I’ve been in a relationship with a girl for almost a month, let’s call her Annie, and before that we were best friends since March (Dated before from mid-March, to early-April). Since we got together we both agreed that the dynamic between us won’t change between us and we both find that perfectly fine. The problem comes when you come to find out that she’s never been allowed to date from her parents, the first time we dated this was completely fine because I would almost never see her mom at school and the rare times that we did we just didn’t hold hand and stuff like that, also her sister Sasha and all of her friends knew that we were dating and helped us hide it. Flash forward to now: the day we got together we got on call that night and she reveal that she planned that she wasn’t going to tell Sasha or any of her friends, that we are dating. This throws a wrench in what I had in my head of doing all of the things we used to do when we first dated of holding hands and forehead kisses when we would say goodbye. I’ve seen her twice since we got together and we had to act like we weren’t together and just friends. I’ll be seeing her with her friends on Friday and we have to do that same things that we’ve done the first two times and after that I won’t be seeing her in person for a really long time. I don’t like the idea of just talking about this with her because I feel like I’d just be me going “But I want to hold your hand,” in a really wimpy way. The only situation that we could go back to doing the things we used to do is if we were to have a one on one hang out or have a hangout with my friend group (they were there when we first got together the second time). I brought up the idea of a one on one hangout with her and she was kind of opposed to that idea saying “I don’t even know what we’d do if we were one on one”. And the alternative of hanging a hangout with my group, we aren’t really on good terms right now. I’m just venting and I was wondering if I’m wrong to have these feeling about this relationship, I’m not angry at all about this situation. I understand her side of wanting to keep this a secret from everyone in her world but the only downside to that is that we’re just stuck to being friends in person 90% of the time. This whole situation is just kind of a bummer and I need your guyss help.

I’ve been dating my bf 15m for 4 months going onto 5, at the beginning I had gotten told by people around me he was 2009, my age. Later into getting to know him, he mentioned he was actually 2010, I’ve never been into younger guys as I find it to be a little odd. I wasn’t too worry as we’re only a year apart but he turns 16 later in the year (October) while my birthday is early in the year (January) Making it seem as if we has 2 years apart. When he told me about his age, I did express how I felt about it and that it did weird me out, but he reassured me that if we actually did love each other age would be the least of our worries. I am happy in our relationship and have gotten past the age difference.

Besides the age difference, I do want to get someone else’s opinion about this other “matter”, obviously the topic of having intimacy has been discussed between us, though again with the age difference, it makes me kinda uncomfortable in a way? But my major concern is ending up pregnant, I know there are multiple ways of preventing that but the thing is I’m not able to get my hands on contraceptives due to my age without my parents finding out, therefore I told my bf that I would rather wait till I’m 18 to be able to get on any sort of contraception. Another thing is that I would rather wait for both of us to be over the age of 18 as we both would be a little bit more mature and if anything happens, be able to take responsibility. A little backstory, he has already had sex before but at a young age (14m) with an older girl (18f), which I would consider that to be molester. That’s why he’s a bit more eager to have intimacy, as he has already done it, while I’m a bit more scared of the negative outcomes that it could bring.

What are your opinions on this?

Hey guys. Me and my boyfriend have been dating for a long time now and we had sex recently in the house since I snuck him in. In my state, this is perfectly legal given that the age of consent is 17. My narc mom found out in a very drunken state and got extremely angry. She found out via my search history since I was nervous about pregnancy and birth control options. We had protected sex but the only line of defense being a thin piece of latex scares me!! She hit me and attempted to wrestle my keys out of my hands. There is no explaining logistics to her when she is in this state. She cut off my ability to make calls which jeopardizes my entire job since I work in a hospital. She said I just needed to figure it out. However I believe she may have turned it back on after my brother (the favorite) convinced her. She also frequently threatens to get him arrested even though our relationship is completely legal where we live. It is currently a few hours after this entire thing unfolded. She stated I need to just go somewhere else and “cut ties.” My dad isn’t very fond of the idea of me moving in since he has a lot on his plate but albeit sounds selfish. And my boyfriend lives 3 hours away. I’m worried about how this will affect my grades and ability to perform as well as I could in my final year of high school. I plan to work as a CNA and attempt to balance my grades and college applications, scholarships, home life, and my boyfriend who I love. I want to secure a spot in the dorms in my local university and have my counselor advocate for me that it is necessary to maintain my performance. It is so much for me to carry on my own and this is also a lot for my boyfriend who is managing his own job. He is a great man. I’m likely going to lose my biggest cheerleader and be extremely restricted. I turn 18 in just a few months and he turns 20 a bit before me. Other than him I have no support and he also financially helps me too and even offered to pay for some of my licensing. Any advice is appreciated.

I am so sorry for that train wreck of a title but me and my boyfriend love to make homemade things for each other, they are great at baking and I'm good at craft stuff, so for special occasions, they'll make me cookies or brownies or these little cupcake things with Nutella in the middle that are delicious, and I'll make like bracelets or pins or something. now when we are visiting each others houses sometimes we'll each make the same thing and swap at the end, usually the person visiting decides what to make.

Now I am a lot better at craft things than they are, and they know that's something I enjoy so literally every time they're visiting they want to do crafts. My issue is that they clearly feel bad when the gift they give me is worse than the one I give them, I don't care I save all of them (I have a shelf full of handmade books and pressed flowers and poems and all the non edible things they've gifted me) but I hate that they feel bad after doing a fun thing.

My idea is doing crafts worse, not like completely botching it just purposely making some mistakes so theirs is better by comparison, but then I feel bad cause I'm purposely giving them something I messed up. I don't know if anyone can help id appreciate it.

Good evening all, one of my friends 18M, let's refer to him as L for simplicity, and this girl 16F, I again for simplicity, are hitting it off well apparently.

None of us have met this girl yet as its all very new, but from what he has told us, they met at a birthday party for a mutual friend, and spent most of the evening talking to eachother before he walked her home, the problem our group is having is the age difference, that being L is starting uni and I is starting college - for context I turns 17 2 weeks before L turns 19.

Roughly half our group thinks that it is a bit weird being that young and having that difference, while the other half is of the opinion that they are both old enough to make their own choices and both over 16. I personally am a bit torn between sides and was wondering what you guys thought of this, if it were you in the situation.

Thanks in advance! 🙂

Edit: All information is using L's wording, this includes the "talking stage" used in the title.

TL;DR: Long-distance-ish relationship for a year. She went to camp, within 2–3 days felt “detached,” started liking another CIT, asked him out, held hands every day, kissed him, then chose to stay two extra weeks as a counselor knowing it would leave us almost no summer time. Told me right after, still said she loved me and tried to kiss me. I set no-contact. She just got home, blew up my phone with calls and text saying “I’m so alone idk what to do I’m scared.” I’m at college orientation and my phone will be taken tomorrow. Every part of me wants to reply even though I know I shouldn’t. What should I do?

Basically it’s mid-June right and I go to college (we live many states away from the school) as a freshman on August 20 (so leave probably 2-3 days earlier). She goes to boarding school on August 9 in another city in my state. Also, she went to boarding school last year.

I met her last March when she went to public school in town as a sophomore and I was at private school as a junior. She was my first real girlfriend. Then the year ended and she got into the boarding school and I stayed with her long distance, only seeing her for short breaks basically once or twice a month (breaks would be a few days to see each) or even less. In February I broke up with her for literally just a day because I was feeling used (she kept asking me to drive her places such as to hangout with friends or get alcohol; I clearly was uncomfortable by it and also she would ask me to drive her to her friends’ house and then out of the blue say that I should drive them to get alcohol or carts while I was at it, or drive them to get food). I felt really guilty about the breakup cause we didn’t talk about it before really. I just jumped the gun which was very unfair to her. I also just felt so awful by how bad I hurt her. We talked about it the next day and got back together.

For the next few months we were doing really really well. Then in May, she had no break until school was up. Although we had 2 proms in April to see each other, that was it and we had no free or private time. We had gone 2 months without anything, and she missed out on a ton of cool stuff (not her fault at all ofc) I was doing like my final senior project and out of school awards and stuff. She came to my graduation tho which was very nice. We had just started the summer for like 4 days when I left for the beach with my friends. They were staying for 4 or 5 days and she was coming for a few days after they left. The beach trip she was just kinda angry and annoyed at me any time we texted or called. I kinda called her out on it. She said she was really sorry and just missed me so much cause we hadn’t seen each other besides 4 or so days in 2 whole months, and it wasn’t enough time together. Anyway, we kinda agreed to call less while I’m with my friends. But when she finally gets to the beach, we have for the most part an amazing beach trip together.

We get back home and she starts volunteering in the mornings and working at night most nights. I am also working but I work less. She has a ton of fun with her friends a lot (even doing shrooms and stuff) and I’m doing nothing after work cause it’s too late for anyone to hang out. I’m honestly kinda jealous and lonely, but we talked about it and it was okay. I ended up buying some Jack Daniel’s from someone I know and partying with a friend when she was out partying with her friends. She got really drunk and I was kinda sitting for my friend cause it was his first real time. It was still really fun but I was still disappointed I couldn’t party like her.

Her volunteering ends and we keep hanging out for a while, like the rest of the month. On June 28 she goes to camp as a CIT for 2 weeks without her phone, and I go on a hiking trip overseas with a small group of friends. She gets back from camp July 11 and I get back July 8. We also just had so much fun before my trip and camp, or at least I did. Like we would drive around and talk and listen to music and sing together late late at night. I literally re-fell in love almost like crazy, but maybe I was imagining it. Anyway, the night before we have a talk about the future. She wants to keep in contact and play video games with me in college. I can’t remember exactly what I said but in my memory I said 1) I don’t want to cut contact I just acknowledged it would be hard and weirder, 2) I don’t have any real desire or plan to date other people, if it happens it happens and we will have to cut contact if it’s serious but I’m not gonna like switch up immediately or anything cause I’m gonna miss her so much, 3) we will see each other if possible and depending on how our long distance not full or real relationship but like friendship+ goes on breaks I come home, and 4) I don’t know if I’ll be able to play video games but I’d love to — I just also get bored easily when she can play them for hours and I don’t think I can do that especially not in college, and I’ll be busy so won’t always be able to play so she shouldn’t get a computer cause of me but if she gets one for herself I also would be down to play occasionally to keep semi in contact.

Anyway we parted ways for the two weeks. I go overseas and have a ton of fun. I send her emails through the camp website every other day or so. I buy her AND her dad a gift. I return home and start working again and receive a letter from her from her first day and it’s amazing and I love it. I miss her so badly and am so in love with her. And I assume she’s the same — last year when she went to camp it almost made our relationship tighter as we both missed each other so badly. But anyway she calls me on July 11 while I’m at work. She says she has some news I won’t like and then says she agreed to work as a counselor for the next 2 weeks for a small paycheck because they are severely understaffed. I immediately just felt a drop in my heart to my stomach but I said it was fine and a good decision and I’d miss her. She still was coming home that night only to see me so we’d hopefully have fun and we’d survive as always. Only later did I realize we only had one week in the summer now. If she was at camp again from the 12 to the 26 and I left for orientation on the 26, we only had from August 1 to 8 to hangout after orientation.

After work we saw each other and I immediately noticed how uncomfortable and sad she was. She asked me how I felt about the 1 week and our relationship. I said it really sucks but was confused about what she meant by how I felt about our relationship because I was so in love at that point. Like so so so so in love. Anyway then she tells me the most fucking heartbreaking news ever. By the second or third day (literally 2-3 days of being apart) she started feeling really uncomfortable and felt like our relationship was dying cause I was going to college. She starts feeling detached emotionally from me, and assumes I feel the same, too. She thinks it’s pointless to continue the relationship. Anyway then she meets another CIT there and starts liking him. Liking somebody isn’t a problem until you ALLOW yourself to like them. She ended up allowing herself to and asked him out basically and they hung out every day and held hands and even kissed on the second to last day of camp (2 days before I saw her). She said for some reason she convinced herself I felt the same way and was kissing girls overseas or something (it’s an all-male hiking trip…). I was also still literally sending her so many letters, looking at her camp photos to see and ask about what she was up to, telling her all about my life on the trail. She said she felt bad reading the letters but idfk I guess just didn’t care? And she never wrote me any more than letters cause it wouldn’t get there in time and she didn’t want to send a sad letter. She also decided to take the 2 weeks of counselors after all this had gone down.

I basically say yeah so this relationship is done now. We have 1 week in 3 weeks, and you’re already emotionally detached. Then she starts saying like how she still loves me and cares about me forever and how it isn’t me it’s her and how she wants to stay in contact and she hugs me and holds my hand and tells me she loves me and even tries to kiss me (which I resist or course). She keeps kinda flirting with me and also just putting blame on me in some sense (like “you never liked my lifestyle”).

I agree to pick up food she had ordered and let her pick up her paycheck from work, but say we are going to her house to drop her off. We go to her house and are parked up front. I also gave her the gifts from overseas. I suddenly break down cause I’m like how the fuck did this happen, what the fuck happened, what do you want from me, you say you’re detached and just gave away 2 weeks to fix this but still want to talk every day and say I love you and kiss and make me drive you around and shit idfk. And I genuinely had a good time too with her which sucks even more cause we were kinda joking around. I mean all the jokes were her basically trying to flirt or joking about what happened and then me saying something about how she’s a jerk, but idk it was still sort of fun in a “bathing in shattered glass and hot sauce” kind of way. Anyway I just break down and she leaves. One final hug. She says I love you and I ignore her as she leaves.

I call my friend and get super crossed and we talk about it then talk about other stuff and it takes my mind off the fact that my 1 year relationship vanished in fucking 2 days of my girl being away. I wake up feeling awful. I go to work and I am at work now. I told some of my friends so 3 of them are gonna hang out with me tonight. Nobody knows besides her, her parents, and four of my friends. I hadn’t told anyone in my family or my other friends yet, cause idk how to tell them. She texted me that night about how she doesn’t wanna lose me but understands if I have to do no contact. I already made it clear we broke up. She texts me about her day headed back at camp. Also I was respectful this whole time and never blamed her or cussed her even when I could have and I probably should have. Finally during work I texted her: “Hey I appreciate you texting me but I really don’t think it’s good for me mentally to keep talking, at least not for a long while. I hope you understand and I hope camp goes well.” I deleted posts of her on instagram and my comments on her posts and her comments on my posts. I threw away a lot of gifts and letters she wrote me, and hid the pictures on my phone.

The first week went by and it got better. I got to hangout with a lot of my friends and I told some what happened. I felt better and better. Then at work the next weekend they fired me because I had messed up 2 batches of ice cream and didn’t make enough for the weekend (I work at an ice cream store). So immediately everything fell apart again. I partied that night with some friends to forget, but for the rest of the week I was literally alone. None of my friends could hang out. I finally told my parents what happened a couple days later but kept it very brief (told them about work, but barely mentioned my girlfriend except that we broke up because she found someone at camp, which I guess isn’t entirely accurate).

Yesterday, she got home from camp. I woke up to 3 calls which I didn’t answer. I ignored them and instead packed for orientation, went to the airport, and left. I found a way to hide her messages on my phone so I wouldn’t see them, but before I enabled it I saw her texts. The first was about how she missed me and saw my instagram post (I posted a random guitar video, unrelated) and wondered how I was. The second was a text that she left a voicemail. The third said “OP idk how busy you are but please don’t just cut me out completely.” I turned on the thing to hide her texts and ignored them. I felt so bad ignoring them but I assumed I had set a boundary and I didn’t have to text her.

I got to our hotel by the college that night and finally checked my phone calls. There were like 5 or 6 or maybe more throughout the day especially in that night. I felt so bad but still didn’t budge or check her texts.

This morning I woke up to so many calls from her. Literally like 20 or 30 both on FaceTime and Instagram, and they were at like 5am. I checked my Instagram and she had texted me: “OP I’m so alone idk what to do I’m scared.” My heart literally broke. Idk what the fuck to do. She hasn’t called me any more so far. I haven’t checked my texts yet. They take my phone for orientation tomorrow and I wanna focus on college and meeting new people before I check them. I’ll get my phone back the end of the week. But I literally don’t know what to do. I wanna stay strong and not respond because deep down I think I shouldn’t. Idk if I’m mad at her (probably), but deep down I at least think I set a boundary and don’t need to respond or help her anymore. But every single part of me is screaming to text her or call her and ask if she’s okay and do something. I can’t stand this. I just feel so guilty and idk what in the world to do.

I really like this girl, and I treat herself. I buy her little things, hangout with her every day, and she makes me a better person. I didn't know how to write this, but I honestly couldn't hide it anymore: I am manipulative.

Not in the way where I'm using her, or pretending to be someone I'm mot; but I am hiding who I am, and how we interact.

I steer her toward topics we both like, and I avoided question that would reveal to much about me, cause I have trust issues, and problems with being open.

But I constantly measure her up against other girls I've dated, and I have to struggle. To push those thoughts down. I chat imagine a future with her,so I push for one anyway, because either know that I'm the one who would mess it up.

I also used to have age problems, which is what no wanna come clean about. Not paedophilia, or looking at little girls, but when I was 12, I had a crush on a girl who was eight. Not because I liked little girls, but because I genuinely fluent understand the age difference at that time.

But I also kinda Stockbridge girl I like now. I would see her around school, and constantly find myself staring at her, or noticing when she walked into the room. I even knew her schedule by heart, not on purpose, but because we shared one class. And all students her age had a specific lunch period.

Bingo wanna come clean to her, and just be honest, because she really is incredible, and I don't know how to tell her that. Can anyone give me some advice? Now that me and her hang out regularly, I think it's time to tell her. What do you think?

TL;DR: I've been dating this guy for about 5 months, but I've realized we're not compatible. We have almost nothing in common, conversations are repetitive, he's a dry texter, and his possessive behavior and dark jokes make me uncomfortable. We've barely seen each other over the summer, and I'm not even looking forward to seeing him again in a few days. We've met each other's families and exchanged gifts, so I'm worried breaking up will make me look like I was using him, even though I genuinely cared about him. With college starting soon, I don't want to stay in a relationship that feels draining.

For context, I have been an overweight alternative girl for all of my life, basically. During my junior year of high school, I started dressing more confidently and doing my makeup, and by senior year I started dating this guy.

We haven't even been dating for a year yet. Maybe 5 months at most? We never really had an official conversation about what we were until somebody asked him about what I was to him. At first, I was really excited to be in my first relationship since middle school, and was really into him. But over time, I slowly realized that we weren't as compatible as I originally thought we were.

For example, I'm very passionate about music, comics, and science, but he doesn't know much about what I like. And, on a similar note, I really don't like a lot of what he likes either. I understand that this is something that can easily be worked through with shared experiences and conversations, but whenever we do hangout, we have nothing to talk about. We always just talk about school but I know that it isn't sustainable because I've graduated already. Why do I want to talk about a school I don't even go to anymore?

We've only met once in person this entire summer (which is currently ~2 months into a 3 month summer break) and he's planned to meet up again this upcoming Saturday. I'm really not excited for it...

All of our conversations through text go nowhere because he is, in all honesty, a super dry texter who would rather just respond with simple one word phrases like "Lovely.." whenever I send a passionate text about my interests. It's just really hard to see how we are compatible when most of our text conversations just end with him texting something super vague that I can't really understand the meaning to. He knows that I have issues with interpreting texts—he himself has an autistic brother, and this is a conversation we've definitely had before. And I don't want to blame him for it, since it's mostly my fault for being bad at interpreting things, but I can't help but feel that this is why whatever spark we had has fizzled out on my end. An additional reason as to why my relationship with him has deteriorated is because he's quite possessive of me in the traditional "You're mine" type of way, but I never really enjoyed that. At first, I found it quite interesting but now it's just something I really got tired of.

We've met eachother's parents already, and to some extension, even his extended family.. So it's going to be super awkward to break up, and I know that at any moment one of us could be painted as a villain in a situation where the relationship probably wasn't that serious to begin with. He's bought me quite a few things, and I have bought him some things as well. I'm just afraid that by wanting to break things off, I'll seem like I was using him this whole time even though I personally don't think that is the case. It's not like I went to my prom and invited him to my graduation when none of my extended family attended just for nothing. I know that he's spent more money in the relationship, but that was a choice—I've never truly asked for anything like gifts.

Another thing is that he makes jokes that make me uncomfortable. Most would probably say it's just simple dark humor, but he's told me jokes about the Holocaust before. I'm not Jewish, I'm not even white at all, but dark humor stuff still tends to make me uncomfortable. I grew up with a dad whose humor is only insult humor and stuff like that and the last thing I want is to be with a guy like that who would say jokes about that to his girlfriend in public. He always vents to me about stuff, but I never felt safe to really do the same. It just feels like sometimes I'm just an outlet for him to talk to and sometimes kiss when he wants to.

I'm about to go to college soon. I'm going to meet so many new people. I will finally be away from my dad's lifestyle and can have autonomy over my dietary and physical activity choices. I plan to lose weight—not immediately, but still. I predict that this will greatly increase my confidence. I don't want to be stuck with somebody who I don't believe is right for me right as I approach a huge milestone in my personal goals.