She sounds very young and so do you. It is not pathetic of her to only want to do things like hold hands and nothing more. She may not be ready to be in a relationship or she may simply not want to be in a relationship at all. It is not your fault and it is not her fault.     Try to understand that someone is not expected to love you just because you are in love with them. Life does not work that way. Trying to force someone to love you is painful for the other person. You should be a good friend and stop trying to push her into something she clearly does not want. One day you will meet a girl who will like you the same way you like her.I'm sorry you've had that experience. :( As for me, I've had the OPPOSITE. Throughout my dating life, almost ANY time I revealed to a guy that I liked him, he would get scared and run for the hills and would go out of his way to avoid me forevermore. Or he would start backpeddling and claim that there was nothing special between us and there never would be anything special between us, even tho we both knew damn well that there WAS something developing between us.     I have NEVER been the type of person to play games or put on facades, especially when it comes to feelings and relationships. I believed in giving AND receiving honesty. I would have LOVED to encounter guys who were honest like you and not into games. However, I guess that was just too much for most guys I liked -- especially when I was in my teens and my 20s. By the time I got into my 30s, this problem with the guys had improved significantly, although not completely. heh.It almost sounds like you like having someone to be there physically to do the cuddly, mushy stuff more than you like the actual person. I've been there, liking the idea of a relationship more than the person I'm actually in a relationship with, which is why I didn't leave when I should have.    If it were me, I would probably break it off, since I need someone who stimulates and interests me psychologically, romantically and physically in order to be in a relationship with them.     I would talk to him about it, but I wouldn't tell him that he's boring, just that it feels like things have gotten a little stale, and you need to change things. See what he says, and go from there.     There's nothing wrong with having friends with benefits if you're both on the same page emotionally and everything you both expect is on the table from the beginning. If he doesn't like that idea, it might be best to just be friends.Well...honestly, the beginning of a relationship is usually the time when you have an overwhelming urge to spend time with that person. I tend to think that if it's not there now, it's not gonna get better.     Really though, what to do depends on what you want. If you're looking for a life partner, you probably want it to be someone that you enjoy spending time with and so it's probably clear that he's not a good person to date. If you're just dating casually, it may matter less.I can definitely understand how this has been very hard for you, and losing a caring relationship with a friend - no matter what the reason - always takes time and emotion. But honestly? I don't think it's something you did. If they're serious enough to move houses because of this, but not sitting down and having an honest talk about how to move past this, despite you giving them plenty of invitations, then that means that they're not ready to do that..There are lots of reasons he may not want to throw them out - maybe he would feel guilty about wasting your clothes. Or maybe he does want to see you. If he does, the reasons for that are still a mystery - maybe he still has feelings for you. Maybe he wants closure and there's something he wants to say to you in person. Maybe he's feeling curious about how you're doing. Maybe he wants to stomp on your big toe. (Ok, probably not! But see how I mean...there are lots of possible motivations.)     If you don't want to see him, I would encourage you to hold that boundary firm. He can drop the clothes off on your doorstep or something.I think maybe you're over-thinking this. There are lots of equally plausible possibilities for what happened. For instance, he might have temporarily misled you about not remembering the conversation because he wanted to surprise you. He might have somewhat remembered the conversation but not been certain he remembered all of it. He might have kept the pictures in the box that he wanted to talk about and wanted to tell you stories about, and decided the others didn't belong there anymore. I mean, you already told him you looked at them, so it doesn't make a ton of sense for him to try to pretend that those pictures were never there, you know?    I think mostly, here, I'm wondering why you keep distrusting him. He can't prove to you that he's worth trusting; you have to decide that he is. Sure, there are things he can do and say that will help to show he is trustworthy, but no one can absolutely prove that they are; they can only prove that they aren't.    Maybe this will help as an illustration of what I mean: You can't prove that if I ask you to hold onto my wallet for an hour, you won't use my credit card or write down the number with the intention of using it later. Even if you give it back after an hour, and there are no immediate charges on my card, it's still possible that you're holding onto the number and you intend to use it later. You can't prove that you aren't; I just have to trust that you won't. In the end, it's not a question of what you actually do, because I can never be wholly certain about that; it's a question of whether I trust you.    So in this scenario, because you don't trust him, any action he takes is suspicious. I mean, what if he'd gone through the photos of his ex and said there wasn't a story behind one of them? Would you have believed him? What if he'd told you a story for each of them? Would you have believe he told you the whole truth? Would you have wondered if there were things he left out? Would you have been able to completely accept that he has those photos after that? It's a no-win situation for both of you. I don't know if your guy is someone you should trust, because I don't know either of you. But it might be worth thinking about whether you believe he's someone you should trust, because "constantly thinking the worst" is going to make it very difficult for either of you to be happy.I never thought of it that way. I really am over thinking this aren't I? I want to be happy and confident with myself again but I don't know what to do with myself when I start getting into my negative thought cycle. This sucks.I would want to know what his actions meant to him. It sounds like he was trying to do something nice, and didn't understand the meaning that a deception like that would have for you.     If I were you, I would sit down and talk to him about it, non-defensively, and non-accusingly. Tell him that the incident triggered some of your issues, and that you want him to understand where your mind goes (the meaning you make) when someone deceives you, even in a small way. Ask him about what happened: "I am guessing you meant that action to be a kind one - can you tell me about your thought process?Part of me feels that he was trying to do something nice, by showing me that him getting rid of the pictures was his way of showing that they don't matter that much, and like you said atalanta0jess, I am interpreting it in all the wrong ways.I did kind of get the feeling that he was trying to show me what I wanted to see as opposed to what I needed to see which is that he did hold on to pictures of his ex for the memories like he told me on New Year's Eve. I felt like maybe he contradicted himself by saying what he said that night, and then censoring his memory box a couple of days later. The thing is, now I feel weird about bringing it up at this point.I think keeping it bottled in is the biggest obstacle for me. Whenever I expressed my concerns to my ex, it always ended badly. Now, even the thought of talking about how I feel to my new beau gives me so much anxiety. Then when I finally force myself to say something, I think "wow, why is this so hard?" But I like the example you gave me on how to bring it up. I was thinking of buying a photo album and give it to him. Then hopefully I would then tell him I know there are more photos that he didn't show me and I want him to keep them safe. Corny I know, but I feel like giving him that would be a way to show him that I'm ok with him keeping the pictures.It's also possible that he didn't remember but you asking him jogged his memory about the conversation or the box. In the future don't be afraid to communicate immediately, "I thought you forgot about this? What did you decide to do with the rest of the pictures?" It sounds like that is what he wants from you, so that you don't feel pressured to *not* ask questions. I find being extremely direct with my spouse as I'm realizing he forgot something gets me the best results because for him it's almost universally he genuinely forgot. So I save myself some hurt feelings and just ask if he did.I agree that I think if I just come out and say it, he will do something about it. However, I'm so scared to just go with it, there is a voice in my head that says "don't fall for that!" I feel like I'm walking into a trap sometimes because he seems to say everything I would want to hear from my SO. Like this is all too easy, and too good to be reality.Aw *hugs* It took me a long time to trust my spouse not to break up with me over every single little issue I had. I had my close friends in college end our friendship over some things that really broke my trust in people for a while. He's so patient and amazing with my it's incredible. I just had to get to a place where I could trust him to handle me.In reading your conflict in your relationship and in reading the advice already given, it sounds like you attained some good advice. If I am to add my opinion regarding your distress in all that you mentioned, I'd say that ones boundaries, yours and his, need to be set in motion if you wish to grow in this relationship and any other relationships you venture into going forward. I know for myself that I have issues regarding knowing 'to much' about someone when information is gathered by me instead of the information given to me freely. Communication has always been the 'key' for me in any relationship. If I know what I want and or need in a relationship with someone, I need to be very clear how I communicate my wants and needs before I act on emotion and feeling because for me, emotions and feelings can be devastating to me and to the other person if I act before I express myself properly and clearly. I hope you resolve, for yourself, what you need and what you truly want out of your relationships with people. Wishing you well.I've thought about everything you and the other contributors have said and I've decided that I am going to talk to him tonight about my concerns. I'm already getting antsy thinking about actually Talking to him about this but I have to do this. I'm just going to bring it up in a calm manner and hope the conversation goes well from there. Thank you for your input.My feeling is that if you don't discuss the whole thing with him, it will likely 'eat at you' for a long time. Both your having looked at the box and whatever he did before he showed you the box.  I think you need to avoid submerging things like this that bother you; treat the relationship as a team effort and be as open as you possibly can make yourself about how you feel and what you think. Keep this up even when you feel 'trust is established'... sharing yourself with your partner is a good habit to get into. Love doesn't expect perfection and expects stumbles.The whole pretending not to remember the conversation and then trying to manipulate you by throwing out the pics of his ex (and not to mention the insult to your intelligence by acting as though you wouldn't remember?)... sounds like my ex guy's M.O.   You know how people who say "I hate drama!" are usually the biggest drama queens? I feel like people who stress honesty usually do so to cover up the fact that they themselves are liars.   You feel worried about this for a reason! Trust your instinct... if something isn't right, you need to call him out. You may not like what you find out, and it will be hard, but it's for the best in the long run.It's hard! One issue is that, to talk to her, you probably need to be able to set aside your emotions and radiate only a mild empathy. It can be overwhelming to try to deal with someone else's emotions as well as your own.    Ask if she will let you talk to her therapist, when she gets one she clicks with, about things that you can do to help. And before she gets one, sometime when she's relatively calm, you need to be extra-calm (but not cold! empathy+calm!) and ask, "Hey, when you're having stress or an anxiety flare-up [or whatever her preferred term for this is!], what can I do to help and support you? Should I just give you your space, or would a hug be good? Is there anything I can say?" Do NOT say how much you worry about her, at this time. She knows! She knows and very possibly feels like a broken person for having this issue, and it just upsets her more to know that she's stressing you out because you care. Your emotions, projected, can only add more emotional turmoil to her situation. (It kinda sucks, yes, but I've been the person with emotional turmoil -- very different sources, and probably not as bad as she's got it. But. Having to deal with someone else's emotions, as well as one's own, isn't easy and may not even be possible when one is in the midst of emotional upset.) So you've got to put on your Calm Empathy pants and give her as much control over her words and actions as possible, without pressure and without adding more emotional charge to the situation. And that may mean that she needs to go away from you (because you are, just sitting there and breathing, extra stimulus on her already-overstimulated system). It doesn't mean that she doesn't love you if that's what she feels she needs to do. And if that's what she needs to do, it doesn't mean you're not supporting her. Letting her go, with her knowing that you'll be there for a hug when she's able to handle the stimulus, may be the most supportive thing that you can do.    Or it might be that she'd like a hug! I'm just trying to prepare you for a counter-intuitive way of supporting her. (Or it may be that sometimes she wants a hug, and sometimes she needs space; make it safe for her to pick either one!)    You might offer to be a go-between with her teachers; "my friend is having a really hard time focusing in class, and there's family stress going on, too. We're working on getting her a therapist, but is there anything that can be done in the meantime to let her take the tests without so many other people around?"     You may, with regards to her family, want to check out youarenotcrazy.com -- it is possible that her family are a factor in her anxieties. At the least, they may not be handling this well. "Tough Love" doesn't work with neurological issues, most of the time.    I would also suggest, if possible, that she get checked for hormone situations -- in particular, thyroid, as abnormal thyroid issues can exacerbate mental ones -- and vitamin situations (Vitamin B levels are mood-affecting in many people! though just taking extra can cause irritability/anxiety in some! Vitamin D is another one that affects overall feelings of health for many).I always tell her how smart she is and how accomplished she is, but she says Im biased because I love her. So, I try to get her sisters to tell her as well. :)    She does the classwork online and downloads the lectures and notes from other students. I dont think there is anything for her service wise and she would never want her school to know she is different then any other student.     I think a pet would help as well. BUT she still lives with her parents and her father has a big rule about no pets. I hope to be able to save enough money for us to move out together this summer. If I am able to, we might get a cat or another small animal.She likes to forget bad things happened. And since she is in a better mood, I dont want to bring the topic back up. But I will try to talk to her about it soon. had a hard time in a classroom setting because of social interactions, especially when it came to noise. This might sound odd, and it is yet what I found in this needed form of learning was to seek ways to calm my mind from what my body was creating from my anxiety. I believe that your girlfriend is on the right path in seeking help and I believe for you, for you to help her, like the advice already given: ask her if you can give her a hug, ask her how you might be able to help her, ask her if you she'd like to go for a walk and hold her hand without saying a word and just let her be ... You love her ... Show her you love her by listening and asking not necessarily really doing (an action) ... I'm sure she already knows how much she is loved by you. Wishing you both well ...I will definitely try those. Maybe just taking a walk to clear her mind would help her. She shouldnt walk alone though, her being by herself is the worst thing I could .