My girlfriend is incredibly insecure.
She once told me that had she known initially that I had female friends, she would have never dated me.
My girlfriend has had 3 exes before me, 2 of them having cheated on her, and 1 of them having abused her before. It has created a lot of trauma in her, and has also made her a more insecure person.
I once used a language exchange app called HelloTalk to find language learning partners. I used it since 2019. That is also where I found my girlfriend (we are IRL now though)—though I’ve never used it to find a partner before. She has had multiple former male friends on there who ended just flirting with her or fooling around with girls on there. She told me back in April-ish that she felt uncomfortable with me talking to women on that app. I showed her my chat history multiple times and initially told her (1) that I found value in talking to any kind of learner, regardless of gender, but after considering her previous experiences, especially with men on the app, I told her decided to completely using the app (I had not used it since March at that point). However, she is and was still upset at what I initially said.
There was another time where she checked my WeChat history with me to see who I was talking to, and there was a girl who I had responded to—she posted on her moments a travel photo (not a pic of herself), and I asked about her trip and where she went to.
A few days ago, she stumbled across one of my likes on Instagram—a thirst trap video. I wish to say that I would never like such content and I have voiced to her multiple times how much I dislike porn and thirst trap content in general. I did not even remember the video when I saw it. I believe I must have accidentally tapped or something leading to a like while scrolling through reels. I would regardless never like anything like that. When she initially discovered it, she said she’s never talking to me again, and deleted me and blocked me on everything except text message, and when I called her, she said she could not trust me, referencing how I have talked to other girls in the past, and what I initially said about talking to female learners [1] on HelloTalk. I have never done anything frivolous with any other women ever—in fact, she’s my first ever girlfriend. I have shown her my chat history too.
There was an intermission of peace before that culminated into our second argument where she accused me of not trying to make her feel comfortable and not trying to understand her. She also referenced the woman who I replied to about their travel photo, and accused me of being interested in other women’s lives, and asked me what the point is of such an unnecessary interaction, if I’m somehow not “interested in other women’s lives.” I merely viewed it as interacting with another contact. She also asked me why I did not delete all of the women who I don’t talk to much on my WeChat.
I said I felt it was a double standard that she had a bunch of male friends and has talked to men she is not close with (mainly coworkers but a few outside of work), and she has been EXTREMELY hung up on that, and it’s been revolving in her mind everyday, and one of the few things pushing her away. She told that if I had told her I felt uncomfortable with her having them, she would have deleted them all. However, I don’t, in fact, I don’t see what the point is in ignoring half of the population.
What I’m looking for here is not “breakup amicably”, but salvaging the relationship or just something to steer things in a better direction.
TL;DR: My girlfriend (24F) is incredibly insecure, to the point of even feeling uncomfortable with me interacting with any women in general, despite no history of cheating or frivolous acts. I asked her before and she merely stated that it’s the act of me interacting with them itself that makes her feel uncomfortable. I’m not sure how to navigate this difficult situation and steer things in the right direction.
I am not looking for breakup advice.