Please help me modify my "talk"

[abitbroken]

Okay - you started going out in January. The trip was in February. You probably went on a couple of dates at that point - maybe 2, 5? You guys were just getting to know eachother.

 

The source is the person who she did it with and I have told her it was him. I can understand why she wouldn't be truthful with me, but now I just want to know the truth so I can decide. I do not want to prompt her with he said she said, I want her to tell me on her own accord without any of that again. The "talk", I believe, takes it her right to the edge, I just want her to make the decision to jump.

 

 

Okay - so she caught a ride to her home town with an old flame. They probably planned that before she even met you - it was within 1 to 6 weeks of your first date. He is telling you that they made out. She is telling you that they didn't. I thought originally she was the one who told you.Being that he told you - you talk about "trust". If she says nothing happened - and besides, she was upfront that she went from him from the beginning - then you have to trust her and believe her. A guy can have a lot of motivations for telling someone he made out with a girl. He could have said that to sabotage her relationship because he still likes her, he could be trying to see how protective you are of her if he is an old flame but now a platonic friend and sees nothing in her, or wants to push your buttons.

 

So - is the reason why you don't believe her is because you don't agree on when you were "official". so that makes you suspicious of her having done something with this guy? If she had told someone that you had been official since day one, would you not be here doubting her?

 

I knew my bf was something special from day one, but we didn't say we had a boyfriend/girlfriend right off the bat. He was a guy I had been on a date with, then a guy who I went on a few dates with, then a guy I was seeing/dating, and at some point I started calling him my boyfriend. I tell people what the date of our first date was, but if someone asks when we were "official" or "decided we were the only ones for eachother" we didn't call eachother bf/gf right away, etc.

 

IF she says "our first date was January x, but somewhere around March or April I knew that it was for the long haul" and you are picking nits with her over this, you are setting her up for failure.

[abitbroken]

I value the truth more than I value my relationship because without it, there is none.

 

What if what she told you was the truth? That there was nothing more to it than what she told you?

 

Can you accept that as the truth? Or are you looking for an excuse to break up with her?

[abitbroken]

If you want to get help modifying your talk - drop the "talk". Just say "Babe, I am still having a problem with what happened in February with Old Flame. I have a problem with it because I thought we were exclusive then, and I also think you are still lying and more happened with Old Flame than you want to admit. I have this nagging feeling that there was more."

 

I think in a relationship that you should trust your girlfriend more than a guy you barely know. What besides the idea that you have different times when you thought you were exclusive make you think there is more or distrust? Was she very handsy with this guy in front of you later on?

 

Drop the whole "importance of trust" talk and the filler and the "future partner"**. It is a good journal entry to get it off your mind. But i find that when people have talks like that that are prelplanned, things get muddied down in the introduction instead of getting right to the meat of it.

[jwhite]

How is this:

 

Babe, I am still having a problem with what happened in February with Old Flame. I have a problem with it because I thought we were exclusive then, and I also think you are still lying and more happened with Old Flame than you want to admit. I have this nagging feeling that there was more.

 

Do you remember the day of Jeff’s bbq how all of a sudden I started acting weird on our way to his house? It was because you started talking about our first date and the beginning of our relationship. This reminded me of your night with John. The next is when I was at your house on your bed and suddenly woke up real quick like I was having a nightmare? It is because I was. I have had many, many of them and sometimes have trouble when I am alone falling asleep. Knowing things hurt, but i can get past them; it’s the things I don’t know that haunt me. It isn’t necessarily about what happened, I couldn’t stand and still not that you never told me.

 

This relationship needs to have a fresh start and I think you agree. You have told me about how you felt like deleting the pictures that we have because they remind you of some bad times. For me, having a fresh start is knowing that when hits the fan that you can, no matter the consequences, you will be honest with me. This is a huge deal, and probably the most important of all. I don’t know why/if you didn’t tell me what really happened, but I suspect there could be a few reasons. 1 That you don’t think others have a right to know your private business. Or 2 you love me and didn’t want to hurt or lose me. Or 3, you didn’t think it matters, which knowing you now, cannot possibly be true. The thing is, I do have a right to know because it involved me and because I am not just anybody, I am the person you love and your lover who deserves it from you. I am your lover and think about being your future partner. Wouldn't you like to know that even though everything is on the table, we could still make it through? Or, that even though we broke up, we broke up giving everything and knowing neither you or I continued living in a lie?

 

Please don’t hesitate to tell me even though it would hurt me or hurt you to say it.

 

Please let me know now so i can move beyond these feelings.

[mhowe]

How is this different from your first attempt? You are calling her a liar.

[notalady]

This is not a conversation, what you wrote (first and second edit) are speeches. It's all you talking. In fact you're even making assumptions and accusations about her in that speech. Are you actually expecting her to sit there silently while you spend 10 mins reading out your speech?

 

And bringing up past events like the bbq and why you acted strange etc isn't helpful to the conversation, just makes it all muddy and unclear what you're trying to convey.

 

Why not just state the present (eg that it has been and still does bother you and you feel like she hasn't given you the whole truth, that you value trust and would like her to tell you the truth), and let her respond. Actually giving her a chance to talk before you go make these accusations would be the only way to have a productive conversation about this.

 

Also think about what you're going to say if she (likely) says there was nothing more and she was telling the truth. You likely have to back up your claim as to why you suspect she wasn't telling the truth.

[abitbroken]

I would say "Babe, I know we already covered what happened in February, but I am still having trouble accepting it. I have acted out here and there because I was still upset about it over the summer. I know I should have talked about my feelings instead of acting out. I can't help for some reason my mind going back to it and wondering if more happened. I am not sure whether I am more upset about the idea that we had different ideas of when we were exclusive, or the possibility that more really happened."

 

This way you still are doubting her take on the story, but its more on you and less accusatory. Its more of a confession of your feelings rather than an inquiry or a speech.

 

What you need to do on your end is accept that even when two people hug and kiss, and do couple things they are "courting" - they are sorting out whether that person is going to be for the long haul or they want to commit/be exclusive. I know you were exclusive with her and didn't date others since day one, but unless you discussed if you were both seeing others, you can't assume. Maybe she wanted to see for sure if there were any feelings left before committing to you.After all, the trip was planned before she met you. It is more like her attraction to you ultimately won out over trying again with Old Flame. Dating multiple is not my style, but you can't hang her on the exclusive/not exclusive if the relationship is strong and solid now and you know she wants only you on what happened 1-5 weeks into dating her.

 

I am not saying that has to be your style - but now that this ship has sailed, you might want to pick your battles. Or you have to decide you two aren't compatible..

 

On her end, if she reiterates that that is the only thing that happened - then you MUST accept her answer as her answer and your choice is to either learn to accept that she IS telling the truth, or if you will never feel comfortable, break it off. It is unfair for one person to constantly hold one thing from the past over the other person's head.

[reinventmyself]

If she admits it was a mistake and never told me about it, you can see where part of the lack of trust comes from. Yes it was 8 months ago, but I just found out a month ago, so for me it is fresh. I have read that trust can take 6 months to build again and I am prepared to stick it out. I just want to talk about it and get it behind me so I can start on those 6 months. This hopefully modified "talk" hopefully will achieve that.

 

So if you have already talked about it and she admits is was a mistake, why rehash it? Then was your moment to either accept it and move on or leave. Now you want to breath life into all over again?

 

If I would her I would lose my patience with you. You cannot rewrite history so I have no idea what she could possibly say that will make you feel better about this. But yet you are still here.

 

You both have different interpretations of how the relationship began and the timeline. You can't change that.

 

If things are good now . . now that you are both on the same page having the same interpretation of how your relationship is today and going forward, I would leave it the heck alone.

 

If you have other reasons not to trust her outside of something that happened months ago, then go for it.