To feel smothered and annoyed by love interest

[Cantbloodyrememberthenameonthread]

I’ve used love interested because we are NOT in a relationship but we are dating. I’m bi sexual and have recently started dating a lovely lady, so lovely that she is absolutely grating on me.

we’ve been dating a month. My child free days are now automatically allocated to her and she’s matching her work pattern up to mine (both self employed) meaning when my DC are with their dad she’s automatically assuming I have to spend every moment with her.

she’s been very good to me so far, kind and thoughtful. Very attentive. But there are red flaga

• she’s expressed she has an anxious attachment style which is fair enough but this soon seems full on
• after 1 week of dating she was really offended that I said “well you are single, as am I” in regards to online dating/deleting profiles
• shes made an excuse that she needed to collect something from her parents and as a bi-product forced me into meeting them - I believe this may have been planned
• she wants to “do something” every minute of every day. For example, today I wanted to spend the day pottering about before both dc return home, she insisted we go for lunch outside and to a garden centre because the weather has been nice. Then proceeded all day to say my “vibe” was off and I seemed annoyed. I said I just have a busy mind and schedule and want to get on with things. To which she took great offence and said she wants to make the most of our time together (we’ve been together the past 4 days and nights)

various other things like this. You might say it’s up to me to say no, which is true, however I hate the bluntness and the atmosphere it causes. I’m actively working on my boundaries after being in therapy following previous relationships. I have gently expressed we don’t need to spend every waking minute together, but each time it’s been met with some sort of sulk or mood iyswim. I really dislike upsetting people. Before she left, I basically had to take her bags to the door and almost had to say “get out” because my 20 or so “it was nice to see you, drive home safe” were met by blank stares or just changing rooms to sit on another sofa. It took over an hour of me saying I need to get on with things and need some time alone for her to actually leave.

I feel really irked. I didn’t want a relationship, yet I’m basically in one. There’s been various other things that have annoyed me like posting me on social media (we have mutual friends and I don’t want any of them to know I’m dating?) I’ve said it’s too soon and I don’t want people to see things. It stopped for a few days now she’s carried on ten fold. She’s planning on a trip somewhere up north next week that she needs to go on, and is harassing me for dates, I don’t want to confirm dates as I don’t know a) if I want to go and b) I don’t want set plans next week in general, I just want to have a chilled few days off. Not be held to something. I said you go on your own if I’m free I’ll join which was met with “no I’m planning specifically round your work days so we can go together”

AIBU to be annoyed? Wwyd? I want to send a message saying cool off without being nasty or mean. She’s a lovely woman but I feel overwhelmed and it’s giving me the ick - friends would have been great!

This a hundred times! That expression sums her up perfectly!

You’re already second guessing what she is trying to do with meeting parents and analysing her motives. At the start of a relationship with someone you’re into you should want to spend time with them and in most cases, it’s easy and not anxious. I would say this isn’t going to work out.

You are being unreasonable to even consider continuing any relationship (or otherwise) with this person. As PP said, I would bin and move on. So many red flags.

I could not handle a relationship like that. You don’t even want to be in a relationship! She is steam rolling all over your boundaries. She says she can be jealous. This is only going to get worse. Time to dump her and get your agency back! It sounds utterly smothering.

Someone who tramples all over your boundaries is not kind and lovely. Her behaviour is shocking and entitled.

You've only been dating a month, yet she's carrying on, as if you're in a long-term relationship. You seem to want a casual arrangement, and nothing particularly serious. Clearly, a casual arrangement isn't what this woman is looking for. She wants a full blown relationship with bells and whistles. You aren't on the same page at all. Being lovely, is great, but she's obviously too intense for you, and it's now irritating.

You've tried the softly softly approach, and she's not listening to you. I think you need to be honest with her...we don't want the same kind of relationship, so it's better we don't see each other again, because we're wasting each others time.

Walk away. Block. Don't see her again. You don't owe this woman anything, especially after only a month.

Oh god, no. You don't need this weird clingy borderline psycho shit.

Ditch and run like the wind.

You are on the right track. You are acknowledging to yourself what the problem is. That's the best you can do until the right one comes along.

Anyone who says you’re ruining the “vibe” (or who uses that word at all) is being undercover manipulative.

We’re all free to say you don’t want to do something. You’re not responsible for a “vibe” you didn’t want. I’d bin this one.

This is going to get so much worse OP unless you put a stop to it now!

Omg, i would end it now. Insecure attachment is an understatement. I wouldnt engage with this at all

She sounds unstable, manipulative and, if someone had posted these behaviours in a man, everyone would be telling you how dangerous and stalky this person is. You've been dating her for only a few weeks and she has trampled on every boundary you've set. She is not a good person, she might not even be a safe person, for your mental health if nothing else. Telling her to cool it a bit is not going to work. She's already shown that she does not respect what you want. She is only going to get more enmeshed and more possessive. Get rid of her now, bluntly and unambiguously.

She can’t change, and won’t so you need to end it.
A new relationship should be exciting and fun. It shouldn’t make you feel like this, now or in the future.

If she was a man you would be told to get out now

Maybe just text her and say something like:

”Hi X, I wanted you to know that I’m really enjoying getting to know you and spending time with you for the last few weeks. Before we started dating, I had made a real effort to start enjoying my own company and it’s important to my mental health to spend some time alone just pursuing my hobbies, relaxing and sorting out life admin etc. Going forward, I am going to start spending 1/2 of my days off/evenings off per week making sure I keep that going and spend some time alone. The other 1/2 days/evenings per week I really want to fill with fun plans with you, maybe a pub quiz/sip and paint/ dinner/ film night or whatever - let’s get some dates in the diary for nice date nights! What do you think?”

If you can’t tell her face to face, then send her a message or write her a card.
Something like…..

Hi,
I owe it to you to tell you what’s on my troubled mind.

You are kind thoughtful and attentive as well as attractive and I do like you.
What I don’t like is you being overbearing and/or ignoring my boundaries.eg including me on social media posts and having me meet your parents.

I like my own company very much for the moment and don’t want to lose that so seeing you once, maybe twice a week is as much as I can message.
I know you prefer more frequent contact than that so I’m wondering if we are at all compatible.
Your increasing need for a more intense friendship is something I find just too suffocating.
I really have to slow things right down and have more time to myself.
I’m just not happy with how things are at the moment. It’s too much too soon.

I do understand if my preferred snails pace friendship isn’t what you are looking for and if you want to leave things all together rather than make the adjustments.

Please don’t make plans for me to join you on your upcoming trip. I really need some time to myself now.

Omg, I'd run!

Not this! The break needs to be clean. This message gives hope of a revival.

Oh, I would be straight up ‘this is not working for me, please let me know where I can send your things and don’t contact me again’.

There is nothing remotely okay about this. You are being steamrollered over. I don’t see how you can get this to a place where you are comfortable at all when there is this level of disregard - it’s not even that your boundaries are being trampled, the behaviour is entirely inappropriate.

I think if you're going to date someone like this you need to be much more blunt what you're happy to do.

I don't understand why you went to the garden centre with her if you'd been together for 3 days already and you wanted some time to yourself. Why didn't you say (and mean) something along the lines of "Sorry, Mary, I've had a fantastic time but I really need a bit of time to myself before the kids get back. I'll text/call/see you on Friday/Saturday/in a week."? Being able to do this, and have candid conversations about things like when you consider yourself to be exclusive or in a relationship rather than just seeing one of many people is key to dating someone who has different expectations to you.

You need to hold the line on the things that are important to you, if that's not enough for her then she needs to move on. But it sounds like she's putting her wants and understanding out there and you're rolling over and accommodating them, or fudging over things even though they aren't your wants and expectations. You need to talk more and find out if there is a compromise you can both be happy with.

Oh op I think you definitely need to end this. One of the negatives you listed would make me end it never mind it all together.

OP, she sounds like a headcase but your boundaries are really, really poor.

It really is not normal to have someone impose themselves in your space and upon your person in ONE month.

Batshit, creepy behaviour.
Get rid of her asap and work harder on those boundaries.

I’m also bisexual and the last relationship I had with a woman was like this. She was a friend who became more after I told her I fancied her. She absolutely smothered me and wanted to have deep talks about whether I really did like her constantly. She would get drunk and accuse me of making it up and that I was going dump her. If we spent time with her friends I was more than happy if she chatted to them and I would find someone to talk to but if it was me talking to my friends have a huge sulk.

In the end we went to Utrecht for the weekend and out of the whole long weekend we spent a max of 4 hours having dinner and drinks with my Dutch friends (who she knew online too) and the next day she dragged me around the streets and went mental saying I was trying to get away from her and that I was going to dump her. She kept me awake all night interrogating me. We flew back to the U.K. & I did finish with her. Not because I never did like her, but because she drove me away. It’s all consuming and exhausting!!

Autistic women, especially when diagnosis is later, are far too conditioned to be people pleasers IMHO.

You are in an emotionally abusive relationship already. The kindest thing you can do for yourself is to end it immediately. You have known this woman a few weeks and she is this intense, it will get worse and you won't have any life of your own.

In my experience, social interaction on a daily basis, even when it isn't this intense, leads to burnout very quickly. Someone who refuses to respect your boundaries is not a lovely person. The only person who can assert your boundaries is you 💪

If you are going to finish seeing her, forget the flowery half measures suggested, that will make it worse. She will say okay to seeing you half the time but won’t keep to it. You need to tell her with kindness that you don’t want to carry on dating (you have said you are not in a relationship) and will not be seeing her going forward. You are being awful passive about the audacity of someone you have been seeing a mere month moving in by stealth. End it. Let her take her intensity somewhere else.