I am a needy Boyfriend, I "NEED" some advice?

Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to read past the first few sentences. I stopped at “we have been together for 6 months.”

If you know you’re needy, clingy or however else you wanna describe yourself….and your ways are pushing your girlfriend away….stop. You know the problem…so fix it. See? Easy.

I could only read the first sentence and the last sentence. Probably your last sentence sums up what you should do, give her space

wow.. thanks.. I talk to much.

1. Use more paragraph breaks and spacing.

2. Slow down.

3. Take a breath.

4. Smell the flowers. Look at the trees. (Nice flowers! Strong trees!)

5. Listen to some music.

6. Chill.

A lot of us here are a lot like you—or some just used to be.

Look, you can’t base your life on anyone else’s, no matter how wonderful she is. And I’m sure she is. But you have to give her space all the time, and not just wait until she pushes you away complaining that you’re smothering her.

You’re smothering her. Don’t do that.

@CyanoticWasp Thanks man.. just got a lot on my mind. I write free flow unfortunately. Just how my pee brain seems to work.
I am off to a baseball game. Look forward to everyone’s responses

Give her space. Stop calling her. I have bipolar issues myself, so I can understand the manic phases and times when you really are not yourself. It seems like she is willing to take this on and deal with it, but that isn’t a pass to ignore when your actions hurt her or indulge in your episodes.

Therapy is good, if that works for you. Personally, I have gotten little out of it. Some things, so it wasn’t a complete waste. If you are on meds, stay on them. Slightly hypocritical I know, I have my own bouts of going off meds because I feel fine, and I do fine… for a time before things crash spectacularly. You have to want to do these things, therapy and meds, for yourself, but it doesn’t hurt that you seem to have a woman that might want to be involved, so keep her in mind if the thought hits you to ditch counseling or medication.

Stop calling her, find someway to redirect your obsessing. Good luck.

Sounds to me like she is more interested in her girlfriend right now than she is you. Sorry, but you need to accept that she is acting like she wants out of the relationship, in my opinion. Are you being seen for your mania?

If it were me, seriously, I’d sit down with her, and flat out ask her if she wants out of the relationship. If not, she needs to help work on it, as well as you. If she does, then let her go.

Needy? Check. Bipolar? Check. Call too much? Check. Worried when no contact? Check. Need constant reassurance? Check. Drive women away with my neediness? Check. Put gun to head? Ok. There are limits. But only because I don’t own a gun. Now that’s a scary thought.

I can’t stop myself. Whenever something goes wrong in a relationship, I’m sure it’s because of something I did. When I don’t hear from someone I am involved with, I start going bonkers from anxiety. If I’m manic, I’ll get irritable and accuse her of all kinds of things, which usually drives her away.

My wife doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t know when I’ll get angry with her again (because we are not intimate enough) and try to drive her away. She’s afraid of being hurt. I can’t say I blame her. I don’t know why she’s stood by me this long. I’m glad she has, but anyone else would have pushed me out the door a long time ago.

Here’s the thing. I don’t know if I can give you any useful advice. I can say I hear you, though. I’ve tried a couple things. One was asking for some kind of contact every day. Even if it’s just to say I can’t contact you today. I’m convinced that nobody really loves me or values me—or that their love is easily broken, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Well, that’s changing actually. I can see now that my wife really does love me. No one would put up with me if they didn’t. But she does have boundaries, and that worries me, because if I go off the deep end one more time, I’m gone, she said.

I am slowly learning to trust that they won’t disappear if they don’t talk to me in a few days. But I’m still subsisting on at least one little email per day. I can handle that. Or if there’s an explanation for the lack of communication—I can handle that.

But after a while, things build up inside me, and I feel more and more alone, and I feel like I can’t reach out because I know I’ll be slapped down—and I don’t know what will happen. Usually some kind of fight. I don’t remember the last time my wife touched me in any way other than a sisterly one. I don’t push it because the last time I tried she told me no in a pretty disgusting way. I wanted to be sleeping anywhere but there at that time.

It was something our therapist had suggested but it entirely missed the point. Sex, for me, is about intimacy. It’s not just getting off. I have no idea what our therapist could have been thinking. I’m not going to tell you what he said we should do. Just know that it is about the stupidest thing anyone could think of. What do you expect from a sex addict? (Our therapist, not me).

Ok, I’ve been ranting and I’m not sure what to tell you other than you have to find a way to trust her if this is going to work. To trust her, you have to develop really good communication skills. That’s hard to do on your own. So couples therapy or a couples retreat or a couples support group could help. Good luck.

One more thing. People like you are very sensitive. That may wreak havoc in a relationship, but it is very helpful in understanding others and in writing. FWIW.

For the record, people can annoy each other even in “loving situations”. B. maybe you should lighten up with the strategics and just take things as they come.

You need a hard core hobby or interest to channel your energy! You have made this girl into something she is not which is an object of desire. She is a woman and deserves to be treated nice and not smothered! You are obsessing and you know it. So find something else to focus your time and energy for yours and her own good! My suggestion would be martial arts as it burns off tremendous amounts of energy and builds self esteem and trains you to focus. Good luck!

I don’t know anything but i would say play it cool make space. Bring your self to a calm “you”
keep your options open. If both of you love each other then i believe the problem will be solved in matters of time. There is always ups and downs

You need to pick-up a hobby or raise a pet to get you off the negativity and develop your patience. Give her space and make her happiness the center of the universe for now.

I say option #1. You’re going back to therapy, great, work on yourself, it can only help the relationship. And commit to working on yourself, to continuing to grow, regardless of what happens to this relationship.

Ok, so… I had a bf like this once and he did not stay around long.. my choice. It can be creepy. I prefer that if the guy wants to see me he will let me know and he will give me the choice to see him with no argument about it. Should I be busy, he needs to understand. But needing space… IDK.. I only used that excuse when I just didn’t want to see someone. But that is me.

See a relationship should be like an “H”.. The vertical sticks in the H should be you and your girlfriend. The connecting line is the things you have in common, and the time and experience you share. This means if you remove one of the sticks of the H, it becomes more unstable, but you still have a standing “I”.

What you are trying to get is an “A” relationship, which is bad news for everyone involved.

Work on your “I”-ness, on being comfortable in yourself and by yourself, and a healthy “H-relationship” will follow.

tl;dr

I skipped ahead to the end and honestly, “grow a pair and give her space/time and be a man and get better.” seems to be the best of the options you listed.

That novella you just wrote indicates you’re thinking about this way too much.

Learn to be ok without her otherwise you’re being codependent which is serious lady repellent.

Option 1

@nisse I liked the ‘H’ vs ‘A’ analogy… with the clever ‘I’ of course! excellent!

Man, I participate in your pain. I know how hard it is to be destructive to your self and enviromnet, to have issues taking over you without your control, to want to be a better person and not succeed enough.

I got out of it though, and now I am a fully functional, healthy and balanced person. It took me about 7 years of intensive self help and therapy. But I live a really, really happy and wonderful life now.

So my first advice to you, is to continue therapy, for as long as it takes, and not ever give up your right to be happy with yourself. Always be sure that you feel well @ the therapist and that you feel you are in the right place and never fear to move on and grow on.

On you more immediate problem, space is the key word. Your girlfriend feels invaded, you keep promising space and then entering it unwanted. she will not feel comfortable until she feels she has control over her own space.

The other thing you need to take into account,both of you, is that you will not change overnight. All of these unhealthy situations will continue to happen for a while. She needs to know that and make a descision:
Either she is prepared to go on this journey with you, and in that case she will also grow and evolve: After all, to have chosen you She might also have an issue with boundaries… maybe she could come with you sometime to therapy and learn how she could deal with things better, so that when you have an outbreak she remains safe and doesn’t get sucked in?

Or, she might decide she doesn’t want this realtionship. In that case you would have to respect her choice.

Good luck, man :)

Thanks everyone. I apologize for the length and the depth. More of anything I think I needed to get it off my chest. I am working on myself. I went tonight to a baseball game with some folks. Of which, I knew one person. Ended up making a few new friends.
Good thing!

@Keysha so I asked her last, just said, “do you want out” she said “you know the answer to that, if I wanted out, I would have left” so I feel that is a good start. I have been focusing on myself the past few days. I have hung out with old and new friends. It has been a true eye opener, as I immersed myself in her. I am suppose to see her tomorrow night, so I am hoping that goes well. Shes a very special person, that has stolen my heart. but we will see!

You are obviously taking the right steps to get your relationship on the right track, and to me, that shows how committed you are to this relationship. You say that she is a very special person, but you sound like you are very special yourself, by recognizing you have a problem and trying to fix it. I think this is going to work out for the best for you. Good luck!

@chyna Thank you very much. I am trying. Its hard, b/c she has been pretty angry with me since I haven’t given her space/time. Yesterday I did not contact her at all until I got home (which asks me to contact her at night to say goodnight) we had a good convo. she wanted me to call into a talk show that a medium was on. I asked some questions about a good friend of mine that recently committed suicide. I asked if this was affecting my situation, he said it was fouling up things with my current relationship with my gf. It was enlightening.

kind of funny.. I posted this about the same time last year.. Shes gone.. I am a lot happier without her.. life stress still sucks, but I am trying to work through it.

Good on you sir :) One life lesson learned and one more trap you’ll know to avoid :)

So it did work out for the best. Thanks for the update.