Hey everyone, thank you for reading this post in advance.

General: I am 23. GF is 24. We have 1 year together, I still live at home, as does my GF. We both go to therapy (but not in the same therapy group) due to depression and anxiety.

This topic is basically about two story's that led from one to the other, today, for me.

Story #1 is about why it is important to have fights (and insight in upbringing)
Story #2 is about the experience of the parents in relationships

Well, today was a weird day for me.

I went to group therapy today, where I told the group:

"It is weird. I seem to have a lot of shifts in moods with my girlfriend lately. When things are going good, things go exceptionally good with me and her. But when one of us feels down, things go to HELL (dramatization). It always makes me feel like "Yeah, this probably will be the end of this relationship now that we have this fight".

"Therapy group, why do I feel like this whenever this happends? Why do these shifts in mood occur so rapidly and can change thoughts and feelings so much in the blink of an eye?"

The group psychologist then asked me this question:

"Did you ever see your parents fight with each other?"

My answer was: No.

Another girl in my therapy group had the exact same situation, and her parents did not fight aswell. Everything was "peacefull" there aswell. And she has the exact same experience with her boyfriend aswell.

It correlates. I never saw my parents fight. I never had a fight. Not with my brother, not with my friends. I only recently became VERY mad at my father (injustice), and one time a few years ago at my teacher (injustice). But that's about it.

I never learned this, and it is influencing my relationship in a negative way.

It is because I am not used to fight, that whenever these "new" emotions stir up within me, I don't know what to think of it. It makes me doubt everything. Especially my relationship.

Now I have learned in that therapy session, that it is okay for these fights to let happen. That it is normal.

I swear to God (I'm not religious), untill this day I had ALWAYS thought that a normal healthy relationship would be with a person that you NEVER fight with. That you know you would have the one if you would be happy and don't conflict with each other on a CONSISTENT BASIS.

That was my way of thinking.

Oh, how wrong I was.

I need to learn to accept that fighting and having conflicting feelings towards your partner is perfectly okay and to ACCEPT it. I did not accept that fighting with my GF was okay in the past, making me feel like I was breaking up (because my parents never fought in my perspective).

Do you see where I am going?

---

The group psychologist asked me to ask my parents about them fighting. If they ever fight, if they have hidden it from me in the past. So that's exactly what I did a few hours ago during dinner.

They both said that they rarely fight with each other. That they are lenient in what the other person wants (aka, sacrificing themself for the other from time to time, up till a certain point).

And that's when it happened.

The bombshell that came out of my father's mouth.

I never knew this. But my father told me that my mother was not his first girlfriend, not his first wife. That he was actually FUCKING MARRIED before her. HE NEVER TOLD ME THIS!! Today was the first time I heard it. He was married for 6 years! And then had a divorce and found my mother a few years after.

The words inside my head that came to me upon hearing this were: "This changes everything."

I am still absolutely shocked by this. It makes me feel sad and confused.

But it does not stop there. Oh no.

He began explaining that in his experience, that you should NEVER marry your first girlfriend. Just because you won't have enough experience, don't have the right mindset yet. That a new girl gives you new experiences that let you grow in different ways. That you learn things from your previous GF you can apply on your next one.

This might be good advice. I'm not sure about it yet. I at this moment just can't get over the fact that he tells me this, with me having my first girlfriend, right after we just had our 1 year together.

He has to realise that we live in different times now. His failed marriage was 40 fucking years ago! He was forced to visit his ex-wife's family every weekend with her crazed mother that had all kinds of mental disorders. He never had enough money to do fun things.

On the day of his marriage with his ex-wife, his gut told him "no, I should not marry today. I don't want this.". So when my father told his ex-wife that he was doubting their uncomming marriage, she became so very angry at him, he made my father force to marry. And fucked up enough, my father actually submitted to her whim. He did not have the balls to say no. So they got married and divoced 6 years later because my father was unhappy.

But, what if I do decide to marry my GF in 10 years. If I decided I love her and want her to be my wife, my father's words of today would ring through my head on the day of my wedding: "Son, you are making a BIG mistake. Learn from your father's mistake. This marriage will fail. It failed with me. I was unhappy. I did not had enough experience, as will you find out for yourself."

Well, jesus fucking christ. Thanks a lot dad. How fucking great for him to tell his unstable son this piece of judgement.

I am still looking for acceptance and pride in me from my father. I'm pretty fragile like this. And now it seems he just tells me my relationship with my GF won't work out because it's my first one. This really impact me very negitavely.

My girlfriend can never find out about what my father said. It would break her heart. She's having trouble with the acceptance of my father already, telling her this would only make things worse.

But now I am stuck with this fucked up feeling. I feel like I should listen to my father's "words of wisdom", but on the other hand I feel like that I should believe what I feel. That if I decide that my current girlfriend would be my wife, that that decision is mine and mine alone.

That, and the feeling of that my father would probably never accept my GF for marriage material just for a simple fact that she is my first... I don't know. I'm just so confused.

Ironically enough, my mother is my father's first boyfriend and husband.

Mindfuck.

What do you guys think? Any form of recognition?

I think you have bigger issues than your current relationship problems.

Not sure why you hate your father so much, but you need to talk about this in therapy instead of talking about your relationship.

Only a small % of people marry their high school sweetheart. Specially these days. I know you don't feel that way, and whatever me or anyone else says, you won't take their word for it.

Not 1 of my friends married their HSSH. But what difference does that make? Keep dating your woman.

Keep going to therapy. Maybe consider going on 1 on 1 therapy. That way you'll have more time to talk about your issues instead of listening to other people's problems. Frankly, I don't know how you can sit there for an hour listening to OPP. That has got to be depressing.

And who cares if your father fucked 100 women before he married your mom. The fact that he didn't tell you might be a little weird, but I sense you and your old man don't have the best relationship in the world.

Good luck, kid.

Man, this is sad. It's sad how your surrounding affects the development of your mindset. I don't get affected by other people easily but my whole family is affected by my father's behavior. If he hates something or something annoys him, he'll mention it and over time, people start to find this "thing" or "annoyance" annoying to themselves as well but what can we do? I know this isn't a big deal but over time, this certain something is going to get on your nerves, it'll stress just like it stresses the person that passed it down like a chain reaction. I know my father doesn't mean this, he's just being himself. Your father doesn't know this because he doesn't know the physiological side of it, he's just telling you this because that's his life experience. Your father is supposed to lead your way through life. He's only caring for you so don't hate him for this. Just know that he thinks this way because of a certain experience, this experience might not happen to you so just understand that things like this can happen but they're not 100% just live on your own instincts, just do you.

DON'T SIGN A MARRIAGE CONTRACT.
IT'S NOT MARRIAGE. IT'S JUST A CONTRACT!

You already had sex with her? then you're husband and wife...at least that's the way Jesus might see it; after all you've been together for a year+..(check out John 4:4-42).
In the days of Jesus they may have had a celebration when a man and a woman found each other and decided to stay together. but they surely didn't sign a contract.
the marriage contract was made by governments for control puroses. out of fear of fear of losing power, the church introduced "church marriage". how lame is that!?!

the government already exerts enough control over you. you don't need another legally binding contract. by signing that contract, you're not making GOD happy... eventually you'll be making a lawyer happy in future.

marriage: live together happily like husband and wife...no need for contract.

You are not your parents and you should not put so much weight on their words and situation. I know society has told us that we should all do this, but they do not always have the best advice... especially when it comes to relationships and marriage. Put it out of your mind.. whether or not your dad was married once before does not change anything about your current situation.

Furthermore, you're dad was giving you GOOD advice (it's advice that most experienced guys in the community would give to newbies). He only told you that so you could avoid some of the mistakes he made. He wants you to be happy. Don't get so down on him. He wasn't talking negatively about your girlfriend.. he was talking about your situation. I'm sure he'd actually be find with you dating your girlfriend for 10 years and THEN getting married. After 10 years you pretty much know if you're right for each other or not.

As I pointed out in another thread, you fight all the time because you are dating a "freak" (for other readers: DAFS if you don't know what I mean by this). My guess is that your mother is not a freak and, therefore, you did not see much parental fighting while growing up. "Good girls" usually don't start pointless fights. While your therapist may think it's "normal" to fight a lot in relationships, it doesn't mean that it's good or healthy. I could never be happy in a relationship where I fought with the other person often.

EDIT: Just to clarify, having discussions with women about potential issues with the relationship is great and healthy behavior. However, fighting with women is beta-male behavior which I avoid at all costs.

-Wolf