You either need to give an absolute boatload more context or you're in the wrong.
What you're telling us is that your partner willingly helps his family and has stepped up to provide for his siblings in the absence of a father figure. On top of that, when you tell him to stop giving a shit about his family, he gets defensive.
Right now, all you're doing is dobbing yourself in as a heartless asshole for telling your awesome partner is somehow doing something wrong for caring about those he loves.
I'll start with the obvious. You agreed to an open relationship, and after a bit she…made use of that. You are entitled to almost every feeling you have about this EXCEPT being shocked: she's doing exactly what you discussed.
This path that your girlfriend is exploring turns out to be quite uncomfortable for you. That's more than fair: you don't know how you'll feel about something like this until it happens. It happens I was in an open relationship myself…also not by my choosing, although in my case that was the way it started and the default. I didn't love it either, but there were parts of it that were okay and parts of it that really bothered me.
While both you and your girlfriend don't have much dating experience, you don't even sound comfortable with the prospect of it or have much confidence in yourself that way. You say that you're worried that you'll never find someone as good as your girlfriend, but — that's the mindset of someone with almost no dating experience. The world is full of good, dateable people. People start out again after being divorced, widowed and so forth and find love again. I'm not trying to be unromantic and say your girlfriend is not special: rather think it's more romantic to know that you could be with someone else but are CHOOSING the one you're with. I don't get that sentiment from you; you seem scared by the prospect of not being with your girlfriend, which probably has something to do with her distress at seeing other people.
I could go on for much longer, but I had better not. What should you do?
I suggest being honest with your girlfriend that the open relationship is making you much more uncomfortable than you were expecting and asking her to put a time limit on her explorations. If she really is motivated by wanting some casual dating experience, then she can get that. If she still wants an open relationship after, say, a year, it's probably not about experience anymore.
The other thing for you both to realize is that while presumably the relationship is open for you in the same way it is for her, that doesn't make it fair, because (i) it is so much easier for women to have casual dating in a committed romantic relationship than men and (ii) you're not sure you want to do that anyway. (As for the first point, I am certainly speaking from direct experience. My former girlfriend was always honest with the men she met live about having a committed boyfriend and wanting a ONS only or a few ONS strung together. She would find willing men within minutes, and I can't remember a single instance of one backing out when they found out about me. For me, the only women I actually met were women in open marriages and although I stayed in touch with one or two, we never actually did something physical.) I think it would be more helpful for your relationship for you two to recognize that opening it up is a big benefit FOR HER and that there should be something else in exchange to make things better for you. The exchange thing doesn't have to be romantic or sexual: is there something in your life that you've wanted to explore but felt held back by being in a relationship?
Anyway, good luck. This is a tough one and might indeed end up ending your relationship…but it also might not. For someone you've been dating for so long and are otherwise so happy with, it's certainly worth trying to make it work.
I wouldn’t care.
Well done!
You either need to give an absolute boatload more context or you're in the wrong.
What you're telling us is that your partner willingly helps his family and has stepped up to provide for his siblings in the absence of a father figure. On top of that, when you tell him to stop giving a shit about his family, he gets defensive.
Right now, all you're doing is dobbing yourself in as a heartless asshole for telling your awesome partner is somehow doing something wrong for caring about those he loves.
I'll start with the obvious. You agreed to an open relationship, and after a bit she…made use of that. You are entitled to almost every feeling you have about this EXCEPT being shocked: she's doing exactly what you discussed.
This path that your girlfriend is exploring turns out to be quite uncomfortable for you. That's more than fair: you don't know how you'll feel about something like this until it happens. It happens I was in an open relationship myself…also not by my choosing, although in my case that was the way it started and the default. I didn't love it either, but there were parts of it that were okay and parts of it that really bothered me.
While both you and your girlfriend don't have much dating experience, you don't even sound comfortable with the prospect of it or have much confidence in yourself that way. You say that you're worried that you'll never find someone as good as your girlfriend, but — that's the mindset of someone with almost no dating experience. The world is full of good, dateable people. People start out again after being divorced, widowed and so forth and find love again. I'm not trying to be unromantic and say your girlfriend is not special: rather think it's more romantic to know that you could be with someone else but are CHOOSING the one you're with. I don't get that sentiment from you; you seem scared by the prospect of not being with your girlfriend, which probably has something to do with her distress at seeing other people.
I could go on for much longer, but I had better not. What should you do?
I suggest being honest with your girlfriend that the open relationship is making you much more uncomfortable than you were expecting and asking her to put a time limit on her explorations. If she really is motivated by wanting some casual dating experience, then she can get that. If she still wants an open relationship after, say, a year, it's probably not about experience anymore.
The other thing for you both to realize is that while presumably the relationship is open for you in the same way it is for her, that doesn't make it fair, because (i) it is so much easier for women to have casual dating in a committed romantic relationship than men and (ii) you're not sure you want to do that anyway. (As for the first point, I am certainly speaking from direct experience. My former girlfriend was always honest with the men she met live about having a committed boyfriend and wanting a ONS only or a few ONS strung together. She would find willing men within minutes, and I can't remember a single instance of one backing out when they found out about me. For me, the only women I actually met were women in open marriages and although I stayed in touch with one or two, we never actually did something physical.) I think it would be more helpful for your relationship for you two to recognize that opening it up is a big benefit FOR HER and that there should be something else in exchange to make things better for you. The exchange thing doesn't have to be romantic or sexual: is there something in your life that you've wanted to explore but felt held back by being in a relationship?
Anyway, good luck. This is a tough one and might indeed end up ending your relationship…but it also might not. For someone you've been dating for so long and are otherwise so happy with, it's certainly worth trying to make it work.
I am not Op. You will notice that but the lack of “OP” next to my name.
Compare them fairly, he’s not looking at hot girls. Just models and girls probably in swimsuits, etc.
Plenty of girls look at male models and their boyfriends don’t care.