Am I being an arse or is this controlling!?

She sent pics of herself crying?!

Yeah. She’s nuts.

There’s a Ruth Rendell short story called The Clinging Woman, OP. I think the collection is called The Fallen Curtain and other stories. It’s way old now, but somehow just really resonates with me for you. If you can get hold of it, I’d recommend a read for some external perspective.

I have the ick without meeting her and she cheated on you wtf.

Sending photos of her crying is very calculated behaviour.

Run OP ! Your posts sound like the beginning of a horror movie to me

Best done quickly.

She wants to mother you, not be your equal - sounds like she likes to be needed. Which on the surface sounds nice and caring but she’s way too intense. Get rid. If you don’t, years down the line if she gets abusive she’ll play the victim, ‘’After everything I do for you’’ etc.

Sorry if I've missed this, but how long have you been together?

If it's a fairly new relationship then you shouldn't be feeling like this as it should be exciting and fun.

I'm very independent so I would HATE to treated like this.

can you please tell me where I said women can’t be coercive or abusive too? I didn’t. And no, statistically women are NOT as abusive or coercive as men- there’s a massive disparity. Yeh it may be that there’s more abuse by women than is reported- I’m not disputing that-but it’s quite a huge leap of you to state that the numbers are equal. It’s VASTLY higher in men as is physical violence therefore the as is the threat to women. Please don’t try to make out that women are under the same threat in relationships with women than they are men. That’s extremely ignorant of the facts.

Fair point - I scanned it and was referring to points 1-7, the hand holding etc.

Last 2 points are a bit creepy

@Aquarelles, no, but it's a fact that different people show their affection in different ways, and that's something worth understanding in any relationship.

Some of the other stuff, like about not liking the friends, though, sounds like trouble. Overall I would find this too needy at best.

The circles she runs in are the polar opposite of what I know.

You can tell a lot about someone by the company they keep.

My mother has much better respect for boundaries than this! This woman is scarily controlling. Get out now before she turns angry and nasty. It will come.

Jeez! You're not her child. No wonder you feel suffocated. I'd run for the hills.

Sorry but this last bit strays into stigmatising people on the receiving end of abusers – I’m sure this wasn’t your intention.

You don’t need to be ‘damaged’ in some way or a particular ‘type’ of person to find yourself in close quarters with someone like this. This kind of myth is precisely why people don’t recognise situations like this sooner – they see themselves as strong, confident, capable people who have no trouble asserting themselves and would not put up with being bossed around. (Hence the common refrain recognised by the OP of ‘I never thought I of all people could end up in a situation like this’.)

And OP is taking action now precisely because she does not find any of this healthy. It’s called manipulation for a reason – non-manipulative people may not immediately recognise the true dynamics at play.

If she is like this now I wonder how she would be having to share you with your kids if and when they are introduced. Would she be jealous or would she be too in their faces and try and parent them too? Of she is like this with you now before meeting them and when she has you to herself then I suspect she will not cope once your kids are on the scene too.

So many red flags, she's not respecting your autonomy at all. If this was a heterosexual relationship you'd probably be trusting your gut and seeing it for what it is....End it asap it will only get worse.

Another one is when we go out to eat and I’m finished she’ll take my plate away from In front of me and start cleaning my area of the table “so I don’t put my arms in any mess” which really annoys me.

MIL used to do that - worse still after kids she'd do on it at my own table. It's a control thing it often looks nice to others and can be hard to complain about but is actually very undermining and puts you on edge.

I couldn't walk away from relationship but did find completely ignore and sometime disappearing worked. There were many other problems - along same line putting me on back foot weirdly competing on odd things that you don't always realised - and when kids were young competing for our attention with them while very much being "on show" to others about being great GM.

It stopped or we managed it better or recognise it and countered - but in a romantic partner I'd leave because it's a lot of work to cope with - and to make sure you don't look like batshit one to others.

Some people are like this. Somewhere in the world is a person who wants to be treated this way. It isn’t you. You are not into her and she senses it, which is why she keeps making these overtures and is becoming increasingly desperate. Do her a favour and be honest about the fact that you don’t see a future with her so that she can move on and meet someone who will llove her as she is.

Oh wow. This is a new kind of extreme. I would feel like a toddler having someone do this for me. As a grown adult no one should do this for you!

As for being tactile. I would feel suffocated at this level. Just let me breathe

Shes annoyed the tits off me just from this thread op

It seems to be like this 'love language' stuff is just another way of manipulating people. If you don't like something, it's "Oh but that's my love language!!!" and you're expected to just put up with it?

I've often wondered about that!

I'm a lesbian who also has tendencies to nurture and loves touch and cuddles etc etc, love my DP giving me her coat and calling me Princess- and this would drive me utterly NUTS!!! Definitenly not being unreasonable by any stretch!

As an aside, I almost lost my life at the hands of an ex. Yes more likely with men, but far from impossible for women to turn violent. She sounds as if she needs extensive therapy.

The bottom line is you're not happy, and you're having to second guess yourself already. All the noise in your head created by her. This needs to stop.

I thought this was more an issue of incompatible love languages until I got to the last two points.

Anyone who thinks that their own needs should come ahead of their partners children's needs is bad news as far as I'm concerned. Competing with a child is pretty pathetic anyway but if you imagine what their ideal situation is (having their partner all to themselves at the expense of children's relationships with their parents) you can see that it's more malignant than being insecure and needy.

I don't think that she does have a heart of gold tbh.

She's abusive with her "niceness" if that makes sense.

Her love language is touching you whether you want it or not?

Isn't that abuse?

deffo trauma/fawning going on here. She needs a psychotherapist. But as PP said not your issue to solve.

Someone quoted this on another thread so I am paraphrasing it here:

“When I see one sick person in a couple I know there are really two sick people in the relationship.”

This is what codependency is: an unhealthy bond between a person who seems to need extra care and another person who needs to be the caregiver. She has her reasons for trying to love bomb you/touch you/carry your things. All these things may seem necessary to her emotionally or psychologically (to feel safe) but she is also trying to put you under obligation to her, to make herself necessary to you, to make you dependent on her so that you can’t get away.

The flip side of her situation is yours. Your impulse to take her back, to rescue her, to help her stabilize is a good one. But you are too involved in it—unlike a professional—and you ate stuck in a very early stage of the rescue. She can’t progress and you need to accept that you won’t magically grow her into a real adult. You are like a person who jumps in to save a person from drowning and thinks you can also teach them to swim. She doesn’t want to swim to shore. She loves your attention! She doesn’t want to manage for herself and she is going to drown you both.

You thought you could rescue and stabilize her—and no doubt she was grateful! But she is not capable of drawing the right lesson from it (be ethical, take care of yourself, manage your trauma, don’t repeat addictive/dangerous behaviors. To the extent that she is still in trauma and acting that out she is like a dry drunk who has substituted one addiction (being the perfect all embracing gf) for another (being in an abusive toxic relationship).