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!

@LAMPS1@Lmnop22
This kind of person doesn't need a flowery explanation, they need bluntly told to get lost, all that enable stuff gives them and in to keep messaging. We don’t always have to be kind and appeasing.

I think you're under the impression that it is possible to have this person, without the bits you don't like. That if you try hard enough, those bits will go away.

They won't. This is her on her best behaviour, trying her hardest, and she is already pretty insufferable and stamping all over your boundaries.

This isn't going to get better, this is going to get worse. The minute you start trying to insist on your boundaries you're going to open up the flood gates, the paranoia, the 'well the last person who did that to me was cheating on me' and she will try to make you feel awful for living your own life.

Run!

I think you know this isn't for you OP, but...

Bisexual woman reporting in here. Is she lesbian or bisexual? And have you mostly dated men or women?

There's a joke: what does a lesbian bring to a second date? A u-haul (meaning a removal truck).

Basically, timelines for dating men don't necessarily apply when dating women.

A friend of mine (also bisexual) once had to stop dating a woman, when she tried to introduce my friend to her mother as her 'new girlfriend' after two weeks!

However, you absolutely do deserve to have your boundaries respected, and this woman doesn't sound like a good fit. Do you even fancy her? Are you sleeping together yet?!

Sorry this was in response to OP clearly saying she wanted to tell her partner to cool it a bit but not break up. Obviously everyone is telling her to dump her partner and, if she chooses to do that, the text will obviously be different!

OP, she is not lovely, she is a boundary pushing possessive nightmare.

And using sulking, silence and moodiness is abusive.

She has no qualms at all stepping over your perfectly healthy and normal wishes not to spend every waking moment with her or thinking of her. So please don't consider yourself mean or hurtful to make your feelings known.

Personally though I'd be calling it a day. If she's like this a few weeks in, imagine how controlling she would try and be of your time and attention if you were to stay with her. She is already trying to mould you by going silent on you because you are seeing your friends and not her. You would become a shell of yourself and be constantly walking on egg shells for fear of upsetting her. It sounds like the only time she is actually lovely is when she is getting her own way.

Run just run

I agree. After a month you're perfectly ok to say 'this is not for me'.
She wants something you can't provide and she's getting on your tits trying to force it. Tell her you've gone off her because she's so needful. Be honest.

This ^^ she is trampling all over your wishes and boundaries . She is not a good person.

You aren’t suited.

She's giving me Misery vibes....

enjoying my own company is something BRAND NEW to me, I can’t quite believe it. It’s something I’ve learned to enjoy through therapy. I’ve never experienced this before but already it’s being overpowered by someone new.

I’m actively working on my boundaries after being in therapy following previous relationships.

As someone who has always really struggled with boundaries, I would say, you need to leave this situation and work more on yours. I fell into the trap I think you’re in: feeling that the work you have done has made you safe from predatory or manipulative people, but it only feels like that by contrast to how vulnerable you were before. I ended up ignoring red flags- like you are, thinking that because I could see them I was safe- and that relationship became physically violent. I would urge you to imagine how relieved you’ll be once you no longer feel beholden to someone else. That pleasure in your own company, the freedom it brings. And then to take back that joy and freedom by ending the relationship. No ifs nor buts, no offers of dating or friendship, because she’ll use any chink as a weak point to prise you open again and insert herself back into your life.

If you were describing a man, we would all be warning of cocklodgers or coercive control.

She sounds a potential nightmare and you just don’t want the same things.

I think you know what would happen if you tried tapering off and you can’t face it.

I think this sounds quite toxic and you don’t sound very happy. Best to nip it in the bud than tell her you want some time to yourself - she hasn’t been respectful of your wishes so far and it’s probably going to get worse…

Without reading the whole thread, I just wanted to respond to this. I was with a woman for almost a decade who was like this. Very anxious, very clingy, wanted to spend every minute with me etc. She also had a string of psycho exes which I KNEW was a red flag but I ignored it. I thought she’d calm down over time and realise I wasn’t going to leave her but in retrospect she was a raging narcissist. She totally love bombed me, and although I didn’t fall for it in the sense I thought I/we were something special, I allowed it to happen thinking it was just part of her anxiety. All of the behaviours were ultimately about control and my whole life ended up about managing her mental health and putting her needs above mine. If I were you I’d run far, far away (metaphorically speaking) and be thankful you’re out of it.

If a man was behaving like that all the red flags would be being waved. It’s no different because it’s a woman.

Isn’t this supposed to be the exciting time because it doesn’t sound like it’s even enjoyable.
I was was irked just reading your post and you’re living it 🤷‍♀️

As a fellow bi - you wouldn't accept this oppressive nonsense from a man, neither should you accept it from a woman. More red flags than a communist parade 🚩🚩🚩

(love the bi-product typo in your first post)

Just because she’s not like your other ex partners, doesn’t mean she’s right for you. Bad apples come in many forms.

you gut is clearly telling you something is off here - listen to it!!!

I need time alone to function so every partner I have has knows this quite early on. The red flag is when they don’t understand/accept it and keep pushing.

I could have written the OP a few years ago.

I’m a woman with kids, started to date a really nice, attentive woman. I had 3 days a week kid free, and she wanted to spend every minute of those 3 days with me.

I felt so smothered. I have friends who I want to spend some of that time with and I have the standard life/house/garden admin to do. Plus I enjoy spending time by myself - a nice bath or a long walk with a podcast for example.

Seeing her once or twice a week would have been great and left me time to do all the other stuff that is important to me. But by the time I reduced the contact to once or twice, honestly the damage was done and I’d really had enough. I was ultimately so relieved when I ended it a few months later.

I’m guessing she doesn’t have kids so from her perspective there are chunks of the week when you are solely focused on your kids and she is waiting for the next time she can see you. So when there is a kid free day she’ll assume you’re spending it together because she’s already waited half the week. To be fair it is quite normal to want to spend lots of time with someone you fancy in a new relationship. It’s the imbalance between the amounts of free time you have and she has - and was this experience that made me realise I should only date women in the same boat as me, i.e with kids so we both had the same restrictions/responsibilities when it came to free time.

‘Only lovely/happy when getting her own way.’
This is 100% my ex. It doesn’t look like the abuse you read about, even if you think you know what emotional abuse and coercive control are, but it absolutely is. (Sidenote:
wonder if it’s a female presentation of it and what we’re usually told about is how emotionally abusive and controlling men behave?) This woman is a street full of red flags on every lamppost!!!

I feel claustrophobic just reading this . It's only going to get worse !

run. She won’t get better. It will deteriorate. Leave her. Don’t look back.

Sounds suffocating and a total red flag

I'd be saying bye for good...this will only get worse op

My DH was like this when I met him. I found him too full on. I told him nicely but clearly. He backed off and let him grow on me. 20 years later it definitely worked 😆