Hi

I am a woman who has been in a relationship with a woman since January this year.  We met on a dating app.  She was the first person I connected with after being on the app only two days, whereas she had been on the app for a while since the break-up of a very long-term relationship two years previously.  We are in our late 30s and on the whole, pretty mature people.

When we had been dating a little over 2 months, she came to me and said she considered me her girlfriend.  My initial reaction at the time was, I must admit, a little surprised, but I was pleased and considered then that we were a couple.  We did not talk directly about exclusivity but I considered that implied in our conversation.  The very next day, she announced in the course of conversation that she would not be deleting her dating profile as she had made lots of friends through the site and would like to still be able to, as other ways of making friends (group events) etc make her nervous.

I was very shocked.  To me stating she would like to be my girlfriend, then stating the very next day that she would be keeping her dating profile up was completely paradoxical.  I expressed this a little in that conversation, but it was late and we fell asleep.  To be fair, she does have ‘looking for friends’ as the only option on her profile but this is a site that puts you in touch with people looking for dates.  It is not one of those networking sites with a ‘friends only’ section.  It is also something one of my friends could easily find her on.  She also had ‘looking for friends’ when she met me, and we became romantic immediately.

I kind of buried this conflict inside me for a week or so then spoke about it again.  She was kind of surprised I had a problem with it and barely remembered our previous conversation.  I was surprised she was surprised, and pretty concerned that we saw a key issue so differently.  We have had two more conversations about it over the last couple of months, the last of which was last night, during which I got upset as it had been building up inside me for some time.

For me, when a relationship becomes established, it is a given to disable to dating profiles, as a gesture to the new partner of turning towards them.  Her having a profile up represents to me a blurriness/lack of clarity in our relationship, that she doesn’t seem to see as a problem.  The most painful aspect for me was that as soon as this issue became apparent, I stopped relaxing into the relationship and it stopped flowing.  I turned a tap on my feelings and kind of ‘hardened’ inside.  I didn’t want to break up over this as I really like her, but I felt that I needed some kind of protection.  I felt so disappointed.  I expressed it as well I could without putting demands and letting her have time and space to think about it.

She seemed to think that while she was in a relationship with me, she would swipe, match and message and mention at some point to the hopeful app girl that she was with someone and it would just be friends.  To be fair again, this is an imaginary scenario as I know it’s never happened since we have been together.  If she had actually connected with someone, I think I would have just left.

Am I being unreasonable?  I don’t think she is cheating.  I never suspect her of being with someone else.  That is not an issue for me.  I want her to make friends but this dating site context feels messy and like a stain on our relationship.

She sees it that I don’t trust her.  I feel it is unfair to be cast like that when I would have zero problem with her going to a bar, a party, joining a group….ANYTHING but dating!

I know why the app is so important to her.  She is kind of shy and it has been her sole source of social life since she left a very long relationship 2 years ago.  She associates it with her independence and her connection to the world.  I get that and I feel like a terrible monster sometimes to suggest that she give that up. I very much believe you can ‘accidentally’ make friends on an app – and she made a few before she met me – but for me the mere presence on there says that you are hoping, that you are romantically available and if you don’t click romantically then hey – bonus friend!  Since being on the app, she has had one relationship before me in which apparently ‘still being on the app wasn’t an issue’ but from what she says, they had other more pressing issues in their relationship, including her still living with her ex at the time!  I told her I believed the app issue would have come up eventually.

Actually, I am writing all this, but she messaged me this morning after our talk last night to say that she has disabled her profile.  But I sense she isn’t happy…or that she needs time to adjust to her new reality.

I don’t want to be one of those rules-based ‘XYZ must happen after X months in a relationship or else’ type of people, but I don’t want to be a pushover either.

Can anyone help me untangle this?  I am caught between compassion/understanding and my own sense of self-respect.

Thank you

• This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by saskia.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by saskia.
• This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by saskia.