Hi Anita,

I greatly appreciate your apology, and forgive you completely. I knew your intent was not to hurt me, though as a flawed human being, I can definitely be sensitive at times, so reading your post and apology definitely made me feel much better.

I think the comment on my post was difficult for me in many ways, but one of the biggest was the it forced me to reflect inwardly. Every time I give and advise and try to help, I think there is a part of me with a personal motivation as well. A part of me that wants confirmation in my actions, ways of thinking, and choices. I want to be reaffirmed through others that I am a good person in the way I think the actions I choose to take. So a disagreement in my opinions at times makes me wonder if I am as good as I think I am, or if I am also flawed and need to change some of the ways I choose to lead my life.

While it may be hard to hear, in the end, this is always a good thing. So, while I accept your apology, in the end, I also thank you for challenging me.

Dina

Anita — You are a lovely person. Your ability to reflect on yourself inspires and amazes me. I will continue to post, and I hope you will too!

Dear Adam — I do notice your thread here has become a bit off-topic, however I do hope you post again and pitch in if you have any input.

More to Anita,

I’m happy to hear I have helped. That is a huge part of motivation here. Helping others makes me feel I have some sort of purpose 🙂

And because you have shared, I would like to share too. As I’m sure was glaringly obvious, I could see a lot of myself in Adam’s girlfriend. I, by nature, am a flirtatious person. No matter if I’m single or taken or talking to a male or female, I tend to be a flirt. Because I am a straight woman, nobody views my interactions with other women as a threat, but I can understand how my actions with other men could be seen that way. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I am an avid part of the salsa dance community, which tends to be flirtatious in nature (its a sensual dance after all). However, because I never have any intentions of acting on my flirtations, I never view them as bad or hurtful. If ever comes a point where someone gets the wrong impression, I always bring up my significant other and make it absolutely crystal clear that I am not unfaithful.

Fortunately, I have been lucky enough to date men who accept this part of me and dont see it as a threat, but rather smile and embrace it. However, in reading these posts, I have become more conscious of it and have begun to question why I do it and if it’s good or bad.

I actually spoke with my boyfriend about it last night and he told me for him, there are two pieces that make my flirtatiousness not an issue for him. 1. He has seen that it is how I interact with everyone. I even do it with his friends (I make fun of them in a playful way in front of him). Because I dont hide it, and because I do it with people he trusts, it doesnt bother him. 2. He trusts me completely and knows that I would never betray him, which also makes it a non-issue.

Anyways, I just wanted to share the above to show that everyone’s comments come from their own experiences. I think thats why this forum is so lovely and successful. Everyone can come at things from a different point of view. In my opinion, there is no right or wrong, but simply different choices on which perspective makes the most sense for you.

Dear Adam92:

I re-read your posts from the beginning of this thread. I did not read my own posts to you or others’ posts to you, only yours.
And I read your update from yesterday.

This is how I view your girlfriend at this point, from your shares:

My Best View – she is as innocent, inexperienced, insecure, new to relationships with … anyone girl. Inexperienced, she has few to no interpersonal skills and understanding of people and relationships, be it work or romantic relationships. She is as clueless as can be. When you left the workplace and she talked repeatedly, in glowing terms, about the other man, it was not because she wanted to hurt or manipulate you, but that she was bored at work, she felt good about getting attention from anyone at all, and responded positively to that attention, enjoying an interaction that was fun because she was otherwise lonely in her life, and work was boring. And she missed you.

This is the best case scenario. And I will accept it completely, not argue with it but add to it. I will add to it the following: she told you (you wrote) that she intentionally tried to make you feel jealous with the first guy. She said so. This means, in no uncertain terms, that her innocence is not perfect, not complete. She intentionally manipulated you emotionally, triggered in you feelings of jealousy for the purpose of attaching you to her.

So we have one intentional manipulation on her part.

Then there was the guy at work. It is possible, not unrealistic to consider a possibility that this too is an act of manipulation. It is also possible that all of the following are true: she was bored, she missed you, she was excited about getting attention from anyone because of lonely childhood/ life, she didn’t intend to be physically intimate with him… and she talked in glowing terms to you about him as an act of manipulation. In such a possible act of manipulation, her intent is not to hurt you first, but to help herself feel safer by attaching you to her. See the difference?

Then she told you she had no feelings for the guy at work. As you heard her talk about him, you know from her tone of voice, from her need to talk about him, from the glowing terms she used, you know she had feelings for him. She may not have intended to have a physical relationship with him. She may not have had romantic feelings for him, but feelings she had. You know it. When she told you she had NO feelings for him, and when you try to believe something you know is not true, you experience cognitive dissonance and the resulting anxiety.

And what if, she is inexperienced, clumsy, lonely, feeling great attachment to you while she is also manipulative? I personally know an extremely manipulative woman who while being extremely manipulative also was inexperienced, naive, etc.

If you marry her, you want to do that from a place of confidence, not from a place of self doubt.

When you talk to her, my advice is, don’t talk to her from a place looking to feel better, to dispel your suspicions. Talk to her in a different way than before, ask her questions so to get to know her. Ask her questions about her life, her childhood, her view of people, get to know how she thinks.

Don’t get stuck in one view of her. Get to know more and more of her…

anita

Hi Anita,

I didn’t reply but read your thoughts when you posted.. Ignorant of me I know and I hope you’ll forgive me. My heads been all over the place the past 3 months or so..

Abit of an update.. I spoke to her and took what you said into account. That we should understand each other better.

She told me she did enjoy the attention, laughs and closeness she shared with the guy at work. That she never thought of dating him per say, mainly because he wasn’t Muslim but nonetheless, she enjoyed having someone new and a friend when I’d left.

Her view is that she couldn’t ever picture him like that. She says she’s confused as to how she felt about him.. But felt as it wasn’t an ordinary friendship – she described him as her new best friend and that she felt comfortable around him.

This bothers me a lot – especially that she told me it was nothing more than friendship and she’d never seen him in that way.

I feel as if I will break up with her.. Not only because of the lies but because I can’t take that me leaving for a new job led her to someone else that she’d talk to me daily about.

Can you share some advice? Without talking about manipulation.. I just need an outside view. She never touched and in her eyes she says it was never flirty.. But she just enjoyed his company and maybe if he was Muslim, things would’ve been different. @anita

Here it is: “I proposed.. She confessed.. Guidance please” that’s the topic. It was started June 3, 2016 by “Lostsoul92” and the Category is Relationships.

anita

Dear Adam992:

If the other member still visits the website, if you reply to his thread, maybe you can communicate.

I read you want my input except any mention of manipulation, so I will respect your request. I re-read most of your original post on this thread.

In your original post you wrote: “She’s told me the game meant nothing, that she had no feelings for him, he meant nothing” That was a lie on her part. Simply, not the truth; the opposite of the truth: that game meant a whole lot to her. She did have feelings for him. He meant a whole lot to her.

Thing is you know it from your own observations of hearing what she said, and most convincingly how she said it, how she sounded and how she looked when she talked about him.

There is no debate, not in my mind, that this is so, what I just wrote. These are facts.

You had no trouble with that guy or with the girlfriend BEFORE she fell in love with him. See? I just wrote it: fell in love with him. Ouch! That is painful for a boyfriend to watch his girlfriend falling in love with another guy. No wonder it hurt you, no wonder you felt scared of losing her and of more pain. So, no wonder you started overthinking, struggling. On one hand you were in love with the girl; on the other hand she was in love with another guy.

This is it, David. She was in love with that other guy. What you saw and heard in her eyes, in her voice when she talked about him is what you know you heard. You didn’t make this up, didn’t imagine it. She fell in love with him in real life. She had loving thoughts about him. Most likely, she imagined being intimate with him, this is what people think about, wish for, dream about when they are in love.

As you requested, I will not mention manipulation. I will go as far as assuming there was none- and maybe there wasn’t. So assuming there was none, then this is the possibility I see: she was so in love with this guy that she just had to share her love story with whomever will listen and you happened to be the guy she was talking to. You know how it is when someone is in love… so engaged in those feel-good thoughts and having to talk about them? Well she talked.. to you.

Now, David, can you live with this? And should you? Should you go on with her? Marry her? This is all up to you, of course. But one thing I do insist on: do not deny reality- that will hurt you no matter what choice you make. See it for what it is, don’t struggle by closing your eyes to what is real. What is real is: she was in love with that guy. Go from here…where? Share your thoughts and feelings with me, please.

anita