There is this beautiful girl from my middle school, who happened to immigrate to Canada at the same time as I did. We both settled at the same city and I felt like that was the arrangement of fate (I still do). I fell in love with her; she didn’t. So I spend my 15-18 year old life trying to be a better person so that I could match her. To be honest, my mind drifted and I flirted with several girls in this period. Fortunately, I was too unattractive to go any further 😀

We got together after I went into university, after a road trip. She came to the same university to stay with me. We love each other very much and we had a few, if any, arguments in the past four years. Basically, everyone around us said that it is an exceptional relationship. She and I feel unbelievably lucky about each other. I once thought we will be each other’s 50% of life. Ever heard of the story that human used to have 2 heads, 4 arms and 4 legs, until they got cut in halves, then they have to find their lost other half? It really felt that way.

The problem surfaced when she recently met this guy, Joe (fake name). She had been staying up late to 2am chatting with Joe. She also goes to Starbucks and his condo to do homework with him. Meanwhile, I, already graduated, am working from home. Distance and my stress from my career/family made it objective harder for me to emotionally connect with her (and now coronavirus). I felt like she’s paying less attention to me which makes me frustrated. I am also scared of the relationship between She and Joe. Back then, it was very black and white between me and her friends (only a few): she spends way more time with me talking about way more personal things; she has way more attachment with me than any other friend. Now she’s saying that she and Joe are so similar that she can receive total understanding from Joe. She thinks that Joe is her soulmate, and I am not. They have memes with each other. They send each other “hug” emojis. They tell each other that their lives have been completely brightened up after each other comes into their lives. With that said, she repeatedly assures me that she and Joe are friends, and she and I are still a perfect match for marriage. She said that she does not have any passion for Joe and they are just platonic friends.

So here is how I feel. First, I am worried that her love for me is not pure. I always thought of love as what’s in the love stories. In the story, Juliet didn’t have a male soulmate friend. Since I treated her with unambiguous love by staying away from all my close female friends, I was expecting something similar. Honestly, I felt betrayed.

Second, I always love the idea of “open your eyes wide before marriage and close them half after marriage”. I really want to understand whether my girlfriend is someone who I can trust completely. I am not saying that she’s intentionally cheating on me, but what if she’s so agreeable that some man can trick her into an affair? Joe is 10 years older than us, and I can’t be sure that he does not have passion for my girlfriend. I mean, not a lot of people go into an affair thinking that, “I am going to cheat” at the very beginning. I think it is very important for one to stay self-aware and refrain from testing one’s own rationality.

Last, I am struggling to distinguish friend and lover. If Joe got hit by a car and has to stay in his bed for 3 days, I will not feel terrible (but still will feel bad) if my girlfriend goes and helps him out by setting up some hand rails and bringing take-out food. But I will feel very bad if she gently help him out of the bed, then cook for him and do dishing for him – that makes me feel like they are already married. In fact, that’s how I now feel sometimes. I feel like they are more like couples then she and I.

I have a lot of negative emotions about this and I tried to stay away from entailing them (I read the forum guideline). But please also acknowledge that I feel bad about this. I had been bothered by this for about 2 months, crying into my pillow every 4 or 5 days. I sometimes do want to break up with her to end my suffering, but I also know that I will regret forgoing such a wonderful lover, or is she? I am having some trust issues now. Also, I always feel morally obliged to not be jealousy. I do not want to be jealousy but I also do not want to be a fool.

I need to speak from her perspective too, I guess. She desires friends and approval. She has not made a new friend for 8 years. She’s met this person who knows exactly how she feels, and she knows exactly how Joe feels. It’s just wonderful in a way that they can love and support someone, and simultaneously be beloved (hopefully it’s grammatically correct) and supported. She is probably 90% certain this is pure friendship other than affair. She’s trying very hard to take care of my feelings by making her chat history completely available to me and by communicating very clearly with me about her feelings. She also took a step back by telling Joe that she will still give him emotional support, but will turn to me for her own emotional needs.

I felt reasonably assured every time after we talked, but there will also be something that comes up and irritates me. For example, this time, it is her telling me that they are soulmates and we are not. She also told me that even if they stop talking, they are still soulmates because the connection cannot be broken.

I want to make my question explicit: what is happening here? My believes are under great challenges, and I am failing to comprehend what is going on. I felt like my legacy believes are not working, should I try building up a new belief system? What should be my best strategy? If you think the relationship should be ended, is there any advice on how to achieve maximum mutual benefit in this process? I obviously do not want her to lose both me and Joe, but she said that if we broke up, she will feel so guilty that she might never talk to Joe.