Scarleteen

I'm on vacation in a foreign country and my girlfriend is asleep right now, got hit up basically by myself parents asking me to go with my twin brother to a club, now I'm not like the biggest party person myself but I go to high school parties with my friends sometimes, in which my girlfriend is okay with for the most part, sometimes being uncomfortable and we call and talk things out while I'm there which I tend to get made fun of for, anyways I basically have to go out, however I'm not really sure how to bring this up to her especially while she's asleep, without making her uncomfortable or worried, while I know I should have full autonomy to do what I want, I do believe it isn't 100% abnormal for jealousy and fears like that to be in relationships especially at my age, me being 18 and her being 17, we have been dating for a year and things have gotten better about it, but what should I do in this situation? I'm really scared to bring it up and I'm not just going to hide it from her, and I also don’t have a choice I have to go out tonight

Hi Mediapd! Sorry if this is late — we've been on break for the holidays.

I'm glad to see that you've been balancing your own autonomy with being attentive to your girlfriend's feelings. I wouldn't say you need to wake her up in the middle of the night to tell her about this outing, nor do I think you should hide it. Just mention it in the same way you would talk about the rest of your day, and tell her you accompanied your brother. If you want, you can acknowledge that she has worried about things like this before, and reassure her.

You're right that jealousy is a normal part of relationships, and the feeling itself isn't wrong. However, it is important to manage how we respond to jealousy and to build the kind of trust that helps us handle these feelings. I'm sorry to hear that you're scared — how do you think your girlfriend will respond when you tell her?