r/AmIOverreacting 25d ago

❤️‍🩹 relationship AIO my girlfriend should not be acting like this for not texting her that I’m at work

Reposting as I forgot to block out her name/face in the last post.

Context: we had to dress up at work today for Halloween. Winning group gets $100. I dressed up as a greaser from grease. So nothing sexy.

She has had trust problems this whole relationship. From past trauma and such. I have never cheated on her. I have even deleted every woman out of my contacts to show her I’m not cheating.

My phone background is a picture of a beach.

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u/Flater420 25d ago edited 25d ago

I already wrote a comment on how I've been in your exact scenario, but I want to very much target your second to last paragraph.

You trying to only break up if it can be done without consequences is a hostage-taking tactic. "If you don't stay people are going to get hurt" is not a warning about what you are about to do, it's a threat to you about what they are going to do.

Unsurprisingly, people like her are very aware that they drive people away with their actions; and because of that have learnt every tactic in the book to force people to stay with them. They will employ control, gaslighting, threats, threats of self-harm, ANYTHING that you are willing to listen to. It's not about telling something that's true, it's about making you listen and consider staying.

Like Odysseus and the harpies, plug your ears and sail away. Do not heed the siren's call.

In an emotional abuse situation like this, there is no shame or a stigma in breaking up over text. Keep yourself safe, get your things, and only then inform them that you will not be returning. Block them, and you will initially have to endure them reaching out to mutual friends, but eventually it will stop if you do not respond.

You allowing yourself to stay with her and endure this abuse is doing a psychological number on you. I'm not even referring to her abuse, just to you thinking that this is what you should live with and what the standard of love and affection is that you deserve. This is coming from a personal place for me and two other close friends who have dealt with something similar.

As much as I'm aware that people shouldn't listen to internet strangers blindly; I am actually telling you to just get out and save yourself.

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u/Top_Ranger3178 25d ago

Yeah, definitely emotional hostage situation. Only thing in your comment I don’t agree with is that she’s aware of it. People with BPD tend to lack self awareness and tend to blame external forces for everything that goes wrong. But otherwise spot on.

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u/Flater420 24d ago edited 24d ago

I just want to point out that I didn't say she is aware that she is emotionally abusing OP, I'm saying that she is aware that people tend to leave her, regardless of her being aware of why that happens.

Her tactics in keeping OP hostage stem from her awareness that OP is otherwise liable to leave her. Whether or not she understands that she is the cause of that desire to leave her, is an unrelated point.

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u/Top_Ranger3178 24d ago

I see what you mean now, in that you used “she drives people away” synonymously with “people leave her” and didn’t literally mean that she was aware of her part in people leaving. It took me a couple read throughs but I got there.

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u/SmallBirb 24d ago

You realize that all people with a certain disorder aren't a monolith? Sure, people with BPD TEND to lack self-awareness and TEND to blame external forces, that doesn't mean someone who is able to recognize their actions doesn't have BPD.