[vnight1]

Hi everybody, I need advice on a matter that my girlfriend and I had recently brought up.

Firstly, that background of the story. Last month for her birthday, I had planned a surprise gathering at a restaurant for her, my parents, and myself. The problem was that I completely disregarded the fact that on a prior night I had asked her to enter my house/my parent's house to get a form. In the end, I was blind to her anxiety over entering the house and practically forced her to go in when I wasn't home. She knew my mom knew about her entering the house, my mom's rule is "If it's someone we know deeply, I don't mind."
Unfortunately, from that point my girlfriend thinks my parents hate her because of a past incident with her ex's parents.
Back to her birthday, the night before her birthday we had a fight over who was and wasn't supposed to be coming to the dinner. She found out about my parents coming and wanted her sister to come along. I wasn't too eager about that and we both got upset. In the end, we went to dinner with each other and had a nice time.

But here we are a month later and recently I asked about her somewhat distant behavior at times. She revealed to me that, while she can usually forget the past, this time she can't move it aside. When she tries to move it aside, she feels her emotions shutting down.

The bottom line is that I downplayed her greatest fear and she has said that if she can't recover from this that we'd break up. I really don't want that and I'd like to move forward with our relationship, not away.

What advice can anyone give me?

[kaliope]

hi vnight
I don't know that you understand the severity of what you did and until you understand the severity and can express that to her, she will have a hard time forgiving you. I see the two mistakes. you pushed her into her greatest fear without caring about her feelings. what does that say about your respect for her and how you are going to treat her in the future? Then she is fearful again at the idea of having dinner with your parents and requests her sister to make her feel safe, and again you disregard her feelings, because you don't feel comfortable. both times you put your needs first and totally disregarded her discomfort. and you wonder why she is distant and questioning? welcome to psych central. you will find we have several forums where you can post about your concerns and receive feedback from other members. you will get a lot of support here. again, welcome

[~Christina]

How did the Birthday party go from you having a "surprise one" to you and her discussing "who" was coming ?

Looks like your insisting that she go into the home for a form has really triggered her in some manner as to cause such a strong reaction. Was there no other choice but to sent her into your home for a "form" Could it not wait for you to retrieve it? or wait for her to stop by while your parents were there to hand it to her?

Maybe she would benefit from seeing a Therapist to find out how to move forward and find out whats caused a strong reaction.

I think you need to be cautious about pushing her to much on this, she "seems" fragile.

I hope things can be worked out.

Welcome to PC

I don't understand why she didn't just say no when you asked her to go to your house....

Regardless, it sounds to me as if the whole form/birthday/attendees thing has annoyed her to the point that she's thinking of moving on.

A birthday is really about the birthday person, not the other people. Perhaps that's what's bothering her ??

[vnight1]

Thanks guys.

I do understand that I was selfish and put myself first. The deal with the form was that I wouldn't be home for at least an hour and didn't want to hold her up. She was willing to wait, but I was impatient because the form was important to me.
I can see how she thinks about my mistake and notices I'm self centered on occasion. My "me first" attitude put a strain on things. It is my greatest hope that her an I can move past this. Any more advice would really be appreciated.

[hamster-bamster]

To add to the list of concerns:

If you are throwing a party for a birthday girl and inviting YOUR parents but not inviting HER sister, it is very odd.