Me – M31
my gf – F29
Together 18 months
Tl;dr: my gf put me in an impossible situation where I was massively vilified. She’s now prioritising the people that vilified me at a time when I need her. I’m over asking to be her priority, what do?
My partner (F29) has a friend(F29) who lives in another city, who had been extremely ill, and was hosting a party when she recovered. My partner and I were invited. This happened last September.
When my gf had visited, they’d had a fun kind of girls chat, where she revealed sexual details about myself which are pretty private. This resulted in jokes being made about me and some sexual things I like to do (read: I’m a bisexual man with bisexual desires) in this whatsapp group.
I saw this on her phone when we were looking at something, and I was not pleased. I was hurt and said that it’s really not ok.
On the weekend of the party, my gf mentioned to me laughing about how one of these girls had a special nickname for me in this group. I was obviously like what. the. fuck. This isn’t funny, and it’s actually pretty upsetting. I am about to go into a party full of people that I don’t know, who may at this point all know about my extremely private sexual life. It’s bringing back flashbacks to school when everyone thought it was hilarious that I’d kissed a boy.
I am on edge. I speak to my gf, and I am really not ok at this point. She eventually comes to see it my way and is deeply deeply deeply apologetic. She contacts one of the other girls in the group, the main person behind these names and jokes for me, let’s call her Gollum, and communicates with her about how what has happened really isn’t ok and is a big issue.
Anyway Gollum then goes and has a panic attack at the recovery girl’s house, claiming that I’m furiously angry and threatening her, making a big song and dance (at this point I have never met or spoken to Gollum, and my gf spoke with her to establish that this really isn’t ok and that they’ve all fucked up quite badly).
The party went pretty much ok, I turned up, I was cool, no problems from me. Lots of people were on edge about me due to this girl throwing a big panic attack, I had no idea about this at this point, but I did notice the tension. The party ends and some people wanna go out, I’m like I’m going home. Around 6am, my gf and I had a MASSIVE argument over the phone, can’t really remember how it started, and it’s a load of drama for everyone. Really not great that I lost my shit with her, even worse that it was kind of public.
For info – my gf was previously in an abusive relationship, and a lot of these people I think were watchful for her to fall into the same kind of negative relationship.
Cue me being painted as this enormous monster and villain, the same kind of abusive awful person as my gf’s ex, and essentially me being cancelled. This then progresses into this friend (recovery girl) then withdrawing from the friendship, and a few months of her being extremely sad and depressed.
I’m obviously devastated and deeply embarrassed. The narrative is very much that I fucked up big time, I ruined everything, and I feel like a monster. I am still feeling absolutely awful about it.
In retrospect, and after speaking to a therapist, I’ve really come to realise that I was set up to fail. I was put in a fairly outrageous situation, and whilst my reaction could’ve been better, I was essentially being judged by a heavily weighted jury after reacting in a way isn’t really all that unreasonable after being outed and publicly mocked by the person you trust the most in the world.
The effects of this whole situation on our relationship have been immense and I am still recovering in some ways.
This brings us to this weekend.
Recovery girl is visiting, and she and my gf have repaired their relationship. I do not want to join any of the group events, because whilst I do understand, the villainising and punishment that I felt that I got from these people was extremely painful for me. I don’t want anything to do with them. They are apparently understanding and forgiving, and also very regretful of how they treated me. They want to put things right, but the whole experience was pretty traumatic and painful for me. They also noted how Gollum is known for this kind of insane behaviour, and the panic attack thing is apparently not the first or the last instance of her doing this to cover for her own mistakes, and they’ve since cut contact with her.
I’ve been asking my gf if she’d want to join me with some friends on X or Y activity this weekend, and she’s planned something with the recovery girl every single day. She said that she could ‘swing by X activity for a G&T, but not too late’ one of the days.
I can’t join anything really with her friends and recovery girl, because I really don’t feel like I can. It’s really just too much for me at the moment, I’ve just come out of hospital after appendicitis went very wrong, and I just need things to not be really intense and complicated for a little while. I spoke to her and said how I was feeling, and she made out that me not joining them this weekend is a choice, and that it’s not reasonable for me to be asking her to prioritise me and support me for one of these evenings.
My point here is that this weekend is really intense for me, and she’s chosen to do something with someone that hurt me quite a lot every single day, and hasn’t prioritised anything that I’ve asked her to do. This is all at a time, when I really need her support. She kinda put me in this situation. It’s kind of all down to her. I feel like she has an emotional responsibility to make me feel like I actually matter here, and I’m left feeling like my feelings are pretty much entirely irrelevant, and that I’m choosing to feel this way.
She came back to me after we discussed it, to try and put things right, but for me it’s a bit too late. I really don’t want her to do these things under duress. This isn’t the first time she’s left me high and dry when I’ve needed her, and certainly not the first time where she offers to put things right after things develop into an argument, and I am starting to lose complete faith in the relationship.
I’m feeling really hurt and wondering what to do moving forward. My partner has really let me down in so many ways over this and I’m really struggling with how it’s only after a fight that she offers to put things right. This is just one example of many. Am I being unreasonable for no longer wanting her to put things right?