"Living with" girlfriend for 4 months, but there are problems...

[IAmFCA]

You have had very precise responses from Lost and ITIC and completely deflected any responsibility to your gf.

 

I mean, yes you probably lost your friends in large part because they were your ex's friends. But you seem unaware that another part of that loss could be that they lost respect for what you have done.

 

You have plenty of answers. What you need is a kick in the butt to stop mooching off others in your 30s and get your own place.

Also, a safe place to reflect on how they each are perpetuating patterns they hope to be breaking. Examples:

 

- GF is pursuing independence from family by seeking to live with BF

- GF is struggling to hear inner voice and to set boundaries that work for her, just as her voice has been dismissed in her family and her boundaries have been ignored (even if out of a sense of caring).

- GF is dismissing her own voice, and coupling with BF who also dismisses her voice. Yes, I know she said she wants to live together, but her actions demonstrate her struggle with that. A loving approach would be to hear her struggle and let her off the hook.

- BF is all about helping to heal GF, which keeps the spotlight off of himself. A classic intimacy avoidance tactic (that I know well and employed for decades).

- BF is angered that his expectations aren't being met, just as her family is. As if she lives to fulfill their expectations before her own. She may have had these expectations too, but as she has tried them on, they haven't fit well. Yet she is being asked to stick to the course, because others have become attached to the outcome of her choices.

- It is obvious BF is attached to the idea of living together openly as a pseudo married couple. His attachment to that idea is more important to him than her obvious ambiguity. After an adjustment period, an intimate love for her would cause him to be empathetic to her struggle, because he would see that it isn't about him.

 

I would like for the OP to go off on his own for a long weekend, with a bag full of books and a journal (i.e., a laptop and wi fi). Spend that weekend giving himself permission and directive to turn the spotlight onto himself. To learn, forgive, and rebuild.

 

Topics of study assigned to the BF are (1) attachment styles, specifically, avoidant attachment; (2) codependence; (3) conflict resolution in a healthy marriage; (4) the law of attraction; (5) commitment versus attachment.

 

Some of those topics overlap, providing different ways to frame emotional health.

 

Journal topics assigned to the BF are: (1) Describe something you love about how each parent interacted with you. Describe something you wish were different about each parent parented you. Reflect on this for as many parents as you may have, including elder siblings or other potential authority figures.

(2) How have their parenting strengths led to your strengths? How have the strengths contributed to your weaknesses? Same question, but substitute their parenting strengths with their parenting shortcomings: The thing you wished they have done - how did that shape you in both strengths and weaknesses?

(3) How are your weaknesses also your strengths? And, reverse it.

(4) The thing you miss from your/each parent(s) - from where are you trying to find that thing, today? Can you discuss this with your parents? Is it beyond their capacity (emotional etc) to provide? Can you accept them as they are and forgive them their limitations?

(5) How does #4 shape your romantic relationship choices?

(6) Do you need to find what you are looking for in #4? Or have you already displayed the strength you need to go on without it?

(7) If you can find those strengths within yourself, believe in them! Let go of the desire to get what you were missing as a child; it isn't coming and you no longer need it. You are enough as you are.

 

Now.

 

(8) Consider your path forward and change patterns as necessary. Goal is to let others exist in their own struggle; have faith they will get where they are going and knowledge that they need to go down that path on their own. Yes, this applies to your GF same as it applies to yourself.

(9) What would you do if you believed in yourself? How would you make new friends? Are you the person you want to date? Why? Why not?

 

Become that person. You will continue to attract to yourself a reflection of what is within you. You are right in your desire to live authentically, with your romantic, friendship, and work relationships all in the open. You don't have that. She is not obligated to provide it. It is your choice how to deal with it: (1) Adapt to being hidden. (2) Stay involved as bf/gf but spend more time on your own until you both are ready to live in the same town and go public, or (3) end it, stop dating until you are sure you will no longer seek/create chaos, and change yourself within so that you attract someone different next time.

[lostandhurt]

I haven't seen where you have addressed the whole fooling around with the ex's best friend thing.

 

You seem to think the problems are logistical when they are not. Ask her to come out to everyone about your relationship and see what she says.

 

PS You are in your mid thirties, move out! Your parents took care of you once, let them live their lives.

 

Lost

[Ms Darcy]

I haven't seen where you have addressed the whole fooling around with the ex's best friend thing.

 

You seem to think the problems are logistical when they are not. Ask her to come out to everyone about your relationship and see what she says.

 

PS You are in your mid thirties, move out! Your parents took care of you once, let them live their lives.

 

Lost

 

The above explains the below.

 

You might be one of the least self-aware posters I have seen in a while.

[Wiseman2]

That's a legal impossibility. You need to get your own place and that will quell your fear of chronically being a guest couch-surfing at your parents or gfs.

 

Have you ever lived away from your parents where a place was in your name and you were responsible for the rent and bills?

 

Are you underemployed, disabled or is there any reason you can't live as an independently functioning adult? Or is it cultural that you live at home with your mother and father taking care of you until you marry?

A "no win position" would be signing a lease on an apartment, and being told I need to leave for a few days every few weeks.

[yatsue]

Insomniacal, the problem is you're overstaying your "visitation" over her place. It is her place, not yours and hers. You may pay for some bills, although they aren't rent, which makes you a visitor and gives you no entitlement to stay there for long periods of time. You pay for your share of utilities/commodities while staying over there, or else you become a sponge if you didn't. This is why she is not wrong in asking you to leave. People who are dating need space so they can gradually get to know each other without premature overexposure. It's important not to rush relationships. Now, if you paid rent, this would be an entirely different case. She doesn't kick you out of your home-it is not yours.

 

If you would like to be entitled to live with her, you must pay rent, which sounds like she isn't ready for and has told you this. Perhaps not directly, but it's in between the lines when she said she didn't want you to pay rent when you can and have even offered. It would be helpful to know how long you two have been dating officially. If it's under a year, her behavior in not wanting you to officially live with her is not of concern and you are trying to push her way too fast. If it's over a year, which usually is enough time to get to know each other, then you two are on different wavelengths about your needs/expectations and need to communicate to each other about this. If she is not willing, then I would say this would be an issue of incompatibility....but it looks like you guys have created quite the issues with your exes already.....good luck with that.