Girlfriend danced with "step brother" on a night out....

[stepdad85]

To cut a long story short I'm looking for some opinions on something that happened recently that is really bothering me.

On Christmas day at my girlfriends family's house they had a surprise visit from her mams new husbands sons, they both flew over from Australia. I've been with my girlfriend nearly two years and up until then didn't even know they existed. Both of them are pretty good looking, well built lads. My girlfriend was so exited to see one of them in particular it raised a bit of a weird feeling for me, I guess jealousy is the word I'm looking for. This lad is not blood related and she mentioned him a good few times over the next few days. I never showed her I was feeling jealous, at the time I thought it was unwarranted and down to my insecurities.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we got an invite to the lads leaving party as they're going back to Australia shortly. We spend the night in a social club drinking and head to a busy bar/club at the end of the night. My girlfriend is their, along with her mam, her "stepdad" and his sons and each of the sons girlfriends.

By the end of the night my girlfriend and the lad I had a funny feeling about (her step brother) were on the dance floor together, holding hands, his arms around her waist and on the top of her backside, she had her arms around his shoulders and neck, their faces right next to each other and to my eyes it looked wrong. This went on for about an hour, I tried on two occasions to come over and join them as I felt like a right fool standing their with her mam while she was dancing with him but she basically ignored me. I took a couple of photos of them in each others arms with the intent to show her in the morning because I knew she would say I was just being jealous and it was nothing. The lad she was dancing with could see I was getting upset and came over and said something along the lines of "she might be dancing like that with me but at least she's going home with you mate", apparently he was trying to make me feel better but it really didn't come across that way to me at the time.

Foolishly I ended up talking about this with her on the night and because of my drunken state I didn't put this across in the manner I would have liked. She is now super angry at me for being "disgusting" for suggesting something was going on. She states she cares about him like a brother and they were just having fun.

Meanwhile I've showed the photos to several people who have all said it doesn't look right and she was at very least not being very respectful to me by dancing with him like that. I've not brought it up with her again since as I know she's still mad about it all. This has really upset me, I never in a million years thought she would dance that close with someone in front of me, we always saw eye to eye on what we each found acceptable behavior while in a relationship etc, I literally couldn't believe my eyes when I saw them. Up until now I trusted her 100% and that has been spoiled because right now I can't believe her.

She was adamant I was being unreasonable and jealous but I feel like I know what I saw. I know the lads girlfriend was also out that night and I'm not sure what she made of all of this. I called the lads dad last night to apologize for causing a scene by mentioning I was unhappy about it and he replied by saying "you don't need to apologize I understand".

What are people's opinions on this? Am I being a jealous maniac? Am I over reacting? Is she hiding something from me about this? Or should I just drop it?

Would you consider that a normal way to dance with a distant family member? Personally I would never dance with my mams partners daughter like that. I'm so shocked about the whole thing and I really hope it's just me being daft and over exaggerating things. I still have the photos and I'm unsure if I should show them to my girlfriend so she can see what it looked like to me. If I'm wrong about it she's going to be very upset I don't trust her but I just can't internalize how she felt comfortable doing that in front of me.

I'm not even going to bother defending my side of the story to "madwoman", I don't have too.

Thats not to say I'm not disappointed in the way I handled the situation. Obviously in hindsight I should have waited until the morning to talk about things and mention that I was uncomfortable with her behavior that night. Yes taking photo's makes me appear like a lunatic. I did this because I genuinely believe my girlfriend doesn't realize how it appears while shes drunk and doing this sort of thing.

Anyway, she kicked me out for the night, I came back yesterday and thing's are smoothing over, she's still very upset about the whole thing and to be honest I'm still upset too but I still believe we can make things work.

We are yet to talk about it properly but it's becoming obvious that she has different boundaries of what is/isn't acceptable while in a relationship. To her dancing with someone even in a close manner means nothing, she said she wouldn't have dared done this if she fancied him and only allowed herself to get that close because she knows she doesn't. She said his hands may have been on her waist but never on her backside and if she ever once had the thought that he was getting his kicks out of the dance she would have backed off immediately. In other words, she's adamant she was just drunk and having fun with a mate/family member.

I'm pretty sure she's being truthful now too, that's the problem with this sort of behavior tho, I can't know what she's thinking/feeling in that moment, I can only see what it look's like from the outside. Obviously that's where trust should come into it and I should have trusted her. By doing this it's showed I don't trust her and that's what she's most upset about.

Oh dear god, are you really that gullible, she did wrong OP, the fact she will go miles to deny, defend herself says everything - she really doesn't think your perceptions matter that much.

Sure you will be back, it's not the first time she's covered her tracks and made you distrust yourself.

she said she wouldn't have dared done this if she fancied him and only allowed herself to get that close because she knows she doesn't

Classic textbook gas lighting. I definitely do not dance like that with people I don't fancy, and I don't let them rest their hands on the top of my bum either while being within whispering distance of their face.

Why do you allow her to treat you like she does? Genuine question. For instance allowed my ex to treat me badly as i didnt know how to get away. Please dont say "love". I want you to really sit quietly and ask yourself why.

You sound hard work OP. So she danced with a guy who lives thousands of miles away while both partners were there - so not exactly hiding anything - everyone was tipsy and he came up and broke the ice with you
you are reading too much into it, but I think you sound quite controlling and I wouldn't want to be in a relationship where someone blew these things up. I left a relationship for exactly this, really. It makes daily life a misery. Who will it be next that she's flirting with, in your eyes? seriously - you're either in or out but I am not convinced she was doing anything massively wrong there other than being a bit drunk. If you want it to work you need to drop this and stop looking for problems - start concentrating on your relationship together

I'm not denying I'm hard work, she's no walk in the park either mind.

I honestly think we both have issues stemming from things that happened when we were young. I'm overly jealous and she's a little narcissistic, we both struggle to take criticism and small things end up turning into big problems.

I'm not denying my jealousy has escalated this whole thing into something it probably shouldn't have been. At the same time her complete unwillingness to try and understand my side of things has also added fuel to the fire and this is the same underlying problem in all our arguments. In her eye's I'm wrong and need punished, she's failing to see that while I did overreact I did so because her actions deeply hurt me.

To me it's never acceptable to hold hands with someone and dance with your arms around them while in a relationship, that opinion will vary from person to person but to me it's not cool, I wouldn't do that and want a partner who also feels the same way about it.

I'm back in our house now we have yet to talk about things, she's distant but we still share a bed and cuddle in together each night etc. She said to me in the heat of the argument she doesn't feel the same way about me anymore because of this and me taking the photo was a huge "red flag" and shes not sure she can get past it. She's trying to move on from this now and the fact that she's invited me back to the house after me being away a few days suggests she still wants to try and make things work.

This forum has made me paranoid that she is gaslighting/manipulating me and it's made me make links to this in her behavior, there's a potential that I've got it completely wrong and could be throwing away the best thing that's ever happened to me thanks to a few opinions on the internet. At the end of the day you only know my side of the story, I am trying to portray it fairly but I know for sure she would explain things differently.

I'm going to monitor my behavior closely and try my hardest to be a better man, to do more for her son and to make her happy on the hope that in turn her attitude improves and her respect for me grows and we can eventually get back to where we once were.

I'm starting to think that this forum was a bad idea to be honest.

to me it's not cool, I wouldn't do that and want a partner who also feels the same way about it - she's not going to change. If you want a partner who feels the same way about it, then you need to find someone else.

I'm going to monitor my behavior closely and try my hardest to be a better man, to do more for her son and to make her happy on the hope that in turn her attitude improves and her respect for me grows and we can eventually get back to where we once were - you know, relationships really shouldn't be such hard work. It's good that you have recognised that you may need to rein in your jealous nature and make some changes in that way. Not so good to be doing it in the hope that you change your partner too. She is who she is. If that is not compatible with you then you need to realise this and move on.

I think that this forum probably wasn't a great idea for you OP, too many posters feeding into your insecurities.

Good luck, perhaps you two can help each other. I hope so.

'In her eyes I'm wrong and need punished'

Take a long hard look in the mirror. You have spent an entire thread trying to convince millions of strangers that she was wrong, and you took photos as evidence to prove it.

I'm glad she is seeing red flags.

Hopefully you two will leave each other alone to form healthier relationships with other people.

I think this has all stemmed from your jealousy and insecurities. You can now actively choose to try and make this work, which means leaving this completely in the past and actively changing your behaviours, or you can leave the relationship. It sounds totally destructive and damaging for both of you if it continues like this.