Long-Term Moving forward in my LDR

[Zagreus]

I've been with my fiancee for about 5-6 months now. We've had many fights, yet seem to grow from them. The fights are relatively strong, with mostly us fighting about her feeling like I'm being too controlling, and trying to push back against that. She'll cry, get angry, I'll win her over, she'll rationalize, and we'll move forward, with her happily accepting her submission, which I reward. I see now that whenever I experience this kind of push back, it is from me not tailoring it appropriately, causing her sudden panic.

I have my issues to deal with, and so does her. To give an example of the fights I used to cause month 1-2, I'd question her love for me, made her pick me vs friends and family in her life, and hurt her in other ways to "test" her. At some point around 2-3 months in the relationship, we had a pretty huge fight that ended in her saying that she wanted me to try and improve on my issues by my birthday, which is up soon. I don't exactly remember exactly what it was over, I believe I was guilt tripping her and she noticed my unfair manipulation after she did submit, then still felt resentful about that and gave me some words. At that point, it seemed like the relationship was at a standstill in terms of our trust and collaboration growing from one another. And I was repeatedly emotionally abusing her, which I regret now.

After that happened, things had been extremely smooth sailing for the most part. I cemented my role as her daddy/nurturer, and her being my little girl. Great strides came from this, she opened up to me about some serious things that happened in her childhood she never told anyone else, and she claimed she was thankful she was able to tell me. I got her to quit bad habits like smoking and her occasional drinking. Her grades are up, and she thanks me for giving her the motivation to do well in school so she can be with me. She comes to me for advice and I provide. She's extremely open with me now, even if sometimes I have to tease this out(she's avoidant). I've given her a safe word for whenever she feels she's "shutting down" when hard topics are being discussed, and I'll tell her to breathe, relax, and she's able to tell me. She thanks me for this. Tells me she loves me dozens of times a day. We spend a lot of time together. We genuinely enjoy each other's company greatly. I enjoy being her nurturer, and she enjoys being my little girl. Maybe that sounds weird to others, but this is the dynamic we both prefer and naturally went for.

We had some relatively mild fights during our last months. Sometimes I am mean, and she gets sensitive and starts crying or gets in her feelings. One time, she played a small, harmless prank on me in a video game, and laughed with her little brother. I told her she couldn't do that, because she was the only one that earned the right to play with me, and when she shows that in front of others, it gives them the idea that they can joke around with me as well, which was not something I've given them the right to. Anyways, she ended up sobbing and apologizing for like 10m straight. I told her it was ok, just don't let it happen again. And she agreed and moved past it.

Our last fight seemed to be the worst. This happened 3 days ago. And it was completely my fault. She sends me a photo of herself. Then later on that day she calls me. I had been drinking, and she tells me she was playing in the snow with a female friend, and she got back 2 hours after curfew. And that a cop car passed by and her and her friend had to hide in a bush. I got irrationally irritated at this, and told her if she went to jail she would ruin everything. And the thought of her in handcuffs was repulsing. She told me the most they could do to her was give her a fine, and she wouldn't go to jail for that. I was still mad for some reason however, and I picked on her selfie she sent me earlier by telling her, her face looked fat. She told me she had been in the cold all day so it looked puffy, but I told her she was hiding obesity from me. I picked on her for a few mins more, and she claimed she didn't want to talk on the phone anymore, so I hung up. She texted a paragraph later explaining that she wasn't fat and nothing would happen with her being out at night, but I ignored it. The next day she sent me two photos of her stomach in the mirror captioned "Im hiding obesity tho".

This triggered another mini fight, but it seemed to end. Later on that day, we called. Things seemed fine. Something happened and I guilt tripped her again or something. She told me she was ready to drop all her friends for me, because I was the most important thing to her. And that she already had, dropped her guy friends and other girls I told her were no good for her. So I told her yes, drop them for me. And she was half way on her sentence of saying I will- then had some kind of breakdown. Like it kicked in that I was being an asshole and we had a fight over it. She ended up telling me that she required friends, people to talk to and connect physically, and that wasn't something I was able to provide for her yet. So I told her I wasn't good enough for her then, and that made her get angry at me saying I was guilt-tripping her. She was crying pretty badly, and told me that I was being over-controlling, and that if I made her choose her friends over me, she was going to break up with me.

She also told me that something changed. That she no longer saw me as "beautiful or perfect", and the comments I had made about her being fat triggered a disgust response in her. And that she saw a side of me that she didn't see before, and maybe I'm not the person she thought I was. And that she was going to be looking closely from now on to see when I'm being over-controlling in our relationship. I lost control there for a second. It made me extremely angry for her to hold over me the breaking up thing. Things calmed down.

The next day, I took back the reigns and told her, that the next time she feels I am being over-controlling/manipulative, she needs to come at that in a different way, so that we may work it out. If she threatens me with breaking up again, I was going to be the one to walk away. She said that she did try, very hard, but it wasn't getting to me. So I told her for future conflicts. And she agreed. She also agreed to let me know ahead of time whenever she was going to hang out with a female friend, so that I may want her to cancel if I want her to spend time with me instead. But that I will allow her to see her friends. And that was a nice compromise. Today she's back to her old self.

As you can see, there is heavy dysfunction on both sides. I've made great strides in curbing my abusive tendencies, because I really like her and don't want to destroy her. It still comes out sometimes, but the overall relationship has remained in a positive path. Even after we fight, we commend each other for being able to talk and work things out. Mostly, this is on my part as a man in being able to handle her feelings, making "footnotes" of what we need to look out for/what we learned from the fight, and on me showing that I understand when I was being unfair to her.

I want to be able to be a more stable person, not just for her, but for myself. This means dealing with that desire to progressively push boundaries, and remove her freedom completely. I am fairly confident, that when she comes over, this would be extremely easy. Because I am all she'll have, in a new country, only me to rely on. Plus, the sex will solidify her already extreme levels of attachment.

What I don't want to happen, is for me to keep devolving back into my faulty patterns. And do something that I will regret due to not being able to salvage. I know that we shouldn't put so much importance on women, but when it is a case of it being indeed my fault, and not hers, it would hurt me a lot.

Any advice? Also, if anyone's curious. She is 19, I am 22. And she is coming to live with me when she finishes highschool this year. First, visit me for a few weeks. And if things go well, return permanently.

 

[Will_V]

Moving forward in your LTR - to where exactly?

You haven't said much about your own life, what you want to achieve, and how she will (or won't) help to make it happen. It seems to me that you are reacting emotionally rather than logically, and expressing yourself through your girl, rather than operating independently with a clear vision of what you want to become in both yourself and the relationship. Everything in your post is dominated by your desire to possess her and control her, so who is leading who?

What would you do if she walked away from you? Would you survive, or is she and your ability to control her all you've got going? Can you easily find another girl who would satisfy your expectations? If not, that's a far bigger problem than anything you've outlined here.

And the risk that she will bounce is far greater than you realize, no matter how insecure her position. A woman is an emotional creature, especially when desperate. She thinks nothing of tomorrow, nor even often of her own safety. That's why she will argue and fight and test an angry and aggressive man who is fully capable of doing her any amount of physical harm, when she doesn't like something that he's done or who he has become. You risk falling into a spiral of aggressive and possessive behavior that will end with her somewhere else and you in a very bad place.

My one piece of advice is this: detach yourself from your girl, and focus on yourself. Build a lifestyle of multiple women and great experiences that is good enough that even if she walked away from you, you wouldn't care less. Then you can carefully cultivate a dominant frame (one where a girl is chasing you, and not the other way around) that enables you to keep her without resorting to aggressive behavior that she can easily see through as desperation.

You are also very young, and there's no good reason for you to be shacking up with a woman when you could be sampling life on your own terms, building yourself up, making money, travelling, having fun and fucking lots of women, and moving along your 'hero's journey' to a point where you have seen so much and experienced so much that no woman could ever rattle you or distract you from your own path.

I'm not judging you for being dominant in the relationship. I think it's good for a man to be highly demanding of a woman. That's what a good masculine frame is. But the difference is that she should always be able to walk away, and never call you again, and you wouldn't need to do a damn thing about it. It is making her want to stay despite knowing she can leave, chasing your frame and jumping through hoops for you out of her own free will, that is the essence of real game.

And it all starts with who you are without her.

 

[Zagreus]

Moving forward in your LTR - to where exactly?

To a place where I can ultimately curb my personal dysfunctions by realizing the weaknesses that I have and will overcome

You haven't said much about your own life, what you want to achieve, and how she will (or won't) help to make it happen. It seems to me that you are reacting emotionally rather than logically, and expressing yourself through your girl, rather than operating independently with a clear vision of what you want to become in both yourself and the relationship. Everything in your post is dominated by your desire to possess her and control her, so who is leading who?

Both her and I have a desire to breed children. So that's where I want it to progress along to. You're right, it is a desire to possess. However, about 98% of the time I am detached from her. What happens is, we'll have a fight, I'll realize I'm being retarded, and I'll detach myself from her. Then she'll start chasing way harder, I'll catch feelings again, we have a period of very lovey dovey time, then eventually she'll do something like not be as available, and I'd get irrational thoughts that she didn't love me anymore. Then I'd "test" her, we'd fight, she'd submit, etc. I don't do that anymore, the last few times I felt like that I didn't try to engage her; because I realized my thinking was not correct. I suppose that she is basically becoming satiated, because I give her too much attention/validation, and that's why she seems less affectionate at times. Until she's pulled back in by my detachment. I guess my issue is that I have nothing else going for my life, so she is priority in my mind. I got a job now, and I start school next semester, so I won't be having that issue. I don't have an issue with "sticky" attachment, it's all momentary. So if something else stimulates me, then she doesn't really exist in my head. Or anything else for that matter. But yeah, very insecure behavior. She must like me a whole lot, because she tends to rationalize all my insecurities, which have been present from the beginning, and her love for me seems to only grow. Btw, I wasn't the one to bring up children or marriage with her. For months she kept talking about how much she loves me and wants to marry me and give me children. And that I'm her soulmate.

What would you do if she walked away from you? Would you survive, or is she and your ability to control her all you've got going?

Survive in what way? It wouldn't spiral me into depression or something if that's what you're alluding to. This isn't my first rodeo, and my rships have been steadily this erratic. I just go spend my time into something else.

My one piece of advice is this: detach yourself from your girl, and focus on yourself. Build a lifestyle of multiple women and great experiences that is good enough that even if she walked away from you, you wouldn't care less. Then you can carefully cultivate a dominant frame (one where a girl is chasing you, and not the other way around) that enables you to keep her without resorting to aggressive behavior that she can easily see through as desperation.

To detach myself and think more rationally is the best advice I need for when I get like this. The goal would be, like you said, to be outcome independent; and remain level-headed. My main issue is that I get really bored, and then start desiring to do spark some shit up. I should have other outlets for this that isn't a woman. Especially one that I desire to have something with. I was not really aggressive btw. Don't picture an angry yelling man trying to coerce someone into control. No. I was composed, as always. My energy level was way more calm than hers, she was the angry and crying one. I tend to appear borderline uncaring. I was a little irritated the day before while drinking and poked at her insecurities, but that was it as far as my emotions go.

You are also very young, and there's no good reason for you to be shacking up with a woman when you could be sampling life on your own terms, building yourself up, making money, travelling, having fun and fucking lots of women, and moving along your 'hero's journey' to a point where you have seen so much and experienced so much that no woman could ever rattle you or distract you from your own path.

What if that's not enjoyable to me? My desire is to raise a kid, and build them up a certain way. Having sex with women doesn't bring me much pleasure outside of just the momentary conquest. I like relationships more. If I'm not able to attach myself to a girl, I lose complete interest in doing anything with her. I agree that I need a path.

I'm not judging you for being dominant in the relationship. I think it's good for a man to be highly demanding of a woman. That's what a good masculine frame is. But the difference is that she should always be able to walk away, and never call you again, and you wouldn't need to do a damn thing about it. It is making her want to stay despite knowing she can leave, chasing your frame and jumping through hoops for you out of her own free will, that is the essence of real game.

Your last sentence really hit home for putting things in the correct perspective. I appreciate it

 

[Zagreus]

Small update on remaining detached and it's effectiveness.

She called me earlier, we talked for a bit. Somewhere down the line, she mentioned her friend asked her to go snow boarding with her today. I just told her "When do you have to go?" She says "Now", so I respond with "Alright". Moved the conversation along, a few minutes later she told me she cancelled, because she wants to spend time with me instead.

Clearly a test on her part. I'm also pretty sure she said "he" at first, then when she told me she cancelled, she used "she" when mentioning her friend. Perhaps the "he" was another test.

 

[mirj23]

What's the longest relationship you've been in? Also, when did you propose in the timeline of your 5-6 month relationship? Some people definitely get settled down earlier (nothing inherently wrong with that imo), and it does seems like settling down makes sense given your personal goals. But I ask because the number of problems and fights (and this level of analysis about them) seems alarming for what is typically a more honeymoon-like phase, at least in my understanding/experience.