She Wants Friendship, But I Want More

Reader’s Question

Dear people,

I just told my girlfriend that we can’t be friends any more because I was extremely jealous of her behavior when she was on phone with other people. I didn’t know what to do. I was verbally abusive and tried to control her life. I love her very much and she loves me too, but we can’t stay together because we both get sad when we see each other sad.

When I try to make things better it always gets worse. She screams and does not want to answer my phone calls and so on.

I do not want to lose her. She also wants to keep contact with me but I want more.

How can I be friends with her and at the same time not be involved? She always calls me every day for coffee or for dinner. I go with her because I want to but every time I come home I am sad.

Please help me.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Relationships that contain jealously, suspiciousness, possessiveness, and control quickly become overwhelming. Most people just can’t tolerate that kind of behavior. When you say you want more — she sees that as more pressure, more guilt, and more obligation.

She is trying to control the emotional pressure by controlling the contacts with you — only coffee or only dinner contacts. She’s giving you a chance. If you keep pressuring her, she may need to stop those contacts as well. We can’t force someone to love it. Making someone feel pressured, obligated, guilty, and responsible for our sadness is the quickest way to lose them. Love must be comfortable, reassuring, and trusting to work. Our sweethearts can’t be viewed as our possessions.

You didn’t mention your age but I would suspect you are fairly young. For this reason, you might consider counseling to help improve your relationship skills. If you are behaving in this manner and you’re over 30 years old, this would be a more severe problem.

If you are unable to be friends without demanding more from the relationship — then you need to go your separate ways. It’s like purchasing something — what you see, is what you get. She’s offering friendship — that’s it. If you can’t live with that offer, you need to move on and not keep forcing her into a relationship she doesn’t want right now. It’s better to part friends now, than enemies later.