MuffinMaddy

[hide]I love my relationship, most parts.I try my best to keep it together, but I do struggle. I have been mean, unfair, and sometimes unwilling to move on from some of the problems that reoccur.Some of the problems are my fault, because I am a sensitive individual, others are my boyfriend's,but one thing that I have always struggled with is the feeling of being invisible.Feeling invisible is something that whether it's with my family, friends, boyfriend, people I come intocontact with in general, is something I have always really struggled to cope with. But I have, for the most part accepted it as a part of life, everyone feels like a shadow at one point or another,but with my boyfriend, it is more apparent than it ever has been. Part of this issue is the frequency at whichhe will unexpectedly change plans, to suit what his friends are doing. His friends are lighthearted, not particularlyserious, people who like to chill out and have a good time. These aren't things I'm not, but the way in whichwe have a 'good time' just differs. My boyfriend tiptoes around me because he has no confidence that I will takethings the right way, when there are a handful of times that I've taken things wrongly, but I feel like he willcontinuously treat me differently to his friends who seem to not see the boundary that is our relationship. Do not get me wrong, everyone needs friends and I have no problem with him hanging around with friends(these are friends I don't trust at all but respect that they are a part of my boyfriend's life and as such, Itreat them fairly) but at the end of the day, I am a spare part in their group (expected; as I'm not any of theirfriends, and more of a 'spare part') which is obviously going to happen as I'm just the girlfriend of somebodyin that group. The problem lies here, in that, I do not bring myself into contact with his friends, the onesI don't feel fully comfortable around, he willingly brings me into contact with them such as on a handful of occasions,we have plans to go to town together as a pair, and his friends will say they want to come to town,it becomes a joint trip when I do not see why it should be. No offence, everyone can go town if they wantbut when we say we're going it does not mean we all have to go together. Likewise, we will be sitting togetherin each other's company, in a garden square, and his friends will walk by, which I do not have an issue withhim saying hi to, but then they invited him to play pool. Sure, pool with the friends sounds like a great idea,however, considering he was occupied (with me) I was irritated by the swift acceptance of the offer and notconsidering what I was about to do for the next half hour. I was not willing to sit by myself in the gardensquare so off I went, to sit and watch pool games. Now, that has dragged me into a situation that Idid not really feel like being in. Every now and then he'd notice me but his main focus was his friends,and I just don't like the dividing time between us in my presence. I don't care what he gets up to with his friendsbut when we have time together, I do not enjoy the ease at which he chucks our time together away.At first push, his friends don't need to convince him much, they could be just going on a walk, or watching a movie,if he is with me at the same time, he is considerably more likely to accept their offer and then think about me latereither I join their plans or go and do my own thing. If the situation is reversed and he is out with friendsand I asked to do a b or c, he would be more honest in rejecting me. While I have no problem with saving thingsfor later, he has shown that he would rather say no to me, than no to his friends. I approached him with thisand he had the tone that I was being unreasonable or strange for being upset when he "just went to say hi tohis friends playing pool" but "hi" is not equal to actively engaging in multiple games of pool whilst I sitin the background awkwardly. I did actually try to interact but was ignored by some of his friends, althoughthere is one who always tries talking to me and I like him for that, but they aren't close.They're his onlygroup of friends, so I understand his attachment and will to be included, but it isn't my fault he did nottry to make new friends; he does not like change and therefore doesn't adapt until forced into a situationwhere he has to. In this case, it's his friendship group expanding and including other parties which he nowfeels are closer to the core of the group than he was. This is something I thought he would have understoodfrom getting a girlfriend. He still hangs out with his friends plenty, it's just reduced maybe from 10 hours a dayto 6 hours instead. Of course there are times where when my friends invite me out in his presence and I'm with him, that I reject even if I would really like to go out with them, it's because I'm putting what I most want to do secondbecause I am doing something already, with someone I'm going out with. I think he jumps at instincton what he wants to do, rather than considering us as a pair. When approached, he said he wants to remaina core of the group as much as he used to be, but that his friends seem to be closer to each other than theyare to him. He fears that his friends do not care about him as much as they "used to" or that the balance iswrong in that he cares more about them than they do, him. And the reason why he wants to be so involvedis so that his only real group of friends do not grow distant from him, but him trying to be the core of the group is leaving me in the sidelines too often which is why I actually get upset. There are other friends in the same friendship group that are in relationships, but their partners are more controlling and evidently possessive and I am far from a fan of relationships like that,but there is a respect and boundary for their relationships that other people notice and know not to cross.I just want that boundary to be with our relationship too, I want people to feel free talking to him whenI'm there, of course, but I want people to not walk over our time together, just because they know he will agreeto whatever they suggest.One thing I've tried to do is become less invisible by doing things with the people he lives with, so it feels lessof an intrusion when I'm at their house, I've cleaned the place when they all went out, bought pizzasfor everyone without worrying about being paid back (one gave me some money which was handy) but I have trieddifferent options but not found a solution and the nicer I am trying so hard to be, the easier I make itfor him to walk on me. I know you can't buy people's approval by buying ice cream and cookies but it was worth a try lol. I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm trying to buy the ability to be comfortable and feel accepted to no avail.I feel like a doormat sometimes, but that is no one elses fault but my own, I have made myself that way andnow I want to reverse what I have done. [/hide] Tl;dr: Feeling invisible. Bf ditches me at first opportunity when friends invite him out IN MY PRESENCE without considering me

Mane I wish my bills were like that. Also hi. Yeah it's swag, £358 a month for a year, doable. Cant wait to move back to uni Yo.

Bills sorted working out to £40 a month on top of the rent.

I just feel kinda grown up as tomorrow after sorting out people to live with and finding a really nice place to live and I'm renting this house from tomorrow for the next year and I get a double bed for the first time in my life and everything's brand new in the house for reasonable rent, and I've never done things like sort out gas, electricity, water and internet bills before, so it feels like a very new experience but it's something great :)

I guess that also needs to be in the right social arena too though, because I hate getting wolf whistled and cat calls in public by men, it makes me so mad I don't see it as a compliment. Only last week a guy tried to follow me on and off a bus. Makes me too uncomfortable, but I guess going out and about around uni I could probably fix some things

Yeah it does bug me that it was so extreme, they were a long time ago now but it still runs in my head a little bit. I am naturally a curious person, and I can say I probably wouldn't have if one friend hadn't explicitly said in front of me "I hope she doesn't read this chat". That really is what made me think "Hmm, what is in this chat that I shouldn't know" If it was girls they found attractive, I wouldn't have cared, because I find it funny reading about guys talking about girls they find hot, but because it was me in such a negative light, and reading firsthand about yourself, is hurtful, but would not have happened had I just not looked at the chat, but equally, it's something that would have been hidden from me, forever really. And this is kind of something that was shared between four people, people that have said these things and gotten away with them, which they have anyway because I have been nice to them since, but it is hurting me to keep it up. I have not snooped since, and won't, because there isn't really anything worse than I can discover. Obviously it was kind of early in the relationship, the trust wasn't fully formed back then, and now it's damaged but it's not like it doesn't exist. I've done all you've said except the "don't force yourself to hang out with them", so I'm doing that now. The reason I felt like I had to post here is because I try talking about how I feel with him, and he will be a bit comforting, but I can see this visibly either upsets him, or he puts it on really well like he's too distressed to talk about it. But I thought maybe if he had a small idea about how I felt, he could be more empathetic, understand a little more about my growing distance from the group.. but he will say need to not hang onto negative things etc, and then visibly lose interest and stop talking to me, particularly when he's gone to see them, and truthfully I can't ever feel safe in the knowledge that it isn't still happening, he says it isn't and I probably have 85% certainty that he isn't, but it'll never be 100% in that respect. He claimed to be embarrassed to be in photos with me back then and really played the "She's nothing I dont care about her" card a lot. It isn't really that he was maybe unattracted to me at the beginning, and that his friends agreed with him, you're not going to be attractive to everyone, and I know that, it's more the fact that they went into so much detail several times about the stuff (aesthetically) they didn't like and that has kind of made me unsure about my appearance which is a struggle loads of girls go through everyday. That struggle was a bit alien to me, not because I thought I was great looking, but because I thought, yes people care about your looks but if I don't look homeless, my clothes are ironed, I must be doing okay. I don't wear make up and have never been bothered about hair or clothes but maybe I should have cared a little more lol.

I think that's a really sensible thing to do. I kind of pushed myself into hanging out with them because he insisted they weren't horrible people and I thought I'd 'get over it' faster if I threw myself in the deep end but I've realised I can't genuinely like people like that, but felt a bit trapped because I was at a loss of things to do. It was just a bit more difficult as we lived kind of close together, so he was pretty much always in their company when I would come round. But yeah I'll keep my distance and it's probably better for him to visit me, rather than the other way around. He can't really be cordial with my friends either which is a bit of a shame because they don't like him for what he did to me and think I could "do better"

[hide]I've been going out with my boyfriend for nearly 8 months, and for the most part, after a pretty rocky start, it has been a good relationship, we get along really well, have good days out, have that basic level of understanding for each other etc. My boyfriend has two friends he is incredibly close with, and before we started dating, they hung out together pretty much every day. They have an online chat that they talk about stuff on, and it's been going on for years. These events are about the beginning of our relationship: In January, I was with him and he was on my laptop talking in the chat and he mentioned I was next to him. Then, another friend said "Oh I hope she doesn't read this chat" so I asked him what they talk about. He said "oh just guy stuff" and I let it rest, I assumed it was just fit girls, football, banter, gaming etc, it honestly didn't bother me that before me, they must have used that chat to compare girls they liked or "would". Out of curiosity I asked him how much he talked about me before we started going out in that chat and he said only a handful of times. One weekend he logged into the chat and went home for the day, and yes, being the nosy person I am, regretfully I typed in my name in the search bar to see what they might have said about me. I hand on heart did not expect many, if any, results but I was proven wrong. There were about 120 results so I clicked on a few. There were some of the most horrible things I've seen said about me before. I couldn't believe someone I was dating was saying things like they rated me 3/10, hoped our relationship would fizzle out in a month, even planning a way for me to "get with" one of his friends so he could break up with me. They laughed at the clothes I wear and my weight. He had called me disgusting looking, even insulting me for suggesting I'd buy him a tie for his birthday (I didn't really know him well at the time of his birthday in early January, I just wanted to be friendly and get him a proper little generic gift) but they really ripped into me for it. In addition to this his friends chimed in and essentially just blamed me for being short, he said he could "do better" and that he'd kick me out the minute I wore odd socks. One friend of his said something, that I remember and probably won't forget but he asked whether he'd rather sleep with a corpse or with me. I was in absolute shock after reading this, not least because he had lied to me about saying he didn't talk much about me, but also because he had told his friends some of the personal things I mentioned to him on dates. He never criticised my personality, and said he found it hard to let go of me because he "just couldn't be a jerk to a nice girl" Yet, he was being a horrible person behind my back all those months, avoiding texting me etc so it really cancels out his "good intentions" I guess. He also made fun of one of my friends who 'gets around'... He had never said anything of the sort after we officially started going out, this was all in the buildup to it, him debating whether I was worth going out with or not whilst we were dating. Anyway, so I confronted him about it, not really saying anything because I was too stunned to, but I printscreened everything and just let him read his horrible words .. and he just broke down. He has maintained that really, after he had acted up the "Oh I don't need Maddy she doesn't mean anything to me" role to his friends, it was very difficult to back down and admit that he started liking me. He was so afraid of being ridiculed by his friends for having a change of heart, that he kept it up, and said he exaggerated massively, trying to downplay me as unimportant. He allowed them to slate me, even though they didn't even know me. He said he didn't feel bad at the beginning as he didn't really know me, but through getting to actually know me, he felt awful but didn't know how to stop what he started. He said he acted like a coward, purely because he was afraid of being mocked. So he threw me under the bus instead. He expected to be dumped, and my friends unanimously said I should get rid of him, particularly the one he made fun of, and very controversially, I stayed with him. I didn't defend him, I fully stated I do not want to be friends with his friends, not after that, and that he has not got my trust with his friends. We've had a good 8 months and over time, I started mildly making small conversation with his friends, because they were ashamed and were afraid of talking to me first and I saw that it would only make things easier for me if I learned to accept they're my boyfriend's best friends. However, I question whether I have any respect for myself for doing that, for pretending it never happened and for moving on. Or even for staying with him. He hangs around with them a lot still, and I question whether it's normal that someone seems so attached to their friends all the time, I hang out with different people, everyone likes to chill with their friends but I feel as if he has an impulsive need to be around them so much, and yes, it unnerves me because I don't trust them. He said he'd not be friends with whoever I told him to, but for me, that just isn't the kind of person I am, to tell someone who not to associate with because it makes me uncomfortable. Personally I think if I have any insecurities they are my issues to deal with, and that I shouldn't push it onto my boyfriend, but this is kind of an issue he created, and I co-created by reading his private messages when I shouldn't have, and I did apologise for that. I also find myself questioning his maturity and sensibility quite frequently due to his actions. I'm just asking really, is it wrong for me to have concerns about him hanging round with those people so much and to have some trust issues relating to that?[/hide] Tl;dr: Boyfriend was derogatory about me early in relationship with his friends for fear of being mocked about him liking me. Every so often, the comments replay in my head and make me doubt myself and decision to stay with him, but feels mean for bringing it up 8 months on. So when it comes down to it, if there was a situation where he had to decide who his priority was, I'm pretty sure I'd lose against his friends almost with certainty.

Got a 2:1 in Biochemistry in the previous year at Uni :)

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Skull! you remind me of Mr Tumnus

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After a few months of university, my ''go to'' drinks are probably VS, Kopparberg and Rekordelig. Nice calm ones that don't get you smashed immediately. Of course that's fun, but sometimes you just want a chill out alcoholic beverage.

Gorillaz - Dirty Harry

Got a first in my Organic Chemistry mock :) My lecturer was giving out beers to people who got firsts, great man! I have an online Maths test that I keep putting off but I have to do it by next Tuesday so yeah I've had pretty crappy luck with illness at university though, 7 out of the 9 weeks I've been here I've been sick and unfortunately this week is one of the bad weeks. I had tonsilitis which seemed to be improving last week and then it's come back this week. There's a meningitis scare at uni as well :o Few more weeks till the end of term, still got to look for a house at some point. Moving out with my flatmates again :)

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Its one thing to be pleased with yourself, which is absolutely fine. It's another to brag about it publicly and be a douche about it. "I'm happy with what I got" even [insert score] is cool too, but "Omg at least I didn't get a C/D/E!! Yay I'm not a failure at life!" are statements that grind my gears. I guess this pet peeve is related to today, I hate it when other people's drama gets involved in your life even with you're not directly at the forefront of what's going on >.>

Story of my life since late September. I'll go to everything starting from tomorrow.

That, but also I don't ask people their grades, so ideally I don't want them asking mine. Or when they're like "What'd you get?" and you've done better than them so they don't want to say theirs. Or they can see you've done worse than them and you can see the smug face that basically says "Well at least I'm not like them"