation. Its a major pain in the a** I can tell you. Because every time my partner gives me grief about the people I spend time with, Im forced to do the calculation that, hey, if I give up these other people that Ive known and loved for years before I met you, what would I be getting in return from you? Makes me feel horrible and selfish, but its real. When I weigh the benefits of my lifetime with my brother or an old friend up to date, against the benefits of somebody who stresses me out for something so small Im forced to conclude that my partner just doesn't add up. And every time she brings it up I can feel myself drawing away a little more. And it just hardens my position more. Maybe, over time as she realizes that Im not going to change, she'll probably draw away as well. Sad.

1) What does it matter, because if you dont feel comfortable asking her, and then believing what she tells you then beyond wasting a lot of money on a private detective there just is no way to find out for sure is there? 2)If the number of ex sex partners your current partner had is really that big of a issue for you, (and it is for some people) then the onus is on you to search out somebody where this would not be a such a problem. Many people who have waited until 36 to get married have had multiple partners- often more than somebody who got married in their 20s for example. This is just a simple fact of life, that really doesn't mean much when trying to judge a persons character. I know 1 woman and 1 guy who had both had only 1 sexual partner by 35 who made a lousy couple- got married and divorced in 1 year. I know other men and women who were wild in their 20s who've been happily married with kids for over 10 years now. 3) You say you guys are doing fine now.Would you be better served to focus on what you have together now, and hopefully will have together in the future instead of wasting time thinking about what happened in past, which is the only slice of time that can neither be changed nor influenced? There are only so many minutes in the day to spend worrying about various things- is this the most important thing, is this the most important thing to spend those minutes on?

1) Good luck. I hope things work out for you in the end because its always good to hope that people who take chances in love get what they want. 2)Im a bit older and Im sorry to say, this situation doesn't seem that unique to me. Seen it time and time again before. Only help I'd give is to examine your own words carefully because when your heart is involved its always hard to think clearly, (seen that quite a few times before as well). "She dislikes his living habits, he pays no attention to her nor does he show any gratitude or affection (on top of that he's not much help around the house either). In the span of two months, I know more about her and helped her with her problems more than he has in over a year." You cant possibly know this for sure can you? Unless you're able to some how render yourself invisible and can watch them both interact when you are not there? What you are hearing when you talk to her is one half of a conversation or case. Consider this- why should her bf be nice to her? Maybe he subconsciously suspects that her feelings for him are not as profound as they should be- (she could for example, be spreading their personal relationship business to other people). "So why doesn't she just leave him? It's sad really, it's because she can't afford it. She just recently purchased a house which he is going to move into with her and share in the mortgage payments." This alone should tell you a lot- If she hated her boyfriend this much, (a key word being bf, not husband or father of her kids for example) then she would leave him- period. Im assuming you are writing from a country where women are emancipated? If so then dont deceive yourself into believe she's helpless in all this. If she truly loved you, then it shouldn't matter that you dont have money right now- she would be willing to invest in your future together. She's staying with him because she's using him to get something she wants- i.e. a house. She is using you to get the emotional support she's not getting f from him. So she's using the resources of two men to get her needs met. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you can truly fulfull ALL her needs. Because the ones that you cannot might be being met by somebody else even if you do get together.

"her husband objected to them and told her that if she loved him enough, she would sacrifice and give up some of her guinea pigs" 1) I take heart from the fact that she's being asked to give up *some* of her guinea pigs- not all. Which might indicate there might be an extreme part to the case we are not aware of. Maybe she has hundreds of the little things running around- however, if that was the problem, then it could have been asked in a different way, without bringing up the idea of "sacrafice for my love". 2) Its the *way* it was requested that I find manipulative and wrong. I find that usually when people coach requests in that way to me, (if you loved me, you'd do this) it usually has nothing to do with real love per se but more to do with assuaging some insecurity they want to address by exercising power over you by getting you to do something that they know you dont want to do for their sake. I always have to ask myself- if I gave up this today, then what will I have to do tomorrow to prove that I love you? And if I have to *do* something to prove that I love you, (as opposed to just being, well ME, guniea pigs and all) well then Im probably not going to be able to ever sacrafice enough of myself for you unless I give up more of myself that I should be willing to do. For me personally it would be very difficult for me to ask somebody that I loved to give up something that *they* loved, for my sake, unless it was under the most extreme case, (a dangerous animal or behavior or something that was medically harmful to me like an extreme allergy for example). I would feel that I was hurting them and I dont see how I'd feel good about myself the day after they had done it.