Me and my girlfriend have been living together for 3 months now. I am 26 M and she is 22 F.
So my girlfriend’s parents fight very frequently. They has a big fight last night apparently and my girlfriend went to see her mom. She later told me what happened with her parents. Her dad apparently says horrible things and is very verbally abuse to her mom.. apparently this happens quite a bit too.
What is really bothering me is that she keeps saying that she is scared that we will turn out like them. It really frustrates me that this is what she think that we will be like.. I told her before that I am not like that and there is no reason that she should think that.. I assured her that I am not like that..
But yesterday when she said that because of the last fight her parents had, it really bothered me. I told her that it bothered me but she was just kept saying that I don’t understand.
I am always kind and gentle with her.. Like I give her all the love I have and I would give her the shirt off my back even if it’s the last thing I have on me. I feel that it is selfish of her to think that of me and disregard everything I do for her.
This makes me really unhappy.. how do I move forward from this? Her family issues are causing difficulties in our relationship
3 comments
I think you should encourage her to go to therapy to resolve her family issues. That’s definitely step one.
Until she finds closure, offer reassurance. She clearly needs that from you right now.
Tell her you cannot be with someone who so clearly doesn’t trust you and who thinks you will abuse her in the future just because she’s letting her trauma poison the relationship. How is it fair to you for her to say “I’m so scared you’re going to be my abuser” and essentially predicting it will happen even though you’ve shown her only love?
She needs some serious therapy to deal with the trauma of her father’s abuse, but it’s not *your* responsibility to manage that trauma. All you can do is what you’ve been doing, which is showing her love. If she can’t find it in herself to stop accusing you of something you haven’t even done or won’t ever do, you don’t need to stay together.
Does she not understand how *awful* it feels for someone to look you in the face and essentially say “you could turn into an abusive POS like my dad”? She can say that *you* don’t understand where she’s coming from all day. But she doesn’t understand that she can’t keep putting that level of distrust on you and expect everything to still be fine.
You can say something like, “I know you have trauma from the way your father has acted but its not fair to me that you keep comparing me to him. I have not and will not ever do what he has done. But if you can’t trust me when I say that and if you won’t get help to cope with this trauma response, im not sure what we’re doing here. I cannot be with someone who thinks I’m going to be an abuser. Thats not fair to you and its not fair to me. So what can we do about it?”
Her parents’ relationship is the only relationship that she has to judge relationships by. That is the metric that she is comparing all relationships in her life to. It’s not about you. It’s about her being raised in an unhealthy environment. She has to get an understanding that there are healthy relationships, and she has to learn how to function in a healthy relationship. She may need counseling to de-program the abuse that she has been raised in. The childhood trauma has scared her psyche. My advice is to ask her to seek counseling to help her deal with her childhood and family issues, because it is hurting her personally and hurting your relationship.