Girlfriend of a year and a half still wants to keep the relationship a secret?

Submitted by friednuts t3_z97jj2 in relationship_advice

I've [M23] been dating my current girlfriend [F23] for a year and a half now. We've been best friends for 6 years.

She wants to keep the relationship a SECRET, not private- as in close friends and family don't know about each others relationship. I respected her want to keep it secret for a while, but I figured it's been long enough to simply let our closest friends and family know, while still keeping the relationship private (not secret). She still stood her foot down and her reasons are as follows:

  • We've been best friends for a relatively long time, we've had other relationships during this period. Her exes have generally been insecure about me, and my exes have been insecure about her. Rest assured, we've been faithful and respectful in terms of boundaries in our own relationships. She's afraid of the "I told you so's" and the added drama that could follow. Personally, I know I'm faithful and respectful, and I do not care about what these people no longer in my life think or say.

  • She's afraid of the friend group dynamic changing. We've been best friends for a long time, and we have a small handful of other friends that we always see as a group. I understood at first, but it comes to a point where I feel like it's been enough time and it should be okay to tell them. My rationale was that if they were our real friends, which I believe they are, information about us dating would not change anything, and they wouldn't judge or treat us any differently, and nothing would change whatsoever.

  • She then goes to a different argument, asking me why I care so much about what other people think about our relationship and why keeping it a secret is a bad thing, especially when "everything's good now, what does telling others change." This isn't the case for me, and I'm not sure how to put it into words to come back with an argument for myself.

These are her main rationale for her stance on keeping the relationship a secret. It doesn't affect my day-to-day, and the relationship is fine, but in the future I see this becoming a bigger and bigger issue.

Please give me advice on how I should approach this, or even insight on why she feels this way so I could further understand, thanks.

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PermaThrowaway111 t1_iyfdp0j wrote

Tell her that all of her reasons to keep your relationship a secret are for the consideration of others when YOU are the one in this relationship. She's considering the feelings of everyone else over yours, when after a year and a half I think its safe to say you should be a priority.

I would also ask her how long does she see this "secret" lasting? It's just not feasible.

If this were a fling, sure I could understand some secrecy. But if you have a full fledged relationship for this amount of time and assuming it's going strong then there should be no issues of trying to hide it any longer.

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xvszero t1_iyfdqfm wrote

Well, my first two questions would be is there a chance she has another boyfriend and is there some religious element to this?

Beyond that it's just inexplicable to me.

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friednuts OP t1_iyfe2uf wrote

Replying to xvszero (#837,752)

I'm 99.99% sure this isn't related to being unfaithful, for what I know, and that we've been best friends for long enough that I know her inside out.

In terms of religion, she is religious and has issues with telling her parents because of it. That's perfectly understandable for not wanting to telling her parents, but that doesn't excuse telling our closest friends. (We share the same friend group, and have the same close friends)

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Full-Breadfruit7210 t1_iyfe5mw wrote

It seems she just wants friends with benefits instead of anything serious

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friednuts OP t1_iyfefbq wrote

Replying to PermaThrowaway111 (#837,722)

Regarding how long the secret can last- I have asked her that too, and she said that's a future problem, not right now, because "we're comfortable where we are now".

I have said something along those lines about the consideration of others versus me. She simply retorts with saying the same thing back- why should I care about other people knowing when the relationship is just me and her. She does treat me like her boyfriend when we're not around friends.

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