What is going on inside her mind? She is the woman I currently date.

[noname223]

I will dive deep into the issue. But more detailed information here is a thread about my situation with her.

I do the symbiosis thing with her ;)

Actually, I cannot believe that dating apps seem to have worked for me. I have made some changes in my profile gladly. This increased my almost non existentent success. I am so thankful. I had a match with her on 2nd January. She texted me first. I am not good at that. There are 3 issues. She...

sanctioned-suicide.net

Here my latest post about this issue. But I think my theory about the sex thing is too much overthinking.

Spoiler: Last detailed post on her

I think it might be soon over between us two.

Our contact gets less and less. I have the feeling she might be consistingly lying since our first date. I have often have asked specific questions whether she has doubts and whether I have done something wrong. The last days she said she always feels tired and sleeps and cannot text me frequently anymore.
Todays she send me zero messages thus far. She told me she feels too ill for our date on Valentines day. And still she goes to work. She tells me she is so busy and overburdended with her job. But I have the feeling this not the full truth. I have the feeling there is something that she dislikes about my personality and she does not openly say it. If it is over I think one thing that will hurt me the most is her lying to me so often. And hide her real feelings.

I have theories of what has happened so it came to this. The most likely one seems to be the following. It is what has happened between us sexually at our first date. But I cannot really see where my fault is. Her approach to sexuality is weird. She initiated almost everthing. I think in our second or third week she started to send me nudes. Not full nudes. And not with her face. But still nudes. This made me wonder. I was not sure what to think about it. She clearly wanted to do sexting with me. I think she did a couple of times. First I was hesitant and finally I took part of it and I enjoyed it.
We had phone calls. And later video streams. In one stream she started to take her clothes off. Also in this instance I wondered. But thought well okay. If she wants that. I can enjoy it. Then in our next video stream it escalated further and we both masturbated in the stream. Fully nude. We had a deep talk about it and I thought everything was fine. And yes there were no problems for her with that not any. And I thought she initiated it everything is fine.

Then our first date. She often talked whether I should stay overnight at her home. we have a distance of 3 hours and she knows I need sleep. And being 6 hours in a train on one day is a little bit much. We both agreed that I stayed with her. We also talked whether we would have sex on that date. We talked a lot about that. And she said it is pretty unlikely. She thinks this could happen at our third date (in contrast to hert first thoughts about it.) And well I had no problem with that. I did not want to pressure her on that in anyway under all circumstances. We talked whether a guy should bring flowers to the first date as a present. I perceived her as ambivalent. Idk I brought her two flowers and her favorite chips to our date. And later she told me in a stream with a friend that really would have liked to hit me in my face for that. I was really confused in that stream she insulted me quite often in a "funny way". But some jokes sounded pretty serious. I asked her afterward and she brought only excuses she struggles to interact with new people. My theory is she considers present as moral corruption for sexual intimacy. It sounds weird and I would not have considered that. My therapist also was surprised about that. I only understood that retrospectively. We hugged and kissed on that date. But I think soon after I gave her the present she started our first sexual interaction. And I thought everything is fine. I already described what we did. I was very cautious all the time and asked for allowance in almost every single step. She later reassured me in that and confirmed that. She had a sexually abuse partner once. She initiated the most intimate thing we have done. She took my hand and guided me. But she told me sex would be too intimate for her for now. I fully accepted that and exceeded no pressure .Soon after our intimacy she cut herself. Which worried me a lot. But she blamed it in on a guy that aggressively harrasses her, sends her dick pics. And that school/her job overburdens her. She also insisted on that yesterday. I would not be my fault. She always insisted on that. But I am not sure anymore. I wanted to persuade her to block him yesterday. Maybe this was wrong. But I think it messes her up a lot. I think it is also bad for us. Idk. No message since yesterday 9 p.m. First we texted several hundred messages a day and had phone or video calls daily. After our first day it reduced to 100-150. And yesterday it was around 50. And today zero from her side. Furthermore, her messages lack any effort. I think there were some truth bombs in the video call with her "funny" insults on me. Damn this shit hurts as hell. It is not over yet. But damn this fucking hurts. Not sure how I Will cope with this.

So at the 2nd January we started texting. Soon we were over a couple hundered messages per day. I thought she might be the one. It started to become sexting sometimes - she was the one who initiated it. Our video call also became very sexual. All of that decreased my suicidality a lot. My suicidal thoughts became way less. I was less reliant on the help of this forum. We had so much contact it nurtered and comforted my soul. I never thought I could feel this happy. It was astonishing how much my desire to die decreased. I also became two times severely paranoid/psychotic in front of her. She knew what that was and her reaction was perfect. Very compassionate and empathtic. She asked me whether I have contact with other women. I was fully honesty and burned bridges to the woman I dated beforehand. She postponed our first date a lot. Then we had our first date. It became sexual. But I asked for allowance on every single step. And most of it was initiated by her. However, she cut herself after we were intimate. Which scared me.

Our relationship (we are not together yet) changed since this first date. She told me she is insecure. Her body gives her weird signals, she has a stalker and her full time job as a teacher is a living hell and overburdens her. But our rituals changed too. No more good mornings, no more good nights. Instead weird laughing messages as response. We had a video call together with a friend of mine where she insulted me in a joking way. But they were so many and it felt like at the core there might be some truth in these jokes. I asked her afterwards she apologized and told me these jokes were in no way meant that way. Instead she likes me a lot. We wanted a date on Valentinesday. She said she felt too ill for that. She still went to her job though. I think it was an excuse. She told me in her opinion it goes too fast for her between us. She would like to slow it down. I think she feared we had sex on that date. The weird thing is she initiated all the sexual stuff where did this change of heart came from. Our texting became less and less. But she openly told she feels so fucking overburdened by her job and stalker. "I simply cannot do it anymore!" She sounded very desperate and at the end of her ways to cope. She also told me she has sometimes time periods wher she needs to be alone. She is then all by herself to regain energy. I asked her a couple of times whether I have done something wrong. And whether I am the reason that our communication is almost non existent now. But she always denied that. However, I still noticed all the changes in her behavior since our first date.

Yesterday we texted more and I was a little bit more optimistic. Today it were only a few messages. And the next two days are her full days at her job.
I am not sure what to think about all of that. It makes me paranoid and I realize I need to trust someone to be together with someone. So far I she has not lied to me. Or at least I never noticed it. Maybe I am a little bit too naive. I never was in a relationship. But I should also trust her. I once asked her to be fully honest with me. And she replied to me it is the job not me. I don't have much experiences in something like that. My therapist considered it a pretty bad sign that our communication is close to zero recently. Today she sent me 9 messages combined with mine they were 23 messages. I think the worst for me would be if she lied to me all the time since the first date. I think this could cause deep trust issues for me in my interaction with coming potential significant others. I think the lies would hurt me the most. I really askeed her specifically. Maybe it is my paranoia. But my therapist thinks this is also a natural reaction. However, the dating app woman also told me something like that happens from time to time. I still feel very insecure. She wanted to slow it down. Maybe she has doubts. I really think she has doubts. I felt so fucking happy when she texted me again yesterday. I even considered to use my dating app again. But I decided against that. I would have a guilty conscience. I think I have to trust her. But damn this could hurt me so so much. She dodges any potential date for a second date.

 

[quietism]

There's this activity I must of done so many times when I was younger. "What is one word you'd value most in another person/yourself?" You know, like honesty, passion, confidence, trustworthiness, respect, whatever. I always found this activity incomplete, like this wasn't really a good way to describe a person because honesty can come through total disrespect and low confidence, i.e. they are all kind of mutually exclusive traits that contribute to something else which is important. I've spent a long time thinking... what is that something else, that I really care about, that'd be a shield against either side of the social connection getting paranoid, scared, shamed ...?

Accountability.

There's this video I like - the slow breakup. Personally, I think this is really common in relationships, but I wish the idea had some kind of statistics or research.

Ghosting, cheating, doxxing, revenge porn, and the slow breakup - arguably all the 'worst case' outcomes in a relationship, and an understandable source of paranoia, all share a lack of accountability. Honesty isn't really central to preventing these behaviors, neither is respect, of course it's not wrong to say it's dishonest or disrespectful, but it's less accurate compared to calling it a lack of accountability. Because a person holding themselves accountable to a tough situation or a breakup would not do these things.

Said differently, I think making mistakes and/or accidentally hurting others is not the end of the world, but learning how to move on from them and keeping accountability is really important. Because many people don't, and that status quo is incredibly dangerous. In the long run it's the lack of accountability which hurts people, not the mistake.

Yes. This situation sucks for you. It's clearly very important to you considering how much you wrote about it that you were willing to share. Limerence, or maybe more accurately new relationship energy, is a really, really special feeling so I can totally understand that part. From what you've said, putting it plainly, you don't know if she's lied to you. You don't know if she trusts you and you're having it a hard time trusting her, in part because of her behavior, and in part because of your paranoia. And you'd like to build that trust, right? Without making it weird or anything? The unknowns and uncertainty is tough, but maybe there's a way to reduce that. Accountability means receptiveness to difficult but necessary conversations, of course it's a very delicate thing. "Here's what I've been feeling, how do you think we could make this healthier and better in the long run?" would probably fare a lot better than "Have you been lying to me?" for example.

You wrote in the other thread that "She is unbelievable how much she can text while she is at work." But this post makes it sound like that's changed. Asking this directly might not go so well, but you haven't really been able to talk about how that change has affected you, right? Maybe you could find time the next week or two where you can both meet in person? Signposting that it's gonna be a tough conversation, but also that she's important to you and you want to make up. Open ended, focussed on planning how to build accountability together with communication and not through blaming/shaming or restricting behaviors. That's what I think I'd do, anyway, I hope this isn't too much unsolicited advice.

 

[noname223]

There's this activity I must of done so many times when I was younger. "What is one word you'd value most in another person/yourself?" You know, like honesty, passion, confidence, trustworthiness, respect, whatever. I always found this activity incomplete, like this wasn't really a good way to describe a person because honesty can come through total disrespect and low confidence, i.e. they are all kind of mutually exclusive traits that contribute to something else which is important. I've spent a long time thinking... what is that something else, that I really care about, that'd be a shield against either side of the social connection getting paranoid, scared, shamed ...?

Accountability.

There's this video I like - the slow breakup. Personally, I think this is really common in relationships, but I wish the idea had some kind of statistics or research.

Ghosting, cheating, doxxing, revenge porn, and the slow breakup - arguably all the 'worst case' outcomes in a relationship, and an understandable source of paranoia, all share a lack of accountability. Honesty isn't really central to preventing these behaviors, neither is respect, of course it's not wrong to say it's dishonest or disrespectful, but it's less accurate compared to calling it a lack of accountability. Because a person holding themselves accountable to a tough situation or a breakup would not do these things.

Said differently, I think making mistakes and/or accidentally hurting others is not the end of the world, but learning how to move on from them and keeping accountability is really important. Because many people don't, and that status quo is incredibly dangerous. In the long run it's the lack of accountability which hurts people, not the mistake.

Yes. This situation sucks for you. It's clearly very important to you considering how much you wrote about it that you were willing to share. Limerence, or maybe more accurately new relationship energy, is a really, really special feeling so I can totally understand that part. From what you've said, putting it plainly, you don't know if she's lied to you. You don't know if she trusts you and you're having it a hard time trusting her, in part because of her behavior, and in part because of your paranoia. And you'd like to build that trust, right? Without making it weird or anything? The unknowns and uncertainty is tough, but maybe there's a way to reduce that. Accountability means receptiveness to difficult but necessary conversations, of course it's a very delicate thing. "Here's what I've been feeling, how do you think we could make this healthier and better in the long run?" would probably fare a lot better than "Have you been lying to me?" for example.

You wrote in the other thread that "She is unbelievable how much she can text while she is at work." But this post makes it sound like that's changed. Asking this directly might not go so well, but you haven't really been able to talk about how that change has affected you, right? Maybe you could find time the next week or two where you can both meet in person? Signposting that it's gonna be a tough conversation, but also that she's important to you and you want to make up. Open ended, focussed on planning how to build accountability together with communication and not through blaming/shaming or restricting behaviors. That's what I think I'd do, anyway, I hope this isn't too much unsolicited advice.

Thanks a lot for dedicating so much time to this very helpful response. I will talk with my therapist about the options I now have. And I will consider what you have written. She has very weird relationship to meetings in real life. Something my best friend also considers very weird. Maybe a conversation in a video call could be a compromise.

Anyways. Sendings a lot of hugs and thanks a lot for your compassionate reply1 :)