Do I Need To Break Up With My Girlfriend?

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Dear Dr. NerdLove: I have been dating my gf for over a year now but it’s been rough. We have quite a few issues, and she had a bad previous relationship, one where she was abused and hurt badly. It’s been a rocky road; we argue about something every day or I get irritated because she thinks I’m looking at other women when I’m not.

She’ll do this if I’m just trying to work out, I try to tell her I’m not and she doesn’t let it go unless we talk about it then and there which is at the gym when I’m trying to train for my competition.

She seems to be self-conscious about herself which I have been trying to help her out with and is not going well. She is constantly asking if any women were at the gym that day, when I never spoke to them. It’s frustrating when I’m not doing anything wrong, but she gets jealous and upset over someone I never met or even talk to. Mow mind you, I’ve always had female friends and have lots of friends; I’m a friendly person.
But it’s like if I try to make friends with anybody though she gets upset and that causes issues.

I wanted to go party, as I’m 21 and she’s 28, but she would get upset when I tried and always thought the worst. Now she did get diagnosed with depression, which I have been trying to help with but it weighs me down and when she comes to the gym. I can’t talk to my friends without her getting upset, I can’t hype my friends up or cheer for random people like I used to, and people notice I’m not myself with her around. Now granted I get mad and yell in an argument a lot because I’m tired of all of the constant having to worry about when I’m on social media or who I’m texting or anything, because she’s constantly checking my online status and location. If she gets on her phone, I get bored so I get on mine then she asks what I’m doing and I give a snarky tone because it feels like I can’t go on my phone without her knowing what I’m doing. Meanwhile I never ask her what SHE’S doing.

I haven’t seen my friends from my old job or college friends or friends from high school in so long, and it feels like she’s always asking who I’m texting.

It’s so much and its overwhelming and she thinks somethings always wrong when I’m just relaxing and always says my face looks like I’m unhappy, and maybe I am but it’s frustrating when I have to deal with her constantly upset or sad about something that never happened.

She’s constantly dreaming about me cheating on her or me leaving her, and I’ve been late to work many times because I’ve had to talk to her and reassure her. I don’t mind reassuring her but it’s just I’m late for work, then I can never get a good workout in when she comes to the gym with me as I have to talk to her constantly about her not having to worry and she never feels good enough.

She says and she’s constantly comparing herself to other women in the gym. She is over weight for her height which I’ve tried showing her I love her for, but she doesn’t fully believe it, I’ve tried helping her lose the weight but after the gym, she wants to eat fast food which doesn’t help. It’s a lot going on and we got our own place together, and we are going to Vegas in July, and she bought me expensive subwoofers and knee sleeves which I bought her a couple things but nowhere near that much.

I just don’t know what to do as everything is booked and I’m kind of unhappy. I think as its taxing and I don’t know what to do everyone else says I should break it off and I think I want to. I just don’t know how as when she cries it’s hard for me.

She does a lot for me though she cooks my meals and cleans the house which I help a lot as well as it should be and I’m always willing to help. I like talking to new people as she does not and she’s constantly asking what these new friends male or females would add to my life and I don’t like that question it sounds manipulative.

Please Help I’m suffering and don’t know what to do.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

OK I’m gonna skip right to the TL;DR: HOLY HOPPING SHEEP SHIT GET OUT OF THIS RELATIONSHIP. Dump her so fast that you travel back in time, and then dump her again before you ever have a chance to let things get this far. Cancel the trip to Vegas, break the lease if you can and GET THE HELL AWAY from this woman. This isn’t going to get better; it’s only going to get worse.

 Now let me explain why you need to get the hell out, SISSIG: this is an incredibly toxic, emotionally abusive relationship and you are being abused.

Your girlfriend has more issues than Action Comics, and she’s making them your problem. Everything you describe – the jealousy, the interrogations, the demanding to know who you talk to and when –  all of these are examples of abusive behavior. She’s constantly keeping you in a state of unease and ensuring you always feel off balance around her. You can’t ever relax, be yourself or otherwise just be, because you can never be sure when you’re going to either have to talk her down from a depressive moment, from an irrational jealousy spike or if you’re going to accidentally step on a landmine and blow your day to hell. Insisting you can’t go out to parties? Keeping tabs on who you talk to, demanding that you account for your every conversation of the day? These are isolating tactics and it’s done, in part to keep you away from anyone who might be a threat to her control. After all, if you were around folks she didn’t approve of, then you might be hanging around people who might tell you (correctly) that she’s 20 lbs of bad news in a 5 lb sack.

And this is before we get to the part where she’s continually, actively interfering with your ability to just work or go about your day. Demanding that you talk her down because she had a bad dream and you’re not able to leave the house until you’ve reassured her that no, you didn’t cheat on her in her sleep? Holy fuckballs dude, that’s goddamn bonkers. None of this is normal, none of this good and – importantly – none of this is your responsibility.

I’m gonna repeat this, and I want you to take this in: this is not your fault and this is not your responsibility. This is all her, this is unacceptable and you shouldn’t be putting up with any of it.

I also want to emphasize that she has no excuse for this behavior. It’s a damn shame that she was diagnosed with depression. I know how depression lies and how it fucks with your head. That doesn’t excuse any of this. Some of what you describe also sounds a lot like Borderline Personality Disorder, especially the seemingly intense fear of abandonment or being cheated on. A lot of current theories on BPD suggest that it may be the result of past trauma and I have a lot of sympathy for folks who struggle with it. But none of this – not her previous bad relationships (abusive or not), not her depression diagnosis, none of it – excuses, mitigates or changes the fact that the way she’s acting is unacceptable.

Now I get that you’re an empathic guy and you genuinely want to help her and you genuinely care. But here’s the thing: you can’t. You can’t help her. Not because you’re not good enough or because she’s uniquely broken or unsaveable, but because you are not a doctor. You are not a therapist, a counselor, a social worker or anyone who’s trained to handle mental health issues. You’re her boyfriend, and it is not your job, nor you responsibility to save her or fix her.

And I want to underline the part about responsibility here because that plays a very important role. She is trying to force you to take responsibility for her emotional state. She’s trying to make her issues – her paranoia about being cheated on, her self-image, her abandonment issues – yours. That’s not what a good partner does. She’s just outsourcing her anxieties onto you and using them to keep you under her thumb. And that needs to stop. None of this is your fault, none of this is your responsibility. It’s one thing to say “hey, I’m feeling a little insecure today, could you love me a bit louder?” It’s another to just unload every anxiety, personality disorder and trauma onto another person and say “here, now deal with this or else.”

And here’s the thing, SISSIG: this isn’t going to get better. It’s only going to get worse. I’m sure it sucks when she cries or throws a tantrum over the idea that you might leave her, but you know what’s gonna suck even harder? Living with this for a second longer. I want you to ask yourself: how long are you willing to put up with this, knowing that it’s not going to change? A month? A year? Ten years? How long are you willing to be held hostage to her moods, her tears and her demands that you account for your every second of every day?

I wish to whatever deity you care to name that you’d written to me before you got a place together because holy fuckballs that’s not the last thing you should do, but it sure as hell was towards the bottom of the list. Depending on who’s name’s on the lease and what the tenant laws are in your area, you could be stuck with her until the lease runs out. As it is, that’s going to make leaving more complicated and possibly much more damaging, financially.

But if you can at all, then I think you should go. Now. Not tomorrow, not next week, today. Call your friends, pack up your shit, leave your key on the kitchen counter and then talk to the landlord. The longer you wait, the more she is going to leverage her feelings, her trauma and your own good will and empathy against you.

Now notice that I say “leave” before I say “break up with her”? That’s because you’re going to want to break up with her from a good remove, my guy. You have a hard time confronting her, especially when she weaponizes her tears and her feelings against you. That’s understandable. So take those away from her. She can’t use those against you if you’re not there.   

Normally I’m a “you owe your partner a face-to-face break up” kind of guy, but there’re always exceptions. This is one of them. If you try to break up with her, in person or on the phone, then she’s going to try to guilt you, scare you and manipulate you into not going through with it. That’s why you need to treat this break up like a throwing knife: short, to the point and flung from a distance. You send one (1) text saying that it’s over and not to contact you again, and then you go take the nuclear option: you block her on everything. You block her number, you block her email, you unfriend and block her on every form of social media you have and every one you know she’s on. If you have a login for it and it has some sort of messaging system, you block her. You make sure she has no way of contacting you or getting in touch with you.

Now I’m sure there’s a part of you that feels like this is too much and that you owe her something, since you do care about her. While your feelings do you credit, the truth of the matter is that there’s nothing to say here, and she’s already proven to be very good at manipulating you. The odds that she could pressure you into backing down or not going through with it are high. Anything you say that isn’t “Here’s the key, we’re done, see you never, if you need anything, hesitate to call” means that this is no longer a break up, it’s a negotiation. And one that you’re likely to lose. So you shouldn’t give her that chance. You don’t need to justify, you don’t need to explain, you don’t need to give reasons why or figure out her next steps. All you need is to end this relationship. You can leave a relationship for any reason at any time… and she’s given you far too many reasons. And it’s long past time to do so.

There may be parts of you that feel guilty. You may feel equally culpable because you yelled or got angry, or because you weren’t as good a boyfriend as you could be. None of that is true. Even if your being frustrated, yelling or being snappish with her weren’t entirely understandable, it still doesn’t balance out what she’s doing. This isn’t a both-sides situation, this is a “one person is being reasonable, one person is being abusive”. Because, again: this is abuse. It may not be calculated or intentional, but intent and calculation don’t make abuse; action does.

Get out of this relationship yesterday. Cancel the trip to Vegas, refund the cost of the subwoofer and leg sleeves if you absolutely must (in cash in an envelope that you leave behind when you move out) and move the fuck out. Dump her now and cut her out of your life like a tumor.

This is not your fault. This is not your responsibility. Get out now, because it’s not going to get any better until you do.

It’s hard, I know. Trust me, I’ve been there. But I can also promise you: it’ll be ok. You’ll be ok. Just do yourself a favor and leave, and then write back to let us know how you’re doing.

All will be well.