Auntie SparkNotes: A Burglar Ruined My Relationship
Dear Auntie:
I’ve been dating this girl for about two years now and everything’s been great. We moved in together about five or six months ago and I was totally ready to start talking rings and picket fences. But now it’s like I don’t even exist.
I was at work about a week ago when someone tried to break into our house. My girlfriend was home and called the police (they think that our three dogs barking and growling scared him off). She called me and told me what had happened, so I raced home only to find that she was sitting with our friend Jim. She called Jim first. She told me after she was done talking to the police, they asked her to call someone, since her parents don’t live in the same state, and the first person she called was Jim. He’s a great guy and everything but I’m the boyfriend. Why would she call him first? I asked her about it later and she said she doesn’t know and that she really wasn’t thinking. She was so frazzled that she just opened her phone and Jim was the guy she called.
And now it all feels weird. Where Jim used to come over maybe two or three times a month to visit, he’s over here two or three times a week. (He’s an awesome guy, but still.) I heard her on the phone with her mom and she said, “Yeah, I was shaking and everything, but like I said, the second Jim came, I felt better. He was making fun of me too, saying just because someone tried to break into the house, doesn’t mean I should cut off his circulation.” And then, “Hm? Oh! Yeah, he came right over from work.” She didn’t say anything about how I made her feel better or any other things I said.
It’s been about two months and I keep noticing things. When I asked her to see a movie, she said she had already invited Jim over to hang out with us, so can he come too? The entire drive, they ignored me and talked. When we got into the theatre and sat down, Jim was in front of me and she ran to sit next to him, leaving me on the end, with Jim in the middle. When we drove to and from, she wanted to sit in the back with Jim. When we got home and Jim left, he and I shook hands and I went upstairs, only to look out the window and see that she had walked him to the car and they hugged. It was just a hug, but it definitely lasted four or five seconds.
When she came upstairs, I’d finally had enough and I asked her point blank if she likes Jim. She blinked and made a face and sort of stuttered and crossed her arms and said, “No, I’m with you. I wanted to be with you.” I woke up about five hours later and she was gone. And I go downstairs and I see her on her phone, on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and I heard, “I don’t know, Mom. I didn’t really think about it, but maybe I do. I mean, whenever something good happens now, I want to tell Jim.”
Auntie, what happened? Why am I suddenly losing her? I’ve thought of trying to take her out for the weekend or something to try and reconnect, but I suddenly feel like there’s no point in it. I want her to be happier with me like she used to. Would all this be happening, but with us, if she had called me first after the burglary attempt? She said she wasn’t thinking, so maybe she called him by accident? Why am I not good enough to talk to after that experience? She doesn’t feel safe with me? Do I upset her? Am I a bad boyfriend? I’d rather not just give up, because I really love her and want to spend my life with her, but is there something I’m doing or not doing that’s pushing her away from me and towards Jim? We spent two years together building and working on a relationship and forming a connection. That’s not something that can just disappear. Her feelings for me are still genuine, aren’t they? I ask because I read somewhere that love doesn’t die or fade. It either exists or it never did. And she did love me, which means she still does, right? Can you really spend two years with someone you don’t love? She’s a sweet girl, so any pretending or games on her part isn’t an option. Please tell me what’s going on and what I can do.
Well… have you tried crying for three or four hours into a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos? Because that’s certainly what I’d be doing if I were you, what with this whole scenario being the worst kind of sucker punch to the most vulnerable part of your heart. You must feel like you’re in hell. I’m sorry.
With that said, I also must urge to stop tormenting yourself with what-ifs and if-onlys surrounding the scenario where a burglar tried to break into your house and you were somehow not the first to find out. I know it seems like the catalyst to your current state of heartbreak, and it’s certainly a weird twist, but the attempted burglary and your girlfriend’s reaction to it are just one very tall tree in the forest of your misery. The real issue — as you’ve already figured out — is that she evidently has feelings for this other guy.
What you may not realize, though, is that the problematic part of that equation isn’t the feelings part; it’s the evidently part. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s upsetting to think that your girlfriend is harboring the warm-and-fuzzies for someone other than you — but the best girl you’ll ever meet will still be attracted to other people, no matter how much she loves you and no matter how authentic your commitment. So while the fact that your mutual friend apparently caught her eye is unfortunate, it’s not a sign on its own of anything seriously wrong (and it’s certainly not your fault). What makes your girlfriend’s crush an issue is not that she has it, but that she’s indulging it in a way that’s as obvious and brazenly disrespectful to you as it is damaging to your relationship. And on that front, I’ll be honest: the post-burglary phone call might have been eyebrow-raising, but my jaw just about hit the floor when you described the way she invited this guy along on your movie date, sat next to him instead of you, and made you play chauffeur both ways while she cozied up to him in the backseat of your car. Your girlfriend may be sweet, but she’d also have to be an idiot not to realize how grossly inappropriate that behavior was and how it would make you feel. And now that she knows you’ve noticed, the biggest question is how she’ll choose to behave moving forward.
Which brings us to this: You don’t gain anything, and neither does she, by playing along with the pretense that there’s nothing going on here. And while the conversation you avoided the first time around is definitely hard, and potentially heartbreaking, it’s one you really need to have. The worst-case outcome of talking about it is that your girlfriend admits that she’s in love with your friend and doesn’t want to be with you anymore — but even that is preferable to the assured outcome of not talking about it, i.e. the continued torment of knowing absolutely nothing except that something is obviously wrong. You want the truth, here, even if it hurts.
And so, the truth is what you’re going to ask for, as calmly as you can. Sit down with your girlfriend, and say an in-your-own-words version of the following:
“I love you and want to be with you, but only if you feel the same way about me, and I can clearly see that your attention is focused elsewhere. Please just be honest with me, and tell me what’s going on.”
That’s going to be hard. What comes next is going to be harder: Whatever your girlfriend says, you need to be able to hear it without flying off the handle and getting angry or accusatory, even if it’s really bad news. (If she denies it again, calmly remind her about what you’ve observed — namely, her bald-faced fawning over Jim on the night of your movie date — and repeat the part where you’d rather know the truth than have a bunch of sunshine blown up your behind.)
Unfortunately, I can’t promise you that this conversation will end well, or the way you want it to. Despite the poetic things you’ve read about love being a light that never goes out, the truth is, it can and does fade. People fall out of love nearly as often as they fall into it, for all kinds of reasons. Some relationships aren’t built to last and burn out after a matter of months; some chug along for years only to derail when a crisis or life change rattles their foundations; some last decades, only for the people in them to discover that they’ve grown over the years in ways that make them no longer compatible as a couple. It is sad but not unusual for people roughly your age, in relationships roughly the same length and seriousness as yours, to realize that they’ve made a commitment they don’t actually want to keep.
On the other hand, it’s also not unusual for people to be briefly distracted from their relationships by the novel, ego-stroking thrill of a shiny new flirtation — only to come to their senses and recommit all the more enthusiastically to the partner they’ve realized they truly love. And for your sake, I certainly hope your girlfriend ends up being an example of the latter category, not the former, and that you guys make it through this rough patch only to come out stronger and better on the other side. But whatever the outcome, know that you will handle it — and remember that you deserve nothing less than to be the honest, earnest first choice of someone who loves you as much as you love her.
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