I started dating this girl about two months ago, she's Romanian and an international student in my grad school. At the outset, she told me that she had a relationship with an older guy in Romania which did not work out, but she's still in love with him. I didn't care and proceeded to f-close her. I saw this mention of "love" as an LMR, since she's been in the US for almost a year (even though they might be in touch). So I thought that she'll just get over it as time passes.
Our relationship kept increasing in intensity and everything was awesome (including the sex), until around end May I got access to her email. I found out that she still keeps emailing the guy, sometimes random stuff like "how was your day" and sometimes heavy stuff like "I miss you". She's been doing this ever since she came to the States, and even though the frequency of these emails decreased after she met me, it was still like once in 2-3 days. The guy doesn't respond to most emails, but sometimes leaves a one-liner. They also have kind of a professional relationship (he's the head of a social foundation she's still involved with, in Romania) so it's more complicated.
I confronted her (without telling her I had her email) and asked if she still had those feelings. She responded first with anger ("don't push me against a wall and judge me"), then with psychobabble ("it is possible to love two people at the same time" or "feelings don't go away when you order them to"). She kept asking me to focus on how beautiful our relationship was.
The above confrontation happened 3-4 times over the past 30 days (basically whenever I saw her emailing him something intense). After every fight she would come around to admitting she had a problem and asking for time ("it is going away, it will go away in time"). But her behavior never really changed.
She's gone back to Romania for the summer. Just before she left, I told her squarely that if she cannot give me emotional exclusivity, I cannot offer it to her either, and we can only be 'close friends'. I told her both of us should take a step back when we're away and decide what we want from each other, and what we can offer in return. She was very sad at that but didn't have a counter-argument. Kept saying "I care a lot for you, I wanna make this work, I don't see you as a friend". But at the same time she was emailing that guy, he was going to come pick her up at the airport and blah blah. Because of knowing this, I was very cold with her at see-off. She promised me she will work out her emotional issues while she's there.
The situation now is this: With this guy - She is meeting him and doing all the social work stuff with his foundation. But they're probably not sleeping together (at least not too much), because she sends him emails like "can we meet for lunch on Thursday?".
With me - When she reached, she sent me a distant non-girlfriend type of email. I responded in a similar vein, to which she said that we're too formal with each other. She's been sending me one-liners twice a day in the past week ("hope you have a great evening"), and I've been responding off and on. Last night we talked on skype for about an hour, for a while just talked about normal stuff. I was cold and distant to which she said "don't act like a tough guy with me". Then we finally came around to the heavy stuff, and I told her that I think people never change, so I'm not expecting her to change. She said she's changed a lot, but she knows she's a difficult girl to handle and I might not want to do it. I said yes, that's about right. At which she said goodbye.
Morning she sends me another formal-type mail but longer, about how good it was to talk but it might not be a good idea to talk on the internet any more. And then she says "please keep sending me email although I don't know how much access to the internet I will have".
Her value is obviously upped 'coz she's around friends and ex-bf and she obviously doesn't value me that much right now (although of course she wants to keep me hooked).
So,
1) Do you think this girl can change and get over the ex-bf bull**** in some more time (especially after she comes back)? After all, it's just been 2 months and that drama was for about a year. I am thinking of giving her time till October and seeing her actions then.
2) What can I do to bring it about? Or is there nothing, and I should just frame her like an FB? She is otherwise great and if this **** goes away, I want to have an LTR with her.
3) How do I deal with her in these days, while she's in Romania? No-contact, very formal contact, push-pull, what?
Thanks for reading this long post. You guys rock, and I need you now!
Attraxion.
Our relationship kept increasing in intensity and everything was awesome (including the sex), until around end May I got access to her email. I found out that she still keeps emailing the guy, sometimes random stuff like "how was your day" and sometimes heavy stuff like "I miss you". She's been doing this ever since she came to the States, and even though the frequency of these emails decreased after she met me, it was still like once in 2-3 days. The guy doesn't respond to most emails, but sometimes leaves a one-liner. They also have kind of a professional relationship (he's the head of a social foundation she's still involved with, in Romania) so it's more complicated.
I confronted her (without telling her I had her email) and asked if she still had those feelings. She responded first with anger ("don't push me against a wall and judge me"), then with psychobabble ("it is possible to love two people at the same time" or "feelings don't go away when you order them to"). She kept asking me to focus on how beautiful our relationship was.
The above confrontation happened 3-4 times over the past 30 days (basically whenever I saw her emailing him something intense). After every fight she would come around to admitting she had a problem and asking for time ("it is going away, it will go away in time"). But her behavior never really changed.
She's gone back to Romania for the summer. Just before she left, I told her squarely that if she cannot give me emotional exclusivity, I cannot offer it to her either, and we can only be 'close friends'. I told her both of us should take a step back when we're away and decide what we want from each other, and what we can offer in return. She was very sad at that but didn't have a counter-argument. Kept saying "I care a lot for you, I wanna make this work, I don't see you as a friend". But at the same time she was emailing that guy, he was going to come pick her up at the airport and blah blah. Because of knowing this, I was very cold with her at see-off. She promised me she will work out her emotional issues while she's there.
The situation now is this: With this guy - She is meeting him and doing all the social work stuff with his foundation. But they're probably not sleeping together (at least not too much), because she sends him emails like "can we meet for lunch on Thursday?".
With me - When she reached, she sent me a distant non-girlfriend type of email. I responded in a similar vein, to which she said that we're too formal with each other. She's been sending me one-liners twice a day in the past week ("hope you have a great evening"), and I've been responding off and on. Last night we talked on skype for about an hour, for a while just talked about normal stuff. I was cold and distant to which she said "don't act like a tough guy with me". Then we finally came around to the heavy stuff, and I told her that I think people never change, so I'm not expecting her to change. She said she's changed a lot, but she knows she's a difficult girl to handle and I might not want to do it. I said yes, that's about right. At which she said goodbye.
Morning she sends me another formal-type mail but longer, about how good it was to talk but it might not be a good idea to talk on the internet any more. And then she says "please keep sending me email although I don't know how much access to the internet I will have".
Her value is obviously upped 'coz she's around friends and ex-bf and she obviously doesn't value me that much right now (although of course she wants to keep me hooked).
So,
1) Do you think this girl can change and get over the ex-bf bull**** in some more time (especially after she comes back)? After all, it's just been 2 months and that drama was for about a year. I am thinking of giving her time till October and seeing her actions then.
2) What can I do to bring it about? Or is there nothing, and I should just frame her like an FB? She is otherwise great and if this **** goes away, I want to have an LTR with her.
3) How do I deal with her in these days, while she's in Romania? No-contact, very formal contact, push-pull, what?
Thanks for reading this long post. You guys rock, and I need you now!
Attraxion.
How would a PUA do it?
