If you’re a “normal” girlfriend who wants her partner to be happy, have fun, and have loads of friends, this is not a post for you. Feel free to keep scrolling. If you’re a girlfriend who would prefer if your partner hated everyone, hated socializing (except with you), and wish that you were their only friend… welcome.

I want to offer you some thoughts to think and some brain hacks to try out the next time your partner is hanging out with friends, or colleagues, or just doing something enjoyable without you.

Why is this needed? Well, because a lot of our brains associate having fun with being cheated on, them falling in love with someone else, realizing they have more fun without us, etc etc. Basically, their fun and enjoyment is a threat to the relationship.

First, let’s get the normal thoughts out of the way so normal people who read this post don’t think we’re completely insane:

• It’s important to have friends
• When they’re happy I’m happy
• I’m not meant to be my partner’s everything
• They can have fun and still love me
• It’s normal to have female friends, it doesn’t mean anything

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s look at some thoughts that can actually be helpful when you’re at home, miserable, trying not to passive-aggressively text your partner.

I’m sure some people there find my partner annoying or unattractive

Look. I’m sorry this thought is helpful to grumpy girlfriend brains. But it is.

We love our partners, we think they’re amazing, we don’t get why they’re with us when they can get literally any person on the planet (in our mind). So visualizing a situation where our partners are having a good time and someone is like “ugh this person is just too much”… it feels good.

This thought helps us believe that not everyone is out to steal our partner from us.

They’re obviously wrong in thinking that our partners are annoying or unattractive because our partners are amazing and we know it. But it’s reassuring to remind ourselves that not everyone will correctly assess our partners’ amazingness or ever come to appreciate it.

You can also think that your partner might find some people there annoying to be around. They might be having a lot of fun, but it would probably be more fun if Sally and Joe weren’t there.

If my partner can’t have fun and control himself, that is ridiculous

Seriously. Your partner is not an animal. Your partner is a grown-ass adult who is very capable of being responsible for their actions. If they can’t have fun or even drink alcohol and make smart choices and stay faithful, that’s ridiculous and very unattractive.

If your partner ends up cheating or leaving because they had a good time with friends and “one thing lead to another”, man… you dodged a bullet. Let’s try to find partners who can have the most fun they’ve had in their entire lives and still love their partners.

It is 110% reasonable to expect from a partner that they can have a blast and not want to break up with you because of it. If you would ever experience the opposite, that is pretty insane and we’ll all get together and omg, lol, and wtf about it together. I promise.

You DO NOT have to take responsibility for them or look out for this “threat.”

I hereby relieve you of that duty. Forever.

Let’s agree that if fun = cheating/breaking up, that’s insane and you haven’t done anything wrong.

Fun never lasts

Think back to the most fun days/nights of your life. They ended. The sun always rises. The next day arrives. You move on. And sometimes, you might even feel a little empty or sad as an emotional hangover after an amazing day/night!

So no matter how much fun your partner is having right now, it’s not going to last. They’re going to come back to their normal life, go to school or work, see their friends, hang out with you, and eventually, they’ll probably forget about that fun day and just move on with their lives.

My point here is that your brain thinks that this fun will build. It’ll lead to something. It’ll snowball out of control. So you want to nip the fun in the bud and prevent all these catastrophic things from happening. Sadly and luckily, this is not true.

No matter how much fun you have, it never lasts.

So can you allow your partner to fill their tank with fun right here right now? Let them feel good in their bodies. Laugh. Have a nice time. Enjoy their company. Because sooner rather than later, it’ll all be gone and they’ll be back to normal life again.

I know this post is a little evil and not the “impressive, lovely, girl power” kind of post that most people write and read. But after coaching 80+ grumpy girlfriends and myself, I know that the most helpful thoughts aren’t always the prettiest ones. Sometimes we need some evil relief in order to take the next step on our journey.

None of these things mean that you should treat your partner poorly or treat anyone else poorly for that matter. These are just thoughts for you to think within the privacy of your own brain to calm yourself down a little and not feel like the world is ending when your partner is out having fun without you.

These thoughts offer another perspective, like a counter-balance to the thoughts we think that freak us out. They’re not going to magically fix things or make the negative emotions go away. But don’t underestimate the power of offering your brain alternatives to the truths they already believe.

If you struggle with grumpiness, jealousy, or relationship anxiety you have to come to my live class on Thursday, November 24th on Instagram! I am going to share with you the three most common “cures” that we use to manage our negative emotions and why they don’t work. They’re actually just making it worse.

Join me on Thursday at 5 pm (CET) here: https://www.instagram.com/katrinberndt/
And if you see this after it’s been live, it’s still available on my account.