So my girlfriend (24F) and I (23M) have been together for 2.5 years. She is my first official girlfriend, but before that relationship I already had some other things with other girls, more like a one night thing. I am her first boyfriend and first everything.
Back then, I quickly realized how insecure she is, and here I am talking about EXTREME levels of lack of self-confidence. Think of someone you know who's like that, well my girlfriend is probably even less confident than that person you were thinking of.
It didn’t bother me at first, but it slowly became mentally exhausting for me, to constantly have to reassure her on the slightest thing that happens in her life. Before anyone says it’s normal to be there for their partner, yes I totally agree. But beyond a certain point, it gets unbearable. And after a few months into the relationship, these concerns were already making me question it…
So, her lack of confidence makes her feel like shit at everything she does. If I compliment her, it’s gonna be either a "stop saying bullshit to please me" or a "thank you" but I know that in her head she rejected the compliment. And if I say that something she did didn’t please me, or that something’s wrong, she's gonna acknowledge it and let it sink deep into her, just to "remind herself that she's just a piece of shit", as she often says.
She also feels resentful about my previous experiences with girls, which I will never comprehend. There was one of those girls which I've been madly in love with (long story short: we made out while she was waiting to meet her long distance (now) boyfriend she had met online, and while she liked me as well she still decided to end it and wait for the guy), and she keeps saying how I was in love with her, and I wanted her, while in our case (my gf and I), she went to me first. So according to her, she doesn’t feel like she's the "first" girl in my life. Like what the hell… my past is what it is, and feeling resentful on something that happened to me years ago isn’t just it.
We are both teachers, and she told me that she constantly thinks that she's a bad teacher, outside her working hours she plays in her head the whole day, trying to search for something that went wrong (which as a teacher isn’t a bad thing to improve, but for her it’s beyond that). She never notices the good things she does, because she's just so focused on the negative side of everything.
Also, she is unable to take a decision, and I'm talking about anything. If she wants to come over in the evening, she will always ask
"do you want me to come over tonight ?"
"yes but come if you want to, if you don’t want then don’t come"
"no, you need to choose for me" or "I'll ask my mom" And this goes for everything : buying a phone, choosing a restaurant, even choosing a meal at the restaurant, she tells the waiter to bring whatever because she just can’t decide… At first I didn’t mind, but then I got tired of it. It just makes me sad for her because if she was living on her own, I don’t know how she would manage it.
I can’t comprehend having such a state of mind. And it’s gotten to the point where I don’t know if I could manage living with someone with such a frame of mind. She wants us to move in together, and she's even thinking about marriage and kids, but never realized how deep the situation affects me.
I already told her multiple times that she needs to see someone to work on her self esteem issues, but it never happens because it’s a "waste of money". To which I'd often want to tell her about all the wasted hours I've spent trying to reassure her, so that in the end nothing changes.
I feel like all these things about her is slowly making me lose interest… one part of me says that if I ended it, I would be less stressed and I would take time for myself to heal, but another part of me is scared of this. Because I would not only lose my girlfriend but also many friends. Some might say that’s irrelevant, but I struggle to imagine my social circle different than what it is now because there are amazing people in it.
She is talking a lot about moving it together next summer, because I'll be working in another country which she's close to the border. And I am sad to write all this while she's talking to me about "buying little by little the things we're gonna need to move in together".
Many times I told her about all this, but nothing changed. I am mentally exhausted of having a partner living a life fueled by fear and lack of self esteem. But whenever I think about breaking up, I don’t think grass is necessarily greener on the other side, because another relationship would have other problems.
The idea of breaking up is daunting for me because despite all this, I love her, and she's my first and longest official relationship. I am a bit lost… I need to know from you guys, is my point of view legitimate ? Or am I an AH, and why ?
TL;DR : girlfriend is extremely insecure, and it has affected my mental health and the way I view her, and I can’t see a bright future for us while she is already planning things