relationship advice

Advertisement

I’ve lived every possible failed romantic story, and I’ve heard countless ridiculous excuses for bad behaviour, trust me, but blaming a heavy piece of furniture because you said another person’s name is one I've never heard of before. I think it’s clear that something is off about this situation. The problem is, what can you do about it when YOU JUST FINISHED MOVING IN TOGETHER? How does one proceed?

25-year-old boyfriend accuses girlfriend of "making stories in her head" after he calls her another name: 'I don’t even know any Olivias. I’m exhausted from the move, it’s hot out, and I was carrying a heavy piece of furniture.'

We all have that old friend from high school who was secretly our crush back then. They’re not in our lives anymore, aside from the yearly happy birthday message or some random like on a picture here and there. They’re just a happy, wholesome memory, about the first times we felt something for somebody else, floating on the internet.

28-year-old man refuses to stop messaging his highschool crush while he's in a long distance relationship with another woman: 'I am making him choose me or her'

Advertisement

In life, we're sometimes confronted with very difficult decisions, some about our career paths, some about our finances, and others about our love lives. It's a tale as old as time: the mean wife makes the husband decide between his friends and her. But in this case, I think the mean ones are the husband's friends, and the wife is not even bringing up the decision.

41-year-old man allowed his friends to pressure him into organizing a hiking trip without his wife: 'They have also made remarks implying that my husband should prioritize their trips over plans he has made with me'

When the birthday requirements are over the top We definitely deserve some form of special treatment from our loved ones on our birthdays, and if we are lucky enough, we get it. Having said this, some people demand a little bit more than special treatment and command week-long tributes, constant attention, praise, and presents. All the while believing those requirements are an obligation for the people around them. Beliefs like that are really hard to shake, and that’s exactly what happened to…

30-year-old woman wonders if she exaggerated by telling her 28-year-old boyfriend to plan his own birthday dinner: 'He has been staying with dad because “I ruined his birthday”'

These blessed phones Let’s start by saying that going through phones is NOT okay. There is nothing we can do now because the protagonist of this story has already gone through one and found things she shouldn’t have. The only thing we can do now is deal with the aftermath of what came to light.

29-year-old woman goes through her 35-year-old girlfriend's phone and finds out she is planning to leave her: 'Whole time she was miserable and apparently using me which she won't say she is because we live together and split bills'

Advertisement

When the household chores won’t do themselves I can’t say how many times my mother has tried this technique with me when I was a teenager, surprise: It never worked. I’m not saying I don’t do my household chores now; in fact, I just put all my clothes in the washing machine, I’m saying it didn’t work THEN. I had to learn this all by myself when I became independent, having countless issues with roomies.

24-year-old girlfriend decides to only do her laundry and dishes and leave her slothful 27-year-old boyfriend to fend for himself: 'You can’t really help me help you. The only way to take something off my plate is to do it yourself'

When should our nitpicking stop? In these modern times, there's a pretty widespread idea that our partners should be there to satisfy our every need, and that we should be so pragmatic as to leave them ASAP if there is a very minor box they don't check. Evidently, I do not subscribe to that way of thinking, and today I'm going to explain why.

44-year-old woman considers leaving her boyfriend over a pillow: 'I just feel like I've run out of ways to calmly communicate why this is important to me'

Who determines our relationship to love and marriage? At first, I thought this was yet another story about a guy getting cold feet right at the moment he is asked a big question. This is how it always goes for me: everything seems to be going fine, and at some point, I decide to bring up some variation of the ‘what are we?’ question, and all we had goes up in flames.

25-year-old woman asks her 27-year-old boyfriend about clarity on their future and he breaks up with her: 'He later said he spoke to his mother and she said he should marry 6 months after finishing postgrad'

Advertisement

We’re not born knowing how to not be anxious around love, and our first experiences with it are filled with all-or-nothing scenarios. I remember how I felt every time my high school sweetheart didn’t immediately text back. I would succumb to the deepest pit, thinking my life was definitely over. At that age, it’s very hard to tell the emotional mind that the other person might be occupied and has not spend its afternoon thinking about how to destroy you.

17-year-old boyfriend wonders if its okay to not want his same age girlfriend to go to a girls night out: 'I was unable to go to the girls night because I was a boy'

The movies that taught us how to act and feel when in love forgot to mention stuff like mortgages, inflation, and the cost of airplane tickets. When we enter a partnership, we do so without knowing what pervasive bad habits our loved ones have and what damage they’ll eventually cause in our relationship. That unknowingness is, in part, good because if we knew everything from the get-go, we would never form any kind of couple.

Frustrated husband considers leaving his wife due to her repeatedly making bad major life decisions over the last 10 years: 'Am I being resentful and unfair?'

Some errors, like forgetting a name, missing an appointment, or saying the wrong word, may be read as expressions of a wish or a conflict that has not yet surfaced through words. Seeing it through that lens, the fact that the girlfriend from this story missed the flight might not be ‘just carelessness’; instead, it can signify a much deeper truth.

24-year-old guy considers dumping his 21-year-old girlfriend because she missed a $650 flight to visit him that he paid for: 'The day before the flight, we barely even talked, and she just seemed so nonchalant about it'

Advertisement

Marriage vows typically contain a phrase that refers back to the “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine” idea; the way we think about that union has been ingrained in us for centuries. However, when one thinks of that, one thinks of shared belongings, goods, food, and shelter, not about claiming authorship for everything our partner has done before we were even in the picture.

35-year-old man insists on sharing authorship of a book he didn't write with his 33-year-old girlfriend: 'Were not even on the same lease yet and he wants to be on the spine of a book that took me four and a half years to write'

It's a tale as old as time, you say you don't like surprises, and your significant other hears: 'I've spent my life secretly wishing somebody would throw me a surprise birthday party', and the rest is history; or should I say: the rest is this story. Just to add insult to injury, some people approach gifts in a 'what I would like to receive' way instead of actually thinking about the other person.

23-year-old boyfriend throws a surprise birthday party for girlfriend and forgets to include her and her friends: ‘It was four people, his best friend, a mutual friend, my roommate, and her friend I didn’t know’

relationship advice money problems married life healthy relationship Relationships - 45742597

Wife refusing to pay for moving costs as the husband received a $10k bonus for it, he doesn't see the problem in her having to pay half of the cost when she doesn't have the means: 'We're moving for HIS job, a move his company is PAYING for.'

Advertisement

When we are suspicious about our significant others, any minor detail can send us into a never-ending spiral of paranoia. For the jealous person, it takes only a glance, a comment, or an unrecognised object to confirm their worst fears. Yes, I’m already assuming the boyfriend in this story is not guilty as charged; otherwise, why would he ask people on the internet what else he can do to convince his girlfriend he didn’t bring anyone while she was at work?… Oh wait.

25-year-old girlfriend finds a lighter near the sink and assumes her 27-year-old boyfriend had someone else in the house while she was at work: 'I swear on everything that nobody came over and I genuinely do not know where the lighter came from'

I wish someone or something could protect us from the ridiculous fights we pick and the mistakes we make in our first relationships, but we are at the mercy of stronger forces and find ourselves pushed to go through that character arc alone. Everything feels so dramatic when we're in our early twenties; you couldn't pay me enough to go back, but no one can take the pleasure of watching and analyzing someone who's still in the trenches away from me.

22-year-old college student got dumped by his 21-year-old girlfriend simply for talking to a female friend: ‘From my girlfriend's perspective, she believes: I hid important information.’