My girlfriend is hypervigilant and I feel judged

[dlp777]

ok, never posted before

i am 27, my girlfriend is 24.

we have recently moved in together after a year and a half of being together. We have been living together for 5 months before then, because she basically lived at mine. We now have a new house (rental).

We have only been in for a week, and nothing is ready yet. Our sofas haven’t arrived, we don’t have our telly yet, nothing is sorted and so we’re staying there, but it doesn’t feel like home yet.

on the day we moved in, I texted her to say “I’m coming home now” and she said I “could have sounded more excited”.
I hate it when she tells me how I should be feeling. Everyone shows excitement in different ways and she has such rigid expectations. I have to act in a certain way or she doesn’t like it.

She was sobbing this morning because she feels like I’m not excited. This is because we woke up and had breakfast in silence because I was tired. She said the atmosphere was off and it’s all meant to be fun and exciting.
She keeps saying things like “I want you to be the most excited and see this as the best thing ever” or “we’re supposed to be jumping around in excitement in our first house”.

Another issues is, she can’t take any criticism. I told her I hate it when she tells me how I feel, and I’ve hated it this whole time. It turns into a huge thing and she says things like “I want you to love everything about me” or “you’ve hated something about me for 18 months”

I do really love her and she makes me happy most of the time, but always seems to think I’m lying when I say nice things. She never takes my word for it.

I don’t want everyone to come on here and just trash talk her, I need tsome constructive advice to help me/her please, or tell me if I’m in the wrong?

thank you

Well, for example, I could never cope with someone who wanted me to be cheerful and chatty at breakfast. So most of the time, we don’t breakfast together - that’s how we do it. Impossible to tell if either of you is expecting too much - maybe you are giving off a vibe of regret and that’s upsetting her? Or maybe you need to discuss what you both want and compromise

Oh dear God. How exhaustive. She sounds unbearable. I don't think I could actually cope with someone so needy requiring constant affirmation and reassurance. Do not get into the cycle of delivering that affirmation and reassurance as it will spiral. She needs to deal with it now.

Don't pursue this relationship further. This is very unlikely to improve, she sounds as if she will live a live of permanent disappointment. Cut your losses.

YABU to stay in this relationship

Sounds like you’re not very expressive in your emotions. I find that hard to deal with sometimes in DH. Sometimes the straight face when it should be an exciting or momentous occasion is like WTF.

Perhaps tell her that you are in fact happy / excited or whatever or otherwise gain some awareness.

I'm also a person happy with minimal excitement and talking in the morning. I'm also not very good at being excited. You need to find someone who matches your miserable... i did and we are happily miserable together. 🤣

Well, how about a balanced view.

She has high expectations for her life, for you, maybe for herself. These will leave her always feeling let down. She's projecting some disappointment, dissatisfaction onto you. But it's not yours, so don't pick it up. Maybe you could ask her to say what she does like, that you do, more than what she doesn't.

But also I hear her saying to you that she would like some more connection, some celebration, some coupleness. So could you be warmer in the mornings, even when you are tired, snuggle if you can't chat, or make more of an effort, can you plan little routines like breakfast in bed or a movie night, kind of celebrate your new home. Your partner sounds really relational and this matters to her. How are you going to grow and tend to this relationship.

She sounds extremely immature and quite frankly, a bit bloody nuts.

You could ask your gf how she experiences your moods. Being tired is not a good reason to sit in total silence. Maybe you seem grumpy or miserable. Maybe she's thinking that if you aren't happy in these early days of creating a home with her, you never will be happy, and she's worrying about the future. Talk to her. Ask her properly and listen to the answers.

I couldn't be doing with this. She sounds like a huge drama queen.

My advice is to break up with her.

She sounds extremely insecure. That can be very tiring for the person on the receiving end.

I think you both need to look at how you behave and have a sensible talk about it.

Not speaking at breakfast because you’re tired is every bit as bad as what you’re complaining about with your gf. Don’t make being tired an excuse to be anti social or rude with your partner.

Thing is, I am expressive. I tell her every day that I love her, I cuddle and rub her back every night as she falls asleep. I explained that I texted back quickly before coming home because I wanted to get back as soon as I could!

She sounds needy, insecure and immature.
I'm not knocking her, as I'm sure she has lots of good points. I actually feel a bit sorry for her (and you!), as something must have happened in her life to make her act this way.

Yes! This sounds like me (embarrassingly) and I'm diagnosed with BPD.

Another with borderline personality disorder here - like the other two pp with BPD, I also recognise these traits in your GF

I agree it sounds typical of people with BPD (or now more often called EUPD) - may be worth reading about. But we can’t diagnose someone online.

My bit of constructive advice is maintain your boundaries with her. Kindly, not in an angry way, but once you’ve explained ‘I don’t show excitement in the way you want’, don’t start pretending to be someone you’re not or act the way she’s telling you to. You will never be able to maintain it, you’ll resent her, and she’ll feel you faking so it won’t meet her needs anyway.

Have good friends you can run things by to help keep you sane - it sounds like she could have you convinced that you’ve been feeling something you really haven’t. But I’m hoping she has lots of good qualities to balance these issues, and she’s worth being patient for and giving lots of reassurance to - she is young and may grow out of these kind of behaviours over time.

You say you've had a discussion about her telling you how to feel. You are absolutely right about that, no one has no right to tell you how to feel it is controlling and possessive to try and force other people to feel in the "right" way, that is absolutely not up to others. This to me is the real problem in your relationship.

You could try asking her to get therapy or go to couples therapy, it won't change without a lot of work. Partners who tend towards control and possession almost always find other ways to do this, it's just how they are.

You love her and want to continue the relationship, that's fine but you will have to accept that she will always want to control your feelings and moods. If this is something you are prepared to put up with that's your choice but it will never make either of you happy.

This was my first thought. She has bizarre expectations that she’s getting from somewhere. Does she follow lots of influencers and their fake lives?

I think you just both sound different. You say she was staying at yours before, might I be right that this is her first place of her own? She does sound OTT, but I also feel a bit sorry for her. She's just moved in to this new home with the love of her life, nothings arrived, theres no sofa, no telly and her partner sits there sullenly in silence over their breakfast in the morning and has an irritated bored attitute towards her. Sounds a bit shit for her in all honesty, I admire that she's still trying to be upbeat! Is there no middle ground whre you could at least pretend to be a bit pleased you've moved in together, and she calms down with the micromanaging? Sounds like a chat is in order.

She sounds like a loon. Sorry.

I mean, that's kind of the bare minimum in a relationship though? And I'm guessing it's on your terms. You've not acknowledged any of the posters pulling you up for being moody and giving her the silent treatment, or any of the other posts that could be interpreted as critical of you. You've also not acknowledged PP's concerns that she may have a personality disorder.

Your phrasing in your OP is telling IMO - she 'makes you happy most of the time'. It's not her job to make you happy, it's a partnership.

She hasn’t yet learned that it is not possible to get all the all the validation she seems to want, just from one person. As the person she wants this from, it’s going to be bloody hard work for you.

She young and still thinks that adult life will be a fairytale. You will never be able to excited enough, or thoughtful enough, or want the thing she wants you to want enough.

I think you need to have a firm conversation with her about boundaries because this will only be the start of it otherwise. She'll be constantly finding fault with the way you do things or express yourself so nip it in the bud now. That convo will be a two way one and I agree with other posters that not speaking to her over breakfast was very rude - it might be you agree not to do that on weekdays.

I’m going against the grain here. I don’t sympathise with it all but I can relate to some of what she’s feeling.

im a cheerful upbeat person and i see no reason to be down most days unless something bad has happened. I can cope with a few silent grumpy patches but after a while it does become energy draining and emotionally exhausting to be around someone downcast who doesn’t share in lifes joys. I like to celebrate the little happinesses in life and I would want my partner to be excited about living together. I’ll probably get other posters saying I sound annoying